September 26: Hummingbird Cake

I am not sure why I've never made a Hummingbird Cake before.  It's a very popular cake in recipe books from the southern U.S.  There is much speculation about how the cake got its name and how it became popular in the South since bananas, cinnamon and pineapple are not native.  Much of the lore regarding the name comes from the sweetness and fruitiness of the cake being sweet enough to attract a hummingbird.  It seems like the cake's origin was from Jamaica (hence the tropical fruits) but the recipe proliferated after being featured in Southern Living magazine in the 1970's.

This recipe is from The Best of Georgia Farms cookbook, a collection of recipes from the Market Bulletin published by the Georgia Department of Agriculture.  It is an oil based cake, like a carrot cake, so it is moist and tender.  This Hummingbird Cake is far superior to a carrot cake (even mine, see March 28) because of the depth of flavor from the bananas.  Plus, there's never anything wrong with a cake containing both pecans and cream cheese frosting.  Perhaps it's called a Hummingbird Cake because it goes SO FAST.

My lack of experience with a Hummingbird Cake is even more baffling when I consider that it is my namesake cake.  Not a Samantha cake, Hummingbird Cake.  In Cherokee tradition, your mother's father names you, and in most respects the name is symbolic and not used on official documents like a birth certificate.  My mother's father, Blaine, named me Walelu (wah-leh-lu), hummingbird, at my birth.  I loved that I was named for a bird so quick and beautiful.  But the best attribute of hummingbirds, I think, is their bravery.  A hummingbird will fearlessly attack a much bigger bird, even an eagle, if its nest or family is in peril.  I know that bravery, like my name, comes from Blaine.

My full-blooded Cherokee grandfather was born on the reservation in 1915.  He was educated in a school on the reservation, run by the US government that kept children separated from their families not just by the content of the curriculum, but also by a tall fence.  His mother, Luzene Sequoyah Hill, had herself been removed from her family and shipped off to the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania for her childhood education.  The government removed her from her family, changed her hair, her language and her clothes to train her to be a domestic for a white family.  Remembering the pain of her own loss and homesickness made her walk down the mountain every day to stand outside the fence of the reservation school to watch over her own children.

Blaine 

There is a long and proud tradition in Native America of volunteering for the U.S. armed forces.  Blaine followed this tradition and a family legacy; he enlisted for the U.S. Army in 1938 and joined the 82nd Airborne paratroopers.  He fought in World War II and returned home.  He also fought in the Korean Conflict with the 101st Airborne and logged over 100 jumps in his career.  Back home, he and another Cherokee veteran, in full uniform,  would be pictured in newspapers nationwide as they were turned away from voting in the state of their birth, North Carolina.  Even though indians received US citizenship and the right to vote in 1924, many states refused to allow them to vote.

Maggie and Blaine

Blaine met my grandmother, Maggie, in Cherokee, NC when her family was there on vacation in 1945.  During their courtship, my grandmother and her best friend, who was also dating a soldier, branded their beaux's initials on their thighs (at stocking-top level) using the blazing red tips of matches.  At the time, in Fulton County, GA, interracial marriages were against the law.  So, after being refused in Atlanta, Blaine and Maggie drove to Lawrenceville, the county seat of Gwinnett County, to be married by an agreeable judge after hours.  My mother, their only child, was born the following year.  As a part of Blaine's military career, their little family lived in Mainz, Germany for a time while my mother was in elementary school.  Blaine and Maggie stayed together for as long as their clash of cultures and family pressures would allow.  After returning from Germany, the marriage ended and Blaine moved away from Atlanta.

Blaine, Mom and Maggie

Split oak baskets dyed with butternut or black walnut foraged by Blaine

My mother saw Blaine only sporadically as she grew up.  He would come to town to visit her and bring her gifts.  He never stayed in Atlanta long.

After I was born, he would continue to make visits to town at least once a year.  He lived for a time in Chicago, IL, Nashville, TN, and on the Cherokee reservation.  Whenever he visited, he brought us fantastic gifts; occasionally, fancy, store-bought items, along with items he created using traditional Cherokee methods.  When I was about seven years old, he brought me an umbrella; navy blue with a gold-tone, plastic handle studded with plastic cabochon "jewels."  I had never seen such a fancy umbrella in all of my life and I was afraid to use it in case I ruined or lost it.  It made me feel like a Victorian lady, as did the pairs of gloves he brought me on several occasions.

