Lane Cake, Part Two

I was going to do a bit more blogging on cooking turkeys and some holiday sides, but I got sidetracked by a Lane Cake.  I wrote about it in Food In Fiction, but had never made it.  A friend asked me if I would make one for her, and since I owed her big time, it seemed the least I could do.  Thus started my adventure.  It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, but it is far from a simple confectionary.  Here’s the recipe as I made it, a bit tweaked from several I found.  I wish I could have found the original recipe from Emma Lane, but couldn’t.  Though there is rumor it can be found in a southern cookbook, I had no luck finding it.  But what recipe I cobbled together seems to have worked, so I’ll pass it on.  And for those who know To Kill a Mockingbird, yes there is enough ’shiny in it’  to make you tipsy.  My shiny was in the form of brandy,  your choice may vary.

Lane Cake

Cake:

• ¾ cup vegetable oil or butter
• 1 ½ cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 ¼ cups sifted flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup brandy or whisky
• 3 beaten egg whites

Four 9-inch pie tins, oiled and floured

Cream together oil, sugar and vanilla. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Add to creamed mixture and mix until blended. Add water and brandy and mix for 2 minutes on medium. Gently fold in egg whites until mixed in, but don’t over mix or the eggs will deflate. Use ladle to evenly pour into 4 9-inch pie pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 30-35 minutes, until center springs back. Cool thoroughly on racks.

Filling:

• 8 egg yolks
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup melted and cooled butter
• 1 cup chopped raisins
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1/3 cup brandy or whisky
• ½ tsp vanilla

saucepan

In saucepan mix together eggs and sugar over medium heat, stirring constantly for 6 minutes. Do not let boil. Add chopped pecans and raisins and cook for 1 minute. Add brandy and vanilla, cook another minute. Set aside to cool.

Frosting:

• 1 cup butter, melted and cool
• 3 to 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp brandy or milk (add more as needed)

Mix until smooth and fluffy.

Assembly:

Once cake is fully cooled, place on layer on the serving plate. Add 1/3 of the filling, spread evenly. Repeat for remaining layers and then frost.

Food In Fiction: To Kill a Mockingbird, Pickled Pig Knuckles and Ambrosia

The last entry in the To Kill a Mockