2015 Re-Bake and the Recipe for my New Year

Yesterday, I thought for quite a while about resolutions.  The Cake on Saturday resolution of the past year has changed my life.

Many of the recipes that had been bookmarked-but-languishing on my shelves of classic cookbooks became part of this weekly experiment.  The most successful attempts:  Victoria Sponge Sandwich, Cherry Cake, Mace Cake, Feud Cake, Mexican Chocolate Cake (which I will add to my repertoire as a cupcake recipe), Queen of Sheba, Pecan Molasses Bundt Cake with Bourbon Glaze, Basil Pound Cake, Chocolate Ganache Frosting (July 4), Five-Flavor Cake, Hummingbird Cake, Sweet Autumn Cake (without all the crumbs, caramel and nuts on top), Myer's Rum Cake, frosting from Peanut Butter Cake Supreme, and The Chocoholic.

Early on, I was worried about finding the time to bake each week.  But, I was surprised to find that with each Saturday's adventure, it became easier and easier to make time.  I found comfort in making family recipes just because it was a Saturday and not relegating them only to "special occasions."  I came to grips with repeat fiascoes in the form of my burnt-sugar-nemesis, Caramel Cake.  As a result, I also discovered that my husband's encouragement and an Allgood pitch out of the back door can allow me to move-on from, possibly, any failure.  

Best of all, I have had the opportunity to share my false steps and triumphs with Granna each week when I took her a slice of Saturday cake on my visits to the nursing home.  

She's the one who got this whole thing stirred-up in the first place!

Now, what will I do with my Saturdays in the New Year?

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

December 5 (well, 7th): The Chocoholic

I have a completely legitimate excuse for postponing my Saturday cake to Monday.

Wednesday, the 9th, was my son, Colin's fourteenth birthday and he chose this cake as his official birthday cake.

The Chocoholic as been on my list of cakes since early in the year.  The recipe is from Let Them Eat Cake: Classic, Decadent Desserts with Vegan, Gluten-Free and Healthy Variations by Gesine Bullock-Prado.  The cookbook was a Christmas present from my mom last year, and it is full of appealing recipes and beautiful photos of the desserts featured.  The best attribute of the book is that it provides a gluten-free version for each recipe; not just ingredient substitutions, but advice and tips to make a GF version turn out the same as the traditional.  I made Colin's Chocoholic using the basic recipe to try it out.  So that if it had turned out to be a disappointment, I could pinpoint the recipe as the problem, not the adjustments to make it GF.


 It was not, even remotely, a disappointment...

Although, the name of the cake has caused some chagrin in our family.  Keith and I have our own (some would say extensive) sets of grammatical pet peeves.  Please don't get me started on less-versus-fewer and why I won't shop at a grocery that has a "10 Items or Less" check-out line.  One of the burrs in Keith's language saddle is the attachment of "-aholic" to any word in a desire to note addiction or obsession.  "There is no such thing as shopahol or chocohol!" he rails. He feels the same way about "-gate" to denote a political scandal.  I love him so much!

Keith had a hard time finding fault with anything else on this cake.  And Colin has practically eaten the whole thing and it is only one day after his birthday.

The cake had three layers of delicious, dark chocolate cake, two layers of perfect chocolate mousse filling and it is covered all over with whipped chocolate ganache.  I am thrilled about how luxurious this cake is, how straightforward the directions in the recipe were and the fabulous potential for all of the gluten-free recipes in the book.

Colin has begged me to make The Chocoholic every week as my Saturday Cake in 2016.  I will take this under advisement, only if I can make the GF version.  The mousse and ganache tasted great, so I can't wait to try the whole thing.

This week, I am in serious-consideration-mode about what to write for Cake on Saturday in the new year; while a GF chocolate cake every week seems like a good idea now, I am afraid that I will become both bored and chubby in the process.


