December 21: My Gluten-Free Pound Cake

It continues to be a week of baking here!  We visited Columbia friends and relations over the weekend, so I just got around to baking my Saturday Cake on Monday.  I chose my GF pound cake loaves to give one as a gift and to have a treat for myself.  I deserve a treat or two this time of year because Christmas means cookies, hundreds of cookies, boxes of cookies...

Our family gives boxes of homemade cookies to our neighbors, teachers, friends and coworkers every year.  This tradition evolved out of longstanding practices and fond remembrances of our childhood.  For me, Christmas has always meant time in the kitchen.  Mom and I always made a cake for Christmas Dinner.  On Christmas Eve, my parents and I would have a picnic on the floor under the Christmas tree and we were allowed to open one present at the picnic before heading to midnight mass.  The picnic was usually sandwiches or cold dishes like fruit, cheese and pâté.  Starting in middle school, I was the chef for Christmas Eve supper.  At first, I just selected and prepared the picnic fare.  But then I decided to go "gourmet" and pick a dish that I had never tried before.  I would make a list of ingredients and a game plan for the timing of the dinner, Mom would help me shop and then I did the rest.

Cookies for Teachers, 1981

Before Christmas Eve though, Mom and I baked gingerbread cookies.  We made dozens of gingerbread cookies to give as gifts and we kept some to serve at our picnic.  When I was a freshman in high school, I made ginger-caricatures of my teachers.  Each character cookie was about nine inches tall and was presented in a box on the last day before holiday break.

While in the Secret Service, I made gingerbread and other cookies to share on Christmas day for all of us working at the command post or duty desk.  After my shift on Christmas, I hosted an open house for friends, colleagues and neighbors who couldn't travel.  The open house tradition of sparkling wine, egg nog and finger foods on Christmas afternoon continued until I retired from the USSS.

When we were dating in 2005, I made gingerbread cookies for Keith and the kids.  He loved the cookies and said that the flavor reminded him of some cookies called "fruit bars" from the Eclair Bakery in the Five Points neighborhood of Columbia.  Keith used to make a special trip to that bakery for a box of fruit bars to bring home to Georgia every time he visited Columbia.  He shared the fruit bars with friends and coworkers and eventually he started buying a couple of extra boxes in order to keep some for himself.  The Eclair closed during the 1990s and ever since then, he has been wishing for more of his favorite cookies.

He described the fruit bars to me in comparison to our gingerbread; the spice is the same, but the bars tasted fruitier, and the bars weren't crisp like the gingerbread, they were cookie-like on the outside, but chewy in the center.  There was a color difference between the golden-brown outside (top and bottom) of the bar and the soft, dark inside layer.

I fell in love with Keith and his nostalgia for fruit bars.  So, I was determined to figure out how to make the fruit bars he remembered.  I started with Mom's gingerbread recipe and then added, subtracted, took notes, asked for critiques and practiced through seven iterations until I got it right.

Now, South Carolina Fruit Bars are the foundation of our holiday cookie assortment.  We usually make three or four different types of cookies or small cakes for the boxes.  Fruit bars start the list and get the most compliments from recipients.  We even have a few people every year who beg for the recipe, but Keith says he will never allow me to share it!

We made 55 boxes of cookies this year plus a few dozen extra of each type for ourselves.  Each box is loaded with cookies, tied with a bow and delivered by the family dressed in hats like Santa's elves during Christmas week.  For a friend with a gluten-intolerant spouse, I made the gluten-free pound cake and packed it in a box marked "gluten-free."  Then I put the usual assortment of cookies in a box for her and tagged it, "full-of-gluten."

Yes, there are 40 pounds of flour and 28 pounds of butter in that cart!

This year the boxes contained Shortbread Hearts from The Silver Palate Cookbook (1982),  Christmas Cookies (rich butter cookies with cherries on top from Southern Living), and Bourbon Pecan Balls from The White House Chef Cookbook (1968) by René Verdon.

Verdon was the French chef chosen for the White House by Jacqueline Kennedy, a decision which garnered her much criticism at the time.  Cousin Pat gave me the cookbook as a gift when I was hired by the USSS and the Bourbon Pecan Balls were always a favorite at my open houses.  Some years we make gingerbread boys and girls and Apple Spice Bread.  When Keith worked for Georgia Shakespeare, we made Gingerbards (a silhouette likeness of William, himself, crafted out of gingerbread and royal icing).

But, the most important occupants in every box are the fruit bars that won Keith's heart.

The last cake of the year:  Japanese Fruit Cake

December 13: Sunday Night Cake

My Sunday Night Cake on my newly-acquired, antique Dutch Kitchen (Hoosier)

During the summer, I found Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cookbook (1961) at an antique mall near Concord, North Carolina.  Keith and I had driven Colin to Davidson college for a three-week Duke TIP program.  Duke TIP is a summer program for high-achieving youth in seventh grade and up.  It is essentially a "nerd camp," as any alumnus (including our Ian or Autumn) will proudly tell you.  This was Colin's first year at Duke TIP and he selected a course in architecture.  He had a fantastic time and made friends  with whom he shares common interests.