Blaine was an artist, a terrific wood carver.  He made carvings of animals that he sold at craft stores in Cherokee.  He made an indian-head-carved violin for my mother who played violin in high school.  When I was in fourth grade, he made me a dulcimer, and I learned to play it from a Foxfire artist in the mountains of North Georgia.  When I was in the fifth grade, he visited and brought me a Cherokee blowgun he had made himself.  The gun was made from straight, hollow, river cane and he had made darts complete with rabbit fur fletching.  He showed me how to use the blow gun using a target painted on a cardboard box in our back yard.  Blaine gave us split-white-oak baskets using oak and natural dyes (blood root, yellow root, butternut & black walnut) which he hiked into the mountains to gather.  Also, he would bring us sacks of black walnuts that he had gathered in the woods, or trout he had just caught that morning in the mountains.

Some of Blaine's animals:  swan, crane, wolf, buffalo and an incongruous giraffe.

Dulcimer and violin

Almost every time Blaine came to visit me and Mom, Maggie seemed to know somehow that he had been there to see us.  For years, she would ask on the day of his visit or in the days that followed, "have you heard from Blaine?"  Maggie never remarried, and I believe she always carried a torch for her ex-husband.  Blaine died in 1992.  Maggie hadn't asked about him in a long time by then, but shortly after he passed, she asked my mom if he had died.

I am surrounded by Blaine's tangible gifts of art and the best thing he made, my mom, the artist.  Lately, I have been thinking about news stories on marriage equality,voting rights, racism, patriotism, and true bravery.  I have trying to rely more on the power of instinct. And I have been thinking about my grandfather who named me after a brave and beautiful bird.

Next Saturday:  Lemon Cake

September 19: Mallorie's Prune Cake

Keith's paternal grandmother, Mallorie Berger Hinze, and I apparently share quite a bit in common.  She passed away in 1993, so I never knew her.  But, I often hear stories about how she loved to cook and loved to entertain.

Bill and Mal in 1984

Mal (as she was called) was born in Boston and met, then married William Hinze in the Boston area.  His career took them all over the eastern seaboard until they ended up in Columbia, South Carolina.  Bill owned The Hinze Management Company there.  Mal and Bill's son, David, met and fell in love with a South Carolina girl named Margaret and the rest is Keith's history.

An original Hinze Management sign in our house

In the 1980's, Mal began to suddenly, drastically lose weight through some unknown cause.  She was literally wasting away until her doctors finally diagnosed her with Sprue, which is another name for Celiac disease.  She experimented with gluten-free recipes, she ordered GF bread from Canada and carried rice cakes with her so that she could be assured of having something she could safely eat.  It is an interesting coincidence that after I was diagnosed in 2005, I too ordered GF bread from Canada on several occasions.  I wonder why Canada used to corner the GF market.  Although Celiac is tested-for more frequently now, in 2005, the average diagnosis took ten years.  It is a miracle that in the 80's, Mal was correctly diagnosed in time to save her life.

Because of my Celiac condition, Margaret has lent me Mal's file box of recipes.  The box contains many interesting recipes, including some of her GF creations.  But the best parts of the box are the notations she made on the recipes; "good" or "delicious" on many.  Her friends gave her recipes without wheat that had notes like "hope this helps you on your diet."

One note says "I can eat this" and it made me nearly cry because I feel the same noteworthiness when I find things I can eat, even in this day of ready-made GF foods.  Mal also made notes on the cards indicating when she made the recipe, like "Sat. Jan. 16 Bridge."  She and Bill were avid bridge players, loved to entertain and hosted their bridge club often.

Keith has always aspired for us to entertain our friends in a similar fashion, so I will have to start trying out some of Mal's recipes for dips, cheese balls and canapés...

This week I tried her Prune Cake recipe.  It is not gluten-free.  It is in her handwriting and has a few little grease and extract stains on the edge of the card.  The cake contains the namesake prunes, plus buttermilk, pecans, allspice and mace.  After baking, the cake is covered in a buttermilk-caramel glaze.  The caramel (yikes!) turned out beautifully.  I made the cake in a bundt pan instead of Mal's recommended long loaf pan.  The cake was very moist and flavorful and I would note it, "delicious."

Since perusing Mal's recipes, I have found that an intolerance of gluten and an abiding love for Keith are not the only traits I share with her.  Judging by the sheer quantity of recipes, it looks like Mal and I shared some favorite foods - asparagus, cheese and any dessert with lemon, coconut or chocolate.  I wish I could have met her; we'd have had a lot to talk about.  Plus, I think I am going to need someone to teach me to play bridge!




