June 14: Basil Pound Cake

I come by it honest and the proof is in the cake this week, or rather in the cake recipe.

I have always had a slightly obsessive relationship with magazines.  I always want to be the first one to read a magazine when I buy it or receive it by subscription.  While I realize that most magazines are read at the newsstand or grocery store checkout line and then put back, I still prefer to be the first in the house to read MY magazine.  I remember buying my first Seventeen at the newsstand at the Greyhound terminal to read on my solo bus trip to  Granna's house in Tifton during a middle school summer.  I kept it and flipped through the pages for the trends that whole summer, and after returning home I kept it because it reminded me of my trip to Granna's.  I still have the issues of French Vogue that I bought in Paris during my gap year in the late 1980s.

There have been times in my life when my budget was so tight, that I felt like a shiny magazine was the only luxury I could afford.  I got to bring one home and carve out time to savor the perfumed pages of a fashion magazine, or the envy-producing photo array from a decorating magazine, or the inspiring recipes from a food & lifestyle periodical.  Cheap thrills.

When I was growing up, my mom had an unwritten rule that had been handed down from Mama Judy, no person in our house was allowed to open and read a magazine until that magazine had first been read by the person to whom it belonged by subscription or off the rack.  Likewise, no magazine should be cut-up, thrown-away or recycled unless by that owner.  Mama Judy was a notorious "purger" of other things, like the clothes she designed and made for my mom but then donated as soon as my mom outgrew them.

Magazines were different.  Judy held on to magazines, especially decorating magazines.  She kept stacks of magazines to revisit for design inspiration the next time she redecorated or rearranged the furniture.  She kept pictures from magazines to catalyze clothing creations and help steer her pattern making.  My mother embraced the practice and passed it down to me.  We graduated from keeping stacks of magazines, to piles of pages.  Like my mom, I keep folders of articles torn from magazines and newspapers; folders full of gift ideas, book reviews, home decorating dreams, travel tips, even gift wrapping inspiration.  The largest folder is the recipe file, an accordion file with sections for different types of dishes.  The Saturday Cakes are helping me tackle the "cakes" category.

The week before last, my mother gave me a folder of cake recipes that she had been saving but had never gotten around to baking.  This Basil Pound Cake is from Mom's collection of clippings; it is from the July 1984 (!) issue of Better Homes and Gardens and is on a page filled with recipes for foods found in American summer gardens.



I thought is was interesting that the recipe recommended baking the cake in the 9x13x2-inch baking pan (or a loaf pan).  I had only ever made pound cake in a loaf or tube pan.  Also, the recipe included a buttercream frosting.  I had never had frosting on a pound cake except at a wedding!  The cake turned out very well.  Autumn proclaimed that she liked it better than plain pound cake, and she is the only child we have who doesn't like frosting.  Although it only contains one tablespoonful, the fresh basil gives the cake a mild flavor that is green and bright.  I think it is brighter and more distinctive without the frosting.  Keith, a big fan of buttercream frosting, can't decide whether he likes it better with or without.  I think that I will make it next time without the frosting, but accompany it with a fruit topping (fig preserves? lemon curd?).  Or perhaps I will get a serving idea from a new magazine...

Next Saturday:  A Pound Cake for Father's Day

June 6: Spice Islands (?) Cake

Last week, while shopping for vintage books at a thrift store, our son, Colin, found a treat for me.  He found a set of activity books from the American Girls Collection for their character named Samantha who lived at the turn of the twentieth century.  Apparently, American Girls' Samantha also enjoys cooking, making crafts, trying-on new outfits and producing plays.  Sadly, there was only one cake recipe in the cook book from the set.  The recipe is for gingerbread, which reminded me of my Spice Islands Cake.

The Spice Islands Cake is one of my signature cakes.  I developed the recipe in order to replicate the delicious taste of the Allgood Pineapple Upside-Down Cake with whipped cream on top.  It was one of the recipes I created and tested when I was living in Washington, DC.  Whenever I had a difficult day (or week) at work, I would cook to relax.  I would take the resulting cookies, cakes, etc. to my office the next day.  I made many versions of this cake trying to get the spices, texture and appearance right.  I was a regular reader of Southern Living magazine and in 2004, I decided I was ready to submit this recipe to their annual recipe contest.

At that time, I called this "Pineapple Spice Layer Cake."  I obsessed over getting the written instructions simple and foolproof.  I even gave the recipe to a tester or two to see if they could follow the instructions I had written and arrive at an appropriate result.

The recipe uses three different types of sugar (brown, light brown and confectioners) and that year the contest was sponsored by Domino Sugar.  I figured that by specifying "Domino" sugars in my recipe, I would be a shoe-in for a brand-sponsored prize, if not a grand prize.

I did not win.

After I moved back home to Atlanta, I submitted this recipe again to the Southern Living contest.  But this was after my trip to Indonesia, my diagnosis of gluten intolerance, and a couple of years of sour grapes reading the "winning" recipes in issues of the magazine.  I decided that "Pineapple Spice Layer Cake"  was a boring name and that the name had cost me dearly in the judges' assessment.  For my second submission, in an attempt to take back some power from Indonesia, I named the cake Spice Islands.  I thought that it was clever.

Layers showing filling

I still did not win.

Everyone loves the cake, so the name must be my impediment to recipe contest glory.  Keith believes that my mistake in renaming the cake was two-fold; I named it after a place where I suffered terribly, and it could be confused with the Spice Island brand of herbs and spices.  I am now thinking of calling it Equator Cake since pineapples, cinnamon, ginger and cloves originated and a principally grown there.

Close-up of frosting

This (insert name here) cake consists of three layers of cake, with pineapple filling that is like a pineapple curd.  It is covered with a thick layer of stabilized whipped cream that contains even more pineapple.

Whether I submit this recipe to a contest again, or not, it is absolutely a winner.  The cake is moist and tender.  The filling is tangy with loads of pineapple flavor.  The whipped cream frosting has the creaminess to balance the spice and fruity tang of the cake and filling.  I wish all of my "pastimes" worked out this well.

Next Saturday:  Basil Pound Cake

May 30: Pecan Molasses Bundt Cake with Bourbon Glaze

I found this recipe in my folder of clippings where it has, apparently, been hanging around for quite a while.  The clipping is from the March 2003 issue of Bon Appetit magazine.  I am sure that I clipped it because the words "pecan" and "bourbon" beckoned to me.

As I read the recipe, I realized that it calls for nothing but staples from our cupboard!  Corn syrup, check.  Cake flour, check. Molasses, ditto.
Needless to mention the bourbon and pecans as we always have a bottle of Maker's Mark on hand and pecans in the chest freezer.  One of my Secret Service partners in Jackson, Mississippi used to say that "you don't need a gun, until you need it real bad."  The same can be said for bourbon and pecans.

I have also been waiting for an excuse to use a new Fleur de Lis bundt pan by Nordic Ware that I bought for myself as a birthday treat.  Although bourbon whiskey is named for Bourbon County, Kentucky, and not the family of rulers from France, I thought it apropos.  It is interesting to note that the eponymous county is no longer home to any distilleries, since they were all destroyed during prohibition.

The new pan created a gorgeous cake.  The recipe calls for adding half of the cake batter to the pan before the addition of the molasses and pecans to the batter so the top half of the cake is lighter in tone.

The glaze is full of buttermilk (another staple - for pancakes, cornbread, poached chicken), butter, sugar and bourbon.

It makes the cake shiny, flavorful and terrifically moist.  This cake turned out very well and is unlike the other bundt recipes in my arsenal.  Since it is composed of staples, it'll be easy to make this cake often.

Vive la Bundt!