One of those friends is having her Bat Mitzvah on this Saturday in Columbia, South Carolina and has invited Colin to the big bash.  Keith's parents live in Columbia, so it will be a great chance to visit them for the holidays while giving Colin a chance to party with his TIP-ster chums.  Since we have been watching all of the James Bond films lately Colin is pretty fascinated with how debonair Bond can be.  Colin has elected to strike a James Bond image and will be wearing a white dinner jacket ensemble to the party.

Amy Vanderbilt is best known for her Complete Book of Etiquette (1952).  This cookbook was a great find for a myriad of reasons, not the least being the illustrations by Andy Warhol.  Warhol started out as a commercial illustrator and lived by selling his pen-and-ink illustrations before his first gallery show.  He was well-known for his illustrations, some in ink, some colored, of shoes in advertisements.  He was also known for similar illustrations of cats and there is an urban-art-history legend that he and his mother owned more than forty cats and that every one was named Sam.


In the 1980's, Mom and I visited my grandfather, Blaine, in Cherokee North Carolina. We stayed at one of the classic, kitschy motels on the reservation, The Pink Motel.  In the coffee shop of the lobby hung an original Andy Warhol painting of Mick Jagger.  What was THAT doing THERE?  It is an absolute mystery.  I will never forget the day that Mom and I first saw it just hanging there in a roadside tourist motel.  Blaine made some inquiries to try to satisfy our curiosity and the only explanation he could divine was a story about the owner of the motel being given the painting in payment of a debt.

Less mystifying to me, yet still curious is the name, Sunday Night Cake.  I Googled the term and found that virtually any cake - chocolate, cinnamon, etc. - could bear the label.

Amy Vanderbilt's Sunday Night Cake is two layers of cake flavored with almond extract and sprinkled with cognac after baking.  Between the layers is an almond custard and the frosting is made from almond paste and egg whites.  I suspect that in the style of The Art of Cooking and Serving (see October 10, Molasses Cake), a cake on Sunday night would be for an "informal" dinner, possibly planned and prepared by the man of the house, for the purposes of entertaining drop-in guests.  In Ms.Vanderbilt's recipe for Chicken a la King she even specifies such a gathering.

These time-tested recipes fit into almost any menu from brunch to midnight supper.  I like them especially for Sunday-night supper or for an unplanned Sunday luncheon when I suddenly decide it would be fun to have guests. (pg. 179)

Is this delicious but complicated and time-consuming recipe what constitutes "informal ease" in the Vanderbilt home?  Perhaps it is just rude of me to ask.  I suppose that should consult and etiquette guide to find out.

I think it is a touch of irony that in Warhol's work of the 1960's and 70's that he is best known for elevating the familiar products (Coca-Cola, Campbell's Soup) found in every American home to the status of art.

Perhaps the Vanderbilts did eat canned soup and drink Cokes, too.  But judging from this cake, their Sunday nights were a lot more complicated and elegant than ours.

Next Weekend:  My Gluten-Free Pound Cake

October 17: Fresh Apple Cake

Shortly after our engagement on Valentine's day in 2006, Keith wanted us to take a trip to see his parents in Columbia, SC.  I was stressed; I was afraid I wouldn't measure up to their expectations.  I was also afraid that I would be sized-up for the way I related to my future step-children.  After we arrived, I then became anxious when a discussion of plans for our wedding elicited a show-and-tell of wedding pictures from Keith's first wedding.

Imagine my relief that weekend when Margaret suggested exploring a used book store.  Our whole family loves books and getting lost in a book store was an especially welcome diversion for me.  It was there that I found my copy of the First Lady Cookbook: 200 Years of South Carolina Cookery, 1976.  I thought a First Lady cookbook was a perfect way to commemorate our visit to Keith's home state.

The cover shows the image of the palmetto which, with a crescent moon, symbolizes the state on its flag and graces the bow tie, belt, coaster, bumper sticker, and tailgating-tumbler of EVERY South Carolina native.  South Carolinians take pride in their state and its flag.  Georgians, although very proud, don't adorn themselves or their cars with the state flag.

In addition to some delicious-looking recipes, the First Lady Cookbook contains some hilarious political references:  recipes for "Kissinger Kraut Salad," cookies called "Campaign Kisses" and a "Specialty for all Politicians, Lye Soap!"  Priceless!

This recipe for Fresh Apple Cake looked appealing with apples, cinnamon, and butterscotch morsels sprinkled on the top.  It contains both baking powder and baking soda.  The combination made for a quick rise of the cake, but the cake tasted strangely of only cinnamon and baking soda to me.  The fresh apples, although fragrant and delicious before they went into the cake, brought very little flavor to the finished product.  The butterscotch morsels that I thought would bring a caramel apple flavor to the cake, just made it too sweet.


I think this turned out to be the worst tasting cake I have made all year.  Keith and the kids think I have judged the cake too harshly, but they aren't impressed with it either.

I am thankful that I made a better impression on the Hinzes, and that Keith is a far better catch than this recipe.

Next Saturday:  Sweet Autumn 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