Next Saturday: Hummingbird Cake

September 12: Tiramisu with Homemade Genoise Ladyfingers

Today is Keith's birthday, and his special request was tiramisu.  So, since tiramisu is not a cake, I decided to make the genoise ladyfingers as my Saturday Cake.

I chose to use the Genoise Ladyfingers recipe from Baking with Julia by Julia Child, based on the TV series of the same name. Genoise is the French name for "from Genoa" Italy and refers to a slightly dry, sturdy cake with no leavening other than eggs.  Genoise is traditionally used for jelly rolls, Bouche de Noel, trifle and ladyfingers because it is durable, flexible and soaks up flavors.   The eggs are beaten at room temperature.  The batter is exceedingly fluffy with a texture like whipped cream and is piped onto baking parchment.  My batter seemed to lose some fluffiness between going into the top of the pastry bag, and coming out of the end.  I marked the parchment with guide-lines to help the ladyfingers be consistently sized, but mine look more like arthritic-lady-fingers and the batter spread out as soon as I squeezed it from the bag.  I think may have been to vigorous when folding the melted butter into the batter (last step).  I baked the ladyfingers for about 5 minutes at 400º just until spongy and firm.  A few developed a golden color on an edge, but ideally they wouldn't have any golden color.  I cooled them on their parchment and went on to the tiramisu preparations.

I used the tiramisu recipe from Carmine's Family-Style Cookbook.  Carmine's restaurant is one of my favorite places to eat in New York.  They have one location at Times Square in the theatre district and another on the upper west side.  I was introduced to Carmine's by female Secret Service Special Agent from the New York field office.  We had gone through USSS training together and loved to talk about food and cooking.  Carmine's serves all of their food family-style and the tiramisu comes to the table in a BIG bowl.  It is the best tiramisu I have ever had.  Plus, they make a fantastic Speidini alla Romano appetizer (thick bread toasted with fresh mozzarella, then covered in a tangy butter sauce with capers and anchovies).  Their Chicken Marsala and Fra Diavolo are delicious.  Since we usually traveled to NYC a couple of times a year, it was easy to lure other Special Agents in to the "cult" of Carmine's.  My carmine's cookbook was a gift from the SA whom I had introduced to the Spiedidi and tiramisu.

First thing this morning, before a cup of coffee even, I made the zabaglione.  Zabaglione, or sabayon, is a custard of egg yolks, sugar and sweet wine like Marsala.  It needs to be prepared and allowed to chill for a while before assembling the tiramisu.  The zabaglione is folded into a mixture of whipped cream and mascarpone cheese.

In a baking dish, I layered ladyfingers (soaked in a mixture of cold espresso and Kahlua) with the mascarpone/zabaglione mixture then I added bittersweet chocolate shavings to the top of each layer.  I let the whole thing rest in the refrigerator for several hours and after a delicious dinner of barbecue at Smoke Belly in Buckhead, we returned home for Keith to try his tiramisu.  He loved it!  I was lucky that no one could see the malformed ladyfingers buried under all of the lovely cream!

Next Saturday: Mallorie Hinze's Prune Cake

September 7: Five-Flavor Cake

It has been Calendar Girls tech week for me so my Saturday Cake has spilled over to a Monday Cake instead.  Although, it IS a three-day weekend, so I think I can get away with it on a "tech-nicality."

Tech week is the final week in the production period of a play when all of the elements come together on stage for the first time.  For weeks, the actors have been working in rehearsals, the scenic crew has been building the set in the shop, lighting and sound crews were plotting instruments and running cable, the properties designer has been shopping for the perfect thingamajig to sit on the perfect table in that one scene, etc...  The costume designer has been shopping for the perfect costume pieces, altering them to fit, building them when an (insert name, color, texture of piece here) doesn't already exist and has finally had a short break from dress rehearsals to bake a cake.

Sign at gelateria, Greenville

A time of bringing together different elements to make a cohesive whole seemed like the right time to try the Five-Flavor Cake.  In April, I took Autumn on a college visit to Furman University and afterward, she wanted to investigate downtown Greenville.  Greenville has a charming downtown with a nice variety of shops and restaurants.  We took a break for gelato and coffee before hitting the road back to Atlanta, and that is how I first laid eyes on a Five-Flavor Cake.  I thought it was so unusual that I took a picture of the sign to keep for future reference.