 Next Saturday (actually Sunday):  Sunday Night Cake

November 28: Granna's Nut Cake

My grandmother's Nut Cake recipe is one of the treasures I found as I sorted through her cookbooks and clippings.  I found slips of paper with notes, sometimes written by a stranger's hand, about family tree birth dates, maiden names and death dates.  Granna made lists of flowers she needed to use to make an arrangement for horticulture club.  She made lists of dishes to serve for certain birthdays.  I found lists she made of her planned menus for Christmas dinners and Thanksgiving lunches.

Her neat, tight, level handwriting spelled out her plan of action for entertaining the whole family for the holiday.  Occasionally, her notes featured prices of the items she planned to make, or whether she had a coupon, or notes on which market had the best sale.  On the nut cake recipe, in addition to lots of stains and smudges, were written the price-per-pound for all of the expensive ingredients: Butter $1.67, Candied Cherries 1.29, Pecans $3.75 (now three times the price).

Pricey Ingredients

Did I remember one of those specific Thanksgiving menus on slips of paper used as bookmarks in a recipe book?   Sometimes she dated the notes "Thanksgiving 1985" and I sat, wishing I could remember any specific holiday at her house.  But, they were unremarkable because they all pretty much featured the same menu.  Each planned item was a favorite of one of her children or grandchildren; there was her cornbread dressing, her sweet potato casserole, turkey (sometimes cooked by my grandfather on the grill until it was as dry as sawdust), asparagus casserole, cylindrical cranberry sauce with rings of indentations left by the can, her homemade potato rolls, and her nut cake.

Granna's nut cake was the perfect lovechild of fruitcake and poundcake.  I have never seen another recipe for this cake.  It has a golden crust showing just the slightest nut-shaped hints of the treasures inside.  Candied cherries, candied pineapple and chopped pecans are packed into the buttery cake with none of the crazy cloying citron or bizarrely-colored fruit of fruitcake infamy.  Granna always made the nut cake in advance (it bakes for three hours and has to cool in the pan) and wrapped it in multiple layers of plastic wrap, then aluminum foil to store in the freezer until the night before we arrived at her house.

Keith likes to take us all out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner so that I don't have to "spend all day in the kitchen" instead of watching the Macy's parade on the couch with him.  But, I always make pies for dessert at home after the feast.  I always make pumpkin pie by Chief Wilma Mankiller's recipe.  Chief Mankiller was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma for many years and she was an honoree at my college commencement.  Her recipe calls for baking pumpkin from scratch and it is Keith's favorite pie.

Everyone loves Mama Judy's pecan pie recipe, so I made a gluten-free version and a gluten-"full" version.  I also made a coconut custard pie on a gluten-free crust.  Mama Judy used to make a coconut custard pie (probably from Mrs. Dull's cookbook) but I found an appealing recipe clipped from a newspaper stashed in one of Granna's cookbooks.  It turned our very well.  I used frozen, prepared pie crust this year to save time.  The pies turned out just fine albeit with soggy bottom crusts, so I won't take the easy way out on pastry next year.

We've been rolling in pie and then cake for days.  It was a great weekend.

Granna's notes were her way to plan, organize and even savor the excitement of our visits.  She probably sat down at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee reviewing the list multiple times in preparation for a holiday.  When I look at the lists, I can see her working on them and her nut cake tastes like thanksgiving to me.

On Saturday:  The Chocoholic

November 14: Lemon Verbena Pound Cake

Saturday was my mother's birthday, but I didn't make her cake on Saturday.
There were more fantastic things than cake happening that day!

Gorgeous Mom, second from right

Saturday was the official opening of Conversations at the Eiteljorg Museum - a show featuring the work of the museum's 2015 Contemporary Art Fellows... of which my mother is one!  Her installation piece called Retracing the Trace, as well as some of her drawings, on display for the show, will become part of the museum's permanent collection.  Keith and I went to Indianapolis on Friday for the celebration and awards ceremony that night and stayed to visit the museum during the opening on Saturday.

Mom's gallery talks were very fine; they ignited many positive comments and interest from the attendees.  Retracing the Trace addresses the subject of sexual assault and specifically those sexual assaults which go unreported every day in the United States.  My mother is a survivor of a sexual assault in 1994; she was dragged off the road by a stranger during her morning jog in Piedmont Park in Atlanta.  Her rape was reported and investigated, but the police never found her attacker.  Mom has created art based on that experience in the past and has been very moved by the people who see her art and say "it happened to me, I was afraid to tell anyone."

The opening of Conversations was a lovely event and Mom has received great press coverage of her work, including an article in ARTnews online magazine.  Keith and I were incredibly impressed with the exhibit and the curatorial choices made.  Mom had a whirlwind week of docent training sessions, interviews, galley talks, catalogue signings, and PARTIES.  To give me a chance to bake, and her a chance to rest up for her birthday celebration, we postponed it until Monday.  I baked a Lemon Verbena Pound Cake on Sunday afternoon after I picked her up at the airport.

This recipe was one that my mother had been holding onto since 1989.  Like the Basil Pound Cake (see June 14), this cake recipe had been clipped from a magazine by my mom, and then passed to me for my Saturday Cakes.  Lemon verbena is my mother's favorite fragrance and the smell of it reminds me of her.  I've been saving this recipe for her birthday.

The recipe specifies "fresh" lemon verbena leaves to flavor the scalded milk for the cake.  I looked high and low for verbena at farmers' markets, gourmet stores, and nurseries, but I found none.  The recipe originally ran in the the August 1989 issue of House Beautiful.  I have to assume that in August 1989, verbena was easier to come-by than in November of 2015!

After some online research I felt confident that dried verbena could be substituted for fresh in a recipe, I just needed to use half as much.  The cake recipe calls for vegetable shortening instead of butter, which I found unusual for a pound cake.  The flavor of the cake comes from a small amount of almond extract in addition to the verbena-fragranced milk.  The cake is iced with a buttercream icing flavored with lemon extract.  The fragrance of the cake, once fully assembled, was rich and citrusy.

After dinner at our favorite neighborhood bistro on Monday night, we returned home for cake and the opening of presents.  Mom, Keith, and the kids loved the cake!  They suggested that the next time I make this recipe I try using butter instead of shortening to see how it turns out.  I will also strive to find fresh verbena next time to see how the cake differs.

I doubt that Mom has fully recovered from her week of celebration.  We need to start working immediately on planning her next birthday to make it top this one!

Tomorrow:  Peanut Butter Cake Supreme

October 31: Caramel Cake IV, The Final Chapter

Halloween is supposed to be scary.  So, what better time to embark on my fourth attempt to make a caramel cake.  Right?

Saturday started out with such potential:  I had already found a good recipe for the cake layers that had enough body for the heavy caramel (Nathalie Dupree's from Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking).  I made three lovely, level layers and set them out to cool on wire racks.  So far, so good.

The most promising development, since my last attempt, was an intriguing new recipe for the caramel icing.  I did not want to get my hopes up, especially because there was rain in the forecast for Sunday and the rising humidity could spell disaster for the caramel.

My friend, Ellen, took pity on me after my previous battles with caramel frosting and sent me this recipe.  Ellen is a native of Alabama and has many memories of the homemade caramel cakes served at funerals, church suppers and pot luck dinners over the years.  She has never made a caramel cake, but her family's southern pedigree is solid.  Ellen's parents own a large farm and Ellen inherited a green thumb.  She is the first person of my acquaintance who has successfully grown peonies in Georgia.  She is a career woman who values pragmatism while at the same time revering southern traditions.  A few years ago, after seeing a picture in the local newspaper of the local DAR chapter (picture a bunch of older ladies in hats wearing socks and orthopedic sandals with their dresses), she suggested that we "block rush" the DAR to shake up the establishment a bit, or at least inject a little style.

