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

July 19: Lane Cake

The Lane Cake is a classic, southern cake.  I decided to make a Lane Cake back in January when I undertook this Cake on Saturday resolution.  I had never made one before and like the Caramel Cake, it seems like a good regional specialty to know.

A couple of weeks ago, Keith sent me a link to a PBS.org article about American Cakes Through History, written by Tori Avey.  In it she writes about her research into the Lane Cake.  She included a quote from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, in which Scout commented "Miss Maudie Atkinson baked a Lane cake so loaded with shinny it made me tight."  The "shinny" refers to alcohol.   Since Ms. Lee's new book Go Set A Watchman was released this week, what better time to try a Lane Cake?

Ms. Avey's article traces the history of the cake created by Alabama-native, Emma Rylander Lane. Ms. Lane had named it "Prize Cake" since it won first prize at a county fair in Columbus, Georgia.
When I originally picked the Lane Cake, I had chosen Nathalie Dupree's recipe from her book, New Southern Cooking.  However, after reading Ms. Avey's article, I decided that there was a much better choice of recipe.  Dupree's recipe did not call for any alcohol at all, instead using orange or white grape juice in the filling.  A later Dupree cookbook, Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking gave the option of using bourbon or orange juice.  There were several changes between the two versions of the Dupree recipes. I chose to stick more closely to the source material...

Ms. Avey references the 1921 Atlanta Woman's Club Cookbook version as it cites Mrs. Lane as the source of its recipe.  Since that cookbook is a prized part of my collection, I made my "prize" cake from Mrs. Lane's recipe.  It is even labeled as the "original" recipe.  Ms. Avey also refers to Mrs. Dull's Southern Cooking:  in the 1928 edition of the book there is no Lane Cake, but it is in the 1941 edition.  I have a reprint of the 1928 edition and I have Mama Judy's 1941 edition.

The recipes from 1941 Dull and AWC cookbook call for wine in the filling.  Mrs. Lane's recipe in the AWC specified using English walnuts, not pecans.  Mrs. Dull's lists pecans.  Since almost all later versions use bourbon and we like the bourbon/pecan combination, I decided to use bourbon.  The AWC version does not mention icing at all.  The 1941 Dull says "cover the cake with white icing."  No recipe for this icing was specified, but I chose a Seven Minute Icing since that was Mama Judy's go-to icing.  I used the recipe from Mrs. Dull since that was the one and only cookbook Judy ever owned.

Seven Minutes later...

Layers with filling

 Ms. Avey gave the option of baking the cake in three or four layers.  Mrs. Dull specifies three.  Mrs. Lane does not specify a number.  I chose to make three and included filling on the top layer as in Ms. Avey's article.  I made the cake and filling, and assembled the cake on Thursday because Ms. Avey recommended letting the flavors mingle for a few days before icing the cake.


Overall, I would say that this cake is a rich, boozy success.  The same could be said of some people I've known, but that is another story entirely.

This cake has a great visual impact and is much better than any fruitcake I have ever tasted so I can see why it is a favorite holiday cake in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.  I will certainly bake this cake again.  Several recipes for Lane cake require adding coconut or chopped dried cherries to the filling.  Keith thinks that anything more than pecans, bourbon and raisins would be excessive - but he votes for more filling and more layers. I concur that coconut and cherries are unnecessary.  In the future I will make it in four layers, while keeping the extra filling on the top.  This will require multiplying the filling recipe.  Perhaps I will give it a try using wine instead of bourbon.  More Lane Cake loaded with shinny in our future...

Next Saturday: Mocha Loaf Cake

January 10: Caramel Cake

Caramel cake is one of the quintessential Southern cakes of pot-lucks and small-town-lore.  There are cooks across this region whose kitchen bona fides are entirely based on the irresistibility of their caramel cakes.  I'll bet that my great-grandmother, Lexie, was one of those cooks.  However, it has never been a cake that I had any desire to bake.

I am sure that there is a "nature vs. nurture" aspect to each person's connection to food.  Objectively speaking, is it appealing visually and does it taste good to you? And, equally as important, what were you fed as you were growing up and developing your tastes?  Does the memory of the person who taught you to make it cause you prejudice?  I'll admit it.  I have never had a caramel cake that I thought was anything special.  Possibly, it is due to the fact that my mother and my mother's grandmother never made caramel cakes and they are the ladies who taught me most of what I know about baking.  Therefore, I don't have a nostalgic connection to caramel cake (even though I love caramel).