Next Saturday: Spice Islands Cake

May 23: Snow Cake

I love shopping at estate sales.  They are the best sources for inexpensive cookware, books of all types, vintage table linens, vintage hats, and vintage sewing notions.  It is sometimes difficult to see a person's belongings exposed and for-sale once he or she can no longer use them, their home thrown open to the public.  I admit that it makes me sad to see framed family photos or diplomas for sale when I imagine that the owner had always assumed that personal treasures like those would go to their next-of-kin.  But, I am sure that the owner kept all of their books (or hats, or buttons) because they valued them and I would like to think that he or she would be happy that someone else values those items, even if it is not a family member.

Two weeks ago, I made a terrific find at an estate sale!  I purchased a 1929 edition of The White House Cook Book.    Of the cookbooks for sale at the home, it was the only cookbook that looked as if it had gotten any use at all.  Judging from the other cookbooks and the appearance of the house, I believe that this cookbook was a family heirloom, not a cooking companion.  The owner of estate was an avid ballroom dancer with closets full of dance costumes and well-worn, gorgeous dance shoes.  She had flair!  Although her kitchen indicated that she did cook, it obviously wasn't her primary passion.

I bought The White House Cook Book even though it looks a little worse for wear, because I already own the revised and updated edition from 1996 and I had never seen another copy of the original for sale.  On the front and back covers there a rings of damage where an earlier cook had used the book as a trivet.  On the back cover, a yellowed paper doily has found itself permanently fused.  The previous owner, or perhaps the estate broker, attempted to repair the cover-to-spine joint with Scotch tape.

The original version was a 1887 copyright, written by the White House steward to Grover Cleveland.  My revised and updated version is a mere shadow of the original.  I purchased it from the Smithsonian Institution gift shop on an excursion to the museum.  When I lived in Washington, DC, I would spend many of my days off from the Secret Service visiting historical sites and museums.  Accompanying me on most of my adventures was another special agent, my friend, Darcy.  Since we worked at the White House and the book contained excerpts from the original book, we decided that I needed a copy.  As part of updating the book, Bazel and Ross included Hillary Rodham Clinton's cookie recipe and updated versions of the recipes they chose to reprint from the original.  The updated versions of the recipes read like methods of torture; using "liquid Butter Buds" reduced-calorie margarine and egg substitute to try convert an 1887 recipe on each page into a health-consious version printed on the facing page.  Grover Cleveland was, no doubt, turning in his very ample grave when this book came out.

Two versions, side-by-side, on my antique enamel topped table that I bought on a excursion with Darcy

As I very carefully perused the fragile pages of my newest acquisition, I found one page of the cake recipes that, judging from the stains on the paper, got a lot of use.  In the middle of the page is a recipe for Snow Cake with "delicious" in parentheses next to the title.  It caught my eye for both the parenthetical epithet and the fact that it uses arrowroot as the flour thereby making it gluten-free.

The instructions are minimal and antiquated, but I have grown accustomed to recipes of this sort.  It calls for "pounded white sugar" which would be granulated sugar, historically sold in cakes then pounded down to the flowing grains of sugar we recognize.  I decided to use caster sugar in case the pounded sugar turned out finer than our granulated sugar today.

In addition to being old-fashioned, the instructions seemed contrary to baking science.  I creamed the butter and sugar and gradually added the arrowroot as instructed.  Then I beat six egg whites to "a stiff froth."  Then I aded "them to the other ingredients and beat well for twenty minutes."  Two problems:  The other ingredients, when combined, had the consistency of dry oatmeal and I had always been admonished that over beating a dough or batter after adding eggs made the texture tough.  But, I decided to forge ahead as instructed in the book and get a workout by beating the batter by hand (no Kitchen Aid in 1887) for twenty minutes.  It calls for baking in a buttered mold or tin and I chose my larger tube pan.  I only baked it for forty minutes instead of the prescribed "one to one and a half hours."

My better judgement told me that twenty minutes of beating would overwork the eggs and I was right.  The resulting cake rose hardly at all and had a rubbery internal texture and a crispy dry crust.
But the flavor was sublime.  It tasted buttery, without feeling buttery like a pound cake.  It was not very sweet and would go beautifully with coffee or toasted and topped with jam or lemon curd.  So, rather than accept a terrible texture for a cake with flavor potential and gluten-free ingredients, I decided to make a second cake today in an attempt to remedy the problems I found with the original recipe.