Ellen found the recipe for caramel icing in her recipe box.  It was one of her grandmother's recipes, handwritten on the back of a piece of paper with an Enfamil (baby formula) logo along with a note to "call Lou."  Ellen's grandmother, Christine Pinson, was known as "Blackie."  Blackie got her nickname in nursing school when nursing candidates were referred to as Miss (surname).  Blackie entered nursing school with her sister, and the confusion caused by two Misses Pinson led to the need for two official nicknames.  Christine with dark hair became "Blackie" and her sister, the blonde, became "Whitey."  Blackie became a public health nurse, hence the Enfamil paper.  Lou, also a nurse, was probably the source for the caramel icing recipe.

The recipe called for browning sugar in a skillet, then adding that to a mixture of evaporated milk, sugar and oleo (margarine).  In spite of my hesitation about using margarine, I tried it.  The recipe called for it, so I figured it was the accurate thing to do.  However, I also set some unsalted butter and a second round of measured ingredients aside to make a butter batch, just in case.

The first batch of sugar, I burnt in the iron skillet.

The next batch of sugar turned out fine and I moved on to bring the full mixture with milk and oleo to "soft ball" stage (240 degrees).  Or so I intended.  The batch never reached soft ball before burning to the bottom of the pan to such an extent, that I felt sure that the pan was ruined.

Results of the second batch, as black as my mood and potentially as dangerous.

So, after working up a sweat scrubbing the pan, I decided to try again.  By this time, the trick-or-treaters were out roaming the streets and I decided to blame goblins for the failure of that second batch.  After adjustments to the burner temperature, checking the accuracy of my candy thermometer and an internal pep talk, I was ready to try again.  Keith, meanwhile, had grown weary of my sighs and wary of my increasing frustration level.  He said "you know, you really don't have to make a caramel cake.  It's not like your Granna made them all of the time, she just said that her mother made them on Saturdays. I might even love you more if you don't make a caramel cake, ever.  I hate to see you like this."

The third batch, let me just be succinct, was another profound failure.  

Despite my attempts to remedy all of the possible errors from the second batch, I ended up scrubbing and scraping burnt sugar-tar from my favorite sauce pan.  There was grumbling, cussing and a welling-up of tears before I reached the zenith of my frustration.  I felt like Anthony Michael Hall's character in The Breakfast Club whose elephant lamp wouldn't light-up when he pulled the trunk.  I should be able to do this.

Why can't I make a caramel cake?  Why won't it light up when I pull the trunk?

Come and get it, opossums and birds!

At that moment of emotional overflow, I walked into the dining room and saw the pretty cake layers anticipating their icing.  Something snapped.  I told Keith to grab a bite of one of the cakes before it was too late, then I scooped up the cakes and marched out the door.  Then, I violently threw the cakes into the back yard watching them smash to bits against the old swing set.  

Let me backtrack briefly to remind you that I come from a proud line of women whose ultimate expression of anger toward an inanimate object is to throw it into the back yard.  My Mama Judy, in a particularly trying season in the 1950s, got so annoyed with an iron, that she hurled it out the back door - narrowly missing poor Papa's head.  The iron lay, rejected, in the backyard until Papa secretly picked it up and disposed of it sight-unseen by Judy.  There have been times in my life, and my mother's life, when throwing that offending toaster,  immersion blender, or computer mouse out the back door and leaving it there is the only alternative.  My cousin, Liz, refers to this state as "having a case of the Allgood Red-Ass."  I am pretty sure, based on the anecdotal evidence, that all of the Allgood girls have succumbed to the condition at some point.

I followed my attack of the "ARA" with a glass of wine as I sat on the couch and promised Keith that I wouldn't be attempting any more caramel cakes.  Besides, on Sunday I visited Granna and asked her why she thought my caramel cakes didn't work.  She admitted that she didn't remember ever making one.  So, I finally got a treat after all my tricky caramel disasters.  

The toothpick comes out clean, and I am done.

Next Saturday: Myers's Rum 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

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