About a week after the Greenville trip, Keith and I attended a sale at the estate of Mary Nell and Dante Santacroce.  Mary Nell Santacroce was an award-winning, Atlanta actress best remembered for her portrayal of Miss Daisy in Driving Miss Daisy by Atlanta playwright, Alfred Uhry.  Mary Nell Santacroce taught theatre and speech at Georgia Tech and was a longtime leader and mentor for DramaTech theatre there.  Uhry is an alumnus of Druid Hills High School where our Autumn is a senior, taking theatre class in the Alfred Uhry Theatre.  This tech week has been especially busy for our family, because Keith has begun rehearsals for Othello, which he is directing at Dramatech.

At the estate sale, along with some drama books and vintage buttons, we bought Ramblin' Chefs from Georgia Tech a recipe book published by the Georgia Tech Women's Forum in 1985.  Lo, and behold, what recipe did I find, but one for a Five-Flavor Cake!  The recipe calls for one teaspoon each of coconut, vanilla, butter, rum and lemon extracts.  It seems the Greenville cake used almond instead of butter flavoring, but I decided to follow the recipe in the Tech cookbook.  There is also a glaze added after baking that requires another teaspoon of each flavor.

The cake went together easily and the batter was very fluffy and "frosting-like" according to Keith.  That fluffiness is probably due to the use of both butter and vegetable shortening in the cake.  There was a light, cookie-like crust around the edges of the top of the pan (I was tired and slightly over-filled the bundt pan).  Those little crunchy bits were scarfed-up in a hurry by Keith and Colin.   After taking a bite of the cake, Keith said "WOW."  It tastes like pound cake with a little something extra and it is superbly moist from the glaze.

Encore!  Encore!

Next week:  Lady Fingers for Tiramisu

August 29: WI Centenary Celebration Cake

2015 is the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Women's Institute in Britain.  The WI emerged after the women's suffrage movement as a reaction to the changing role of women both inside and outside the home.  The WI emphasized food and cooking; home economics for the nascent 20th century.  With the onset of the first World War, the emphasis of the WI expanded to encourage women in home sewing, growing food gardens, and canning.  The organization has chapters all over Great Britain with a traditional motto of "for home and country."  After the wars of the first half of the century, the WI continued to model home economics, but also emerged as a charitable service organization.  The modern motto of the WI is "Inspiring Women" and the inspiring story of some of the inspiring women is the reason for my cake choice this week.

In the late 1990's, members of the Knapely, England WI posed-for and published a pin-up calendar to raise money for the relatives' room in the cancer wing of a local hospital.  The effort was dear to the hearts of the WI chapter due to the loss of a member's husband to Leukemia.  The middle-aged women caused a stir (and much global press) by posing nude and raised enough money to support an entire wing of the hospital.  These women inspired a feature film, Calendar Girls, starring Helen Mirren in 2003.

A play of the same name was developed by the screenwriter and has been running in London.  The southeast US premiere of Calendar Girls opens in one week at  Georgia Ensemble Theatre with costumes designed by yours truly.  It has been a busy and sleep-deprived week for me with our first dress rehearsal taking place tonight.  Ticket sales have been brisk and the run has already been extended.

While the message of the play is poignant, the show is hilarious and heartwarming.  It even contains more than a few jokes related to baked goods.  In one scene, the winner of a Victoria Sponge baking contest is asked the secret to her baking success, she claims to follow her mother's baking advice:  "Line the bowl with butter... Always use a warm spoon... And if it's a special event, get it from Marks and Spencers."

In celebration of the anniversary of the WI and my show, I made the Centenary Celebration Cake from the WI Cookbook - The First 100 Years.  The recipe won a contest in 2014 to be the cake presented at the 100th Annual General Meeting earlier this year.  After looking up the American equivalent to "gas mark 3" for the baking temperature, I was ready to join the WI ladies in their celebration.

It is a very rich cake with deceptively simple appearance.  It contains pounds of fruit, citrus zest, ground almonds and rum.  There are so many currants inside (14 ounces!) that it is more fruit than cake.  Everyone at our house would probably have chosen another cake to celebrate a big anniversary; the cake is fruitcake-like without being cloying, but is not our favorite.  My Victoria Sponge (January 17) was more more popular with my audience.


Honestly, I am not sure how I will manage to bake a cake this coming weekend with my ten-out-of-twelve (hours) rehearsal on Saturday.  The nearest Marks and Spencer is in England, so I will have to find the time to bake!

Next Saturday: Five Flavor Cake