I added 3/4 cup of whipping cream (alternately with the arrowroot) to moisten the batter before adding the egg whites.  I gingerly folded the egg whites in until just combined with the arrowroot mixture.  I used my smaller tube pan to give more height to the rising cake.  Although this improved the rise and the texture, the result was still rubbery evidence of overworked egg whites.  I think I will have to put some more work into salvaging this recipe to live up to its "delicious" hype.

A couple of days ago, I went to collect mail from our post office box and found a pleasant surprise.  Darcy had sent me a cookbook as a belated birthday present.  The book was a reprint of Ellen Emlen's handwritten recipe book from the collection of the  Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

As a contemporary of Grover Cleveland, Mrs. Emlen will be happy in her eternal rest knowing that no one printed her book with low-fat, low-cholesterol facsimiles included.  I hope that she will also be happy that I hope to use a recipe from her book in some future posting here.




Next Saturday: Pecan Molasses Bundt Cake with Bourbon Glaze

May 16: Lemon Tunnel-of-Love Tea Cake

The Lemon Tunnel of Love Tea Cake recipe is from Desserts From The Famous Loveless Cafe cookbook.  In April, after a perfect breakfast at the Loveless, daughter Autumn and I decided that we needed to buy the Loveless recipe book as a memento of our trip to Nashville.

We were in Nashville during spring break to start exploring the colleges on Autumn's list of desirables.  Vanderbilt was number two on her list, just behind Duke, and this was her first campus tour.  Autumn's expectations were quite high as we embarked on the tour.

I believe in the power of a campus visit; you can never decide if a college will be suited to you without one.  As I began my own college search, I was thoroughly sold on Smith College as my perfect school.  The catalog featured the courses and majors that I wanted.  The local Smith alumnae club reached out to me frequently by phone and I attended a very nice tea at the home of a graduate.  In early October 1985, my parents took me to New York city for a few days before we boarded a train bound for New England to tour colleges on my list.  We visited Smith first, since I was absolutely convinced that I would apply Early Decision there.

My New England college tour, Mt. Holyoke 1985 - wearing a navy, polished cotton skirt that I made for the trip.

My mother visited admissions and the financial aid office while I toured the campus with a student named Cassandra.  It was a spectacular, New England fall day.  As Cassandra led me around campus, I noticed students hanging around alone, mostly inside the library looking glum and blasé.  None of the students seemed happy to be there.  Smith residence halls are called "houses" and are a cross between a dorm and a sorority.  During the tour of her house, Cassandra introduced me to her housemates as "Samantha from GEORGIA;" one word, heavily laden with subtext of REDNECK, KKK MEMBER, BUMPKIN and HICK.  The housemates all nodded in unison after the word spilled out of her mouth.  I looked around for a fire escape and tried to remember if I knew my way back to the car.  But, I didn't bolt.  I decided to let Cassandra continue my tour back to admissions so as not to make a scene and live up to their worst expectations of southern girls.

When I met my mother in a parking lot at admissions, I began to cry.  How could this hell-hole of depression and condescension be the same institution that seemed to perfect in the brochures?  My mother ordered me into the car and said "Dartmouth is on your top-ten list, it's less than two hours away, let's go."  I was still crying, at this point, and screamed "I'm not going to college!"  "Well, I don't care, I am going to drive to Dartmouth anyway" she replied.

Those were the last words uttered in the car for the entire 90-minute drive to Hanover.  Mom parked the rental car in front of the Hopkins Center for the Arts.  "I am going to admissions and financial aid.  You can sit here in the car, suit yourself" she said as she pitched the keys into my lap.  I fumed.  I thought of all kinds of really good retorts, excuses and justifications.  As I stewed, I looked around at the gorgeous October day.  I saw dozens of students outside enjoying the weather.  They were walking in groups, laughing, playing soccer and frisbee on the green.  I looked at the stately buildings surrounding the green.

