February 21: Cherry Cake

The story you are about to read is true.  The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Keith and I have been on a 1960s TV binge of late.  For Christmas, I gave him the complete collection of Batman television episodes on Blu-Ray.  I love watching Dragnet episodes on Netflix.  During one Dragnet episode, titled Bunco - $9000, from the fourth season, Sergeant Friday and Officer Gannon are conducting witness interviews at a church mission.  They are offered a slice of cherry cake; the camera pans to the refreshment table.  Friday (who never eats anything) declines the offer for both himself and Gannon (who eats in almost every episode).  Later on, after solving the case, Gannon suggests they return to the mission and says to Friday "You know we've worked together a long time, but I don't expect you to know everything about me."  Friday queries "What do you mean by that?"  Gannon replies "I'm just crazy about cherry cake."

Keith agreed that a cherry cake seems like something he'd be crazy about, too.  And what better time of year for baking cherry cake than the week of George Washington's birthday?  

In the spirit of preserving period accuracy, I chose a Maraschino Cherry Cake recipe from the 1950 edition of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book.  The recipe specifies using 16 cherries, cut into eighths and juice from the jar.  The menu section of the book even includes a party menu for Washington's birthday including this cake.  At the supermarket, I was tempted to buy some superb-looking, "natural" maraschino cherries in a jar with a foodie-attractant-quality label.  No anachronisms here;  I picked the classic, "unnatural" cherries.  The more retro and artificially colored, the better.  The cherries in the Dragnet cake probably even contained that carcinogenic red dye #2 that scared Mars into removing red M&Ms from the market.

The cake turned out in two tall and light layers.  The frosting recipe called for replacing the water in a typical seven-minute frosting with cherry juice.  In an effort to make my cake more-closely resemble the Dragnet cake, I added chopped cherries to the frosting as a final step.  

The family has declared this cake a winner!  Case closed.

Next Saturday: Mace Cake

February 14: A Birthday Cake for Granna

When I was in elementary school, my grandmother lived in Covington, Tennessee, north of Memphis.  Covington is a nine hour drive from Atlanta, so I only visited her house a couple of times each year.  The summer vacation after my tenth birthday was a milestone.  I took my first airplane ride - solo - to visit Granna for two weeks.  My parents and some friendly flight attendants delivered me to my seat in Atlanta.  I received Delta puzzle books, a Coke, peanuts, and pin-on pilot wings for me and my Paddington bear.  After the short flight, my grandparents were waiting for me on the gangway in Memphis and it was a fabulous adventure.  I got to go to Granna's for a couple of weeks every summer after that.

Some vacations she let me paint with her oils and canvases.  Sometimes we shopped all day in Memphis or tried new recipes at home.  Prior to my vacation at age twelve, Granna took a Wilton cake decorating class with her friends.  I recall that my entire vacation that year was spent cajoling my grandmother into teaching me cake decor tips.  We practiced making icing roses, scallops and ruffles on sheets of waxed paper while sitting together at her kitchen table.

Blowing out the candles

Today is Granna's birthday.  (She told me that she is 28-years-old today, which is a fib, because I am certainly only 29 and that math just doesn't work).  My uncle and aunt drove down from Covington for a surprise birthday party and Granna cried when she saw all of us there bearing cake and presents.  I made this Saturday Cake last night and I struggled to remember all of the decorating tricks Granna taught me.  I admit that my roses need a little more practice, but she was very happy and asked where we bought the cake!



Next Saturday:  Cherry Cake

February 7: Caramel Cake, Take Two

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

- Oscar Wilde

And my second attempt at caramel cake, was quite the EXPERIENCE.  

I started with an admirable plan.  I had all of the requisite equipment.  I was in a good mood when I started baking.  Yet, I have created a monstrosity of a cake.  It is, in all honesty, the worst-looking  thing I have ever baked in my life.

After my first attempt at a caramel cake turned out poorly, I decided to approach my second attempt in a traditional way.  The only cookbook my great-grandmother, Mama Judy, ever used was Southern Cooking by Mrs. S.R. Dull, originally published in 1928.  Mama Judy's copy of the book had lost both of its covers before I was born.  She still used it and I suppose it worked better as a paperback anyway.  Mama Judy passed away during my gap year between high school and college.  When I left for college my mom tied up Judy's cookbook and its loose pages with a ribbon and gave it to me with a note saying "don't leave home without it."  I can flip through the book even now and see a bit of my Mama Judy on those pages that were baptized with flecks of extract or favored pages stained with greasy fingerprints.

Since my great-grandmother on my dad's side was famous for her caramel cakes, I figured that Mrs. Dull would be the place to find a contemporary recipe to the one that she used.  Nathalie Dupree's cake recipe that I used in January turned out smooth and firm enough to stand up to the heavy caramel, so I decided to use that again.  I made three layers instead of four this time.

The problem with my first caramel cake was the caramel filling.  So, I used Mrs. Dull's recipe for that today.  Her first step is to burn 1/4 cup of sugar in a cast iron skillet.  Cast iron is traditionally used for this task because it can take the high temperatures needed to melt dry sugar.  I learned today that sugar burns very quickly in a cast iron pan.  My first two attempts at carmel turned from lovely, light-brown caramel to bitter tar in a split second!  My third attempt was delicious.  I added the caramel syrup to the butter, milk and sugar and brought the whole thing to a rolling boil.  This time I had an operational candy thermometer, plus a spare, just in case.

Mrs. Dull says to get the caramel mixture up to 238 degrees; which is what I believed I had done.  Then I immediately took the pot off of the heat and set the pot in cold water to stop the cooking.  I started beating the caramel with a whisk to get it to the right consistency to spread on the beautiful cake layers.  I thought I had it right.  It looked good and tasted terrific.  It was so much better than my last caramel filling!

Then, I tried to spread it on the cake.

It immediately clumped up and became impossible to spread without tearing the cake.  I tried warming the knife to help it spread.  I tried gently warming the caramel (as recommended by Nathalie Dupree) to improve the viscosity.  Not one thing I tried worked.  I pushed. I pulled. I drizzled. I poured.

I ended up with the worst looking cake I have ever seen (and that is counting all those mud pies I made in the yard when I was five).  Now, for the sake of artistic integrity, I have posted the Franken-cake here for anyone to see.

The caramel cake has beaten me this time, but I resolve to get it right.  I just need some time off from caramel.

Next Saturday:  A Birthday Cake for Granna