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 10: Molasses Cake

This Molasses Cake is from one of my absolute favorite cookbooks, The Art of Cooking and Serving, by Sarah Field Splint.  The book was published in 1930 by Proctor and Gamble.  It is a hardback book issued for the purpose of promoting Crisco brand shortening.  I hadn't tried any of the recipes from the book before, but I just love to read the chapters of advice.

I bought the book from Bonnie Slotnick's Cookbooks in New York in 1999 or 2000.  This was before I received my favorite cookbook, The Atlanta Woman's Club Cook Book (1921).  I had coveted Mom's AWC cook book for years because there were so many fantastically-period housekeeping tips.  I adore the tidbits of instruction on being a good housewife and preparing balanced nutritious foods; the recommendations seem so bizarre and old-fashioned to us now, but the glimpse they provide into the lifestyle of American homes in the 1920s is delicious!

Proctor & Gamble introduced Crisco in 1911 and used to publish a cookbook of Crisco-centric advice and recipes every year.  P&G was targeting the prosperous upper-middle class of the 1920's to set the style and spread the word about their shelf-stable, hydrogenated shortening.  The first chapters of the book are devoted to setting up a modern kitchen, service of meals, and the planning of meals.  We start with a chapter on "Table Service in a Servantless House."

"To the woman with no maid, entertaining at dinner is the very ultimate test of skill."

This chapter includes advice on Sunday night supper.  It is presented as an established and well-known practice of having Sunday supper be the casual-meal-of-the-week.

"The very term 'Sunday night supper' has a special flavor of its own.  Immediately it conjures up freedom from the usual routine.  Often the man of the family who has secret yearnings to cook has his chance on Sunday night, and turns out something staggering to the imagination of his family.  One nationally known literary man has made almost as much of a reputation among his intimate friends for his Welsh rarebit as for his novels of contemporary life.  Almost anything is likely to go into the making of it, while the wife stands by in apprehension...  In no way can a family more truly express hospitality than by giving a standing invitation for their friends to 'drop in' for Sunday night supper.  Especially can the family without a maid entertain easily this way, making the Sunday evening at home an occasion of real delight to their friends...  The dining table should be prettily set and lighted with candles...  The fare usually consists of cold meat, salad, a hot food prepared in a chafing dish, or scalloped potatoes, or Boston baked beans or spaghetti with a wonderful Italian sauce, brought very hot from the kitchen...  The dessert may be layer cake or cream puffs or delicate home-made tarts."

I must confess that I am a little afraid of a meal that is "staggering to the imagination."  Also, I am dying to know the literary man of such rarebit repute.  What did he write?  Moreover, why haven't I ever truly expressed hospitality by issuing a standing invitation to our friends for the staggering dishes prepared by the man of the house with secret yearnings??!

Having exhausted ourselves on the prospect of Sunday night supper and all of its implications, we continue to a chapter on "Table Service in a House with  Servant."

"...Rare indeed is the perfect maid; if she exists our friends are the lucky possessors, and such as fall to our lot need training and endless encouragement...  Any maid worth having wants to look her best in the dining room and to wait on table properly.  She should be supplied with well-fitting uniforms of washable cotton for the morning, of black or gray material for the evening, with plenty of white aprons and collars and cuffs."

After this eye-opening chapter, there are segments on cooking equipment and meal planning.  Instead of the chapters progressing logically by course, as in most other cookbooks, we are launched immediately into a chapter of "Deep Fat Frying" with Crisco.  The chapter on frying includes a recipe for something called "Fried Creams" which is a concoction of eggs, sugar, scalded milk and vanilla that is then rolled in bread crumbs and fried.

In the meal planning chapter, I found that the proposed Saturday dinner menu containing this molasses cake has the main course of "Braised Sweetbreads on Toast."  I did not serve this cake with the recommended menu.




I would never have made a cake with Crisco, but the recipe called for exactly that.  It also called for combining the molasses with the baking soda which created a spectacular, tortoise-shell slurry which was then added to the batter.  The cake was difficult to get fully baked without over-baking the outside and causing it to be dry.  I wonder if the dryness was also due to the use of Crisco instead of butter; I may have to research the differences in moisture content if I make this cake again.    It was a good cake with the flavor as its most positive attribute.  The molasses and raisins with mace, cloves and cinnamon was deep, dark and delicious.

Tomorrow (!):  Fresh Apple Cake