Then, I decided that teenaged indignation was thirsty work and decided to go look for a Coke.  When I got out of the car and started walking toward the Hopkins Center, two students stopped, then smiled and asked "Are you a prospective?"  "Can we help you find something?"

I walked around, taking in the activity of the arts center, the satisfied air of the students, and my Coke from the Hopkins Center cafe.  I circled around the building and stopped in front of the window of the drama department's costume shop.  It was as if the dress forms and gravity-feed irons told me that there was a place for me at college... that college.  I applied Early Decision and I consider it my first great, mature, independent decision.

Autumn's visit to Vanderbilt did not end in tears and fury, but Vandy did drop a few places down her list.  She was disappointed in the main library as it seemed dark and dismal.  She was let down by the separation of first-year students into their own section of campus with its own commons and dining hall.  She would prefer to be mixed with upperclassmen in the dorms.  So, we will continue to search for the right fit and tour more of the colleges on her list.

Some selections inspire you and some disappoint; so it is with the Lemon Tunnel-of-Love Tea Cake.  I will admit that I baked it a little too long, but that was not the problem with this cake.  It is an oil cake instead of a butter cake (which I prefer).  But the main problem is the lack of bright lemon flavor.  I have a recipe for a Lemon Picnic bundt cake that I make for many pot lucks and other occasions.  It has that tangy lemon flavor, so despite our love of the cream cheese "tunnel," I will stick to my Lemon Picnic cake.

Next Saturday: Snow Cake

May 9: Queen of Sheba (Reine de Saba)

In honor of Mothers' Day, I asked my mom to decide which cake I should try this weekend.  She thought for a while and then requested a Queen of Sheba cake.  The Queen of Sheba cake is not one that I had ever made, but it is a cake from Julia Child's original television series.

Champagne, coffee, Julia and the Queen of Sheba.

Mom and Mama Judy used to watch The French Chef with Julia Child together on Sunday nights in back room of their home on Rawlins Street in the Grant Park neighborhood of Atlanta.  When the series started in 1962, it was the first show of its kind.  The show and the Kennedy's French chef at the White House led to tremendous American interest in French cuisine during the 1960's.  Julia Child opened the door for all cooking shows and the networks devoted to them.


Mom bought herself The French Chef Cookbook the year I was born, and she gave me her copy a few years ago.  The recipes from the original series are all included in the book along with the same step-by-step directions that Julia gave on television.  I remember watching re-runs of Julia's shows with my mother in the 1980's.  We bonded over watching Julia rake clutter off the counter, seemingly onto the floor! We loved viewing the exotic ingredients (eels, for example) and hearing Julia provide straightforward tips for the kitchen (peeling skins off an eel with pliers by nailing its head onto a board for leverage).

The best parts of the show were always the moments when Julia licked a spoon, or dunked a finger into a bowlful of batter to take a taste.  She enjoyed her work, and we could certainly identify with the desire to lick the spoon or bowl.  As a child, getting to lick the bowl or beaters was my reward for helping my mom bake a cake, just as it had been for her helping Mama Judy; sifting flour into a delicate mountain on a sheet of waxed paper or cutting wax paper circles to fit into the bottom of the cake pans.

After my second hip replacement surgery in 2013, Mom came to stay with us to help keep the household running during my long recuperation, just as she had with my first hip in 2010.  During the day when the house was quiet, after physical therapy, we watched DVDs of  The French Chef episodes from the original series.  The rich, chocolate Queen of Sheba cake fascinated us but it was quite a while before I was back to baking.

Mom remembers trying to make the cake one time during the late 60's.  She remembers only that it atypical of southern cakes and that her attempt did not turn out well.  It is a very French-style of cake, being only one layer and flavored with rich ingredients like rum and almonds.