Honestly, I always found carmel cakes to be cloyingly sweet, ofttimes with caramel icing that is sandy in texture.  Even caramel cakes that have a smooth-looking icing often end up with a mouth-feel like tile grout.  I have never been impressed by a caramel cake, not once.  I want a caramel icing that is worthy of the lovely flavor of the carefully burnt sugar.  I want the icing to resemble chocolate ganache in density and luxuriant texture.  

On Saturday I started my first carmel cake with a minimum of research, an overabundance of confidence, and the lack of an essential piece of equipment.

Just before I graduated from college, my parents gave me my first new cookbook.  I already had family cookbooks that had been handed-down, Mom's recipes that she had hand-written on sheets of notebook paper, and my own collection of magazine clippings.  But on my birthday in 1991, my parents presented me with an autographed copy of New Southern Cooking  by Nathalie Dupree.  Nathalie Dupree is a cooking legend in Georgia having taught at Rich's [department store] Cooking School, hosted her own cooking show on public television and owned successful restaurants specializing in southern cuisine.  Why not try Nathalie?

So, when her caramel cake recipe in New Southern Cooking stated "There is a grainy texture to the icing since the last batch of sugar is never dissolved," I moved on.  But, I didn't go too far.  I referred instead to her recipe in Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking.  There were a few differences between the two recipes, and I thought that the one without the disclaimer about "grainy" icing was preferable.  In preparation last week, I checked the kitchen drawer to confirm that I had my candy thermometer; the recipe requires that the caramel be at 240 degrees, or soft ball stage, when you begin to cool and beat the icing.

I decided to go whole hog on the carmel and make the cake in four layers, allowing for the maximum caramel-to-cake ratio.  The cake layers from Nathalie's recipe came out beautifully, with a smooth, fine texture.  Then I started the icing.  In two heavy pots, I started melting the sugar and heating the second cream-and-sugar component, using separate spoons and a watchful eye.  Then, I reached into the drawer for the thermometer so I would be ready at the crucial "soft ball" moment.  Removing the "protective" plastic sheath, I found that the glass of the outside vacuum-sealed tube had been broken off at the end. [Expletives Deleted]  In anger, I violently threw the thermometer into the garbage can.

It is appropriate to tell you now, Allgood girls have a history of throwing any household gadget into the backyard in a fit of frustration when it ceases to live up to expectations.  Family members know to exercise caution whenever cussing is heard from the kitchen.  You never know when an iron, frying pan or blender might come flying out of the back door.  Alas, I have no pictures of the offending thermometer to post here, but I also don't have a thermometer in my yard.  I recovered, feeling proud of my emotional restraint, and decided to barrel ahead and judge the stage of the candy by classically testing it, dropping a little into ice water to see if it forms a soft ball.  

I arrived at my assessed soft ball stage, cooled the caramel, and tasted the results.  The flavor was amazing; buttery, deep and rich.  But, at this point the caramel was too thin to spread.  I proceeded to the next step and beat the caramel using a stand mixer.  Nathalie's recipe states that the caramel should be the consistency of peanut butter and that heavy cream could be added during the beating process to improve the consistency and make it spreadable.  My caramel was never the consistency of peanut butter, but after much worrying on top of the frustration of the broken thermometer, I gave up and iced the cake with my caramel concoction.  The icing that resulted was grainy and slowly traveled from wherever I spread it to someplace it wanted to go.  I fought a losing battle trying to make the cake look pretty.

Overall , my family thought the cake tasted delicious.  Some of the reviewers thought that four layers threw the caramel quantity over-the-top.

Let me just say that I was again disappointed by a carmel cake...

I have learned several significant lessons, though:  

First, actually inspect your tools before you start on a project.  A cursory glance in a drawer will not do.  

Second, I must have no idea how soft ball stage caramel is supposed to look.  I can count on one hand the number of times I have ever made candy and I never made caramel before.  I absolutely need a thermometer until I know better.

Third, there IS such a thing as too-much-caramel.  Next time I will only make three cake layers.

In a few weeks I will attempt a second caramel cake.  In the meantime, I am off to buy a new candy thermometer and do a little recipe research...

Next Saturday:  Victoria Sponge Cake from The Upstairs Downstairs Cookery Book in honor of the new season of Downton Abbey