Semi-Sweet "Bits"

When she makes this for the 100th episode, Julia instructs her audience to place all of the ingredients for the cake on a tray at the outset of the process, so that you won't forget to add any of the ingredients.

Julia used semi-sweet morsels (she called them "bits") instead of chopping squares of baking chocolate.  The key to this cake is the texture; achieved by baking the cake only until the outside is completely baked, about 25 minutes.  The middle of the cake should still be liquid.  I tested several spots with a toothpick at the 25-minute mark to check for the right amount of doneness.

My cake turned out exactly like Julia's televised version.  In the original series, Julia prepared the Queen of Sheba cake to serve at a "Champagne and Coffee" party.  We celebrated Mothers' Day with Mom and the Queen of Sheba in a more casual way: with coffee and iced tea on the screened porch.

Next Saturday:  Lemon Tunnel-of-Love Tea Cake

May 2: Mexican Chocolate Cake

This recipe for Mexican Chocolate Cake is one that has been languishing in my file folder of magazine clippings.  I culled recipes for cakes from the file at the beginning of the year, put them in an envelope and I occasionally pull "a name from the hat" to choose a Saturday Cake.  When I looked through the file a few weeks ago and found this recipe from Gourmet Magazine's April 2004 issue, Keith immediately said "Cinco de Mayo."  Of course!  The Mexican holiday co-opted by Americans as an excuse to devour enchiladas and margaritas is the perfect time to devour cake inspired by Mexican chocolate.

But this week, it is even more important to talk about cocoa and cinnamon. Specifically, a spectacular coffee shop in Durham, North Carolina called Cocoa Cinnamon.  Our friends Leon and Areli started their coffee business as a pushcart in 2010.  In 2013, they built their brick-and-mortar shop in  downtown Durham (just down the block from the old Durham Bulls' ballpark) with funding through friends and Kickstarter.

Cocoa Cinnamon uses sustainable and locally-sourced supplies in their products.  The signature drinks are often inspired-by and incorporate ingredients traditional to native cultures of the Americas.  The atmosphere is welcoming and cozy, and all of the employees are upbeat and happy to be there.  Leon and Areli believe strongly in supporting their employees with a living wage, and they encourage other businesses to do the same.  They contribute some of their profits to local charities.  They promote local businesses and civic involvement.  They will even give a free coffee to anyone who is unable to pay.  Cocoa Cinnamon is doing everything right as a small business.  They were just ranked by Buzzfeed as #7 in their "24 U.S. Coffee Shops to Visit Before You Die."

Cocoa Cinnamon has commenced a capital campaign to raise funds to complete their second location in Durham.  Please visit their page at Community Sourced Capital and become a Squareholder.  The "square" you purchase is not a donation, it is a loan.  Cocoa Cinnamon is trying to raise $30,000 by May 19th.  When you are in Durham, do not miss an opportunity to visit them and have the best caffeine fix of your life.

My See-Line Woman latte, flavored with chocolate and blackstrap molasses (foreground) with
Colin's Cacao Canele hot chocolate and lemon square on the patio at Cocoa Cinnamon

Deepest, darkest cocoa mixture

Cocoa and cinnamon are two of the distinctive ingredients in this Saturday Cake.  The cake contains Dutch-process cocoa, which makes a very dark cake with more complex flavor than regular cocoa.  It also contains a small dose of ground cinnamon which gives it a faintly spicy depth.  There is a significant amount of vanilla extract (2 tablespoons) compared to most cakes.

The thick glaze caused a few crevices in the tender cake

The glaze is made from pecans and bittersweet chocolate;  it's truly delicious but is less like a glaze and more like a bumpy frosting.  The recipe states that the chef, from Rather Sweet Bakery who devised the cake, uses the recipe for bundt cakes and cupcakes.  The cake is very moist and exceedingly tender, too tender I believe, for the heavy pecan-laden glaze.




When I make this recipe again, and the clamoring fans around here say I must, I will make cupcakes.


Next Saturday:  Queen of Sheba (Reine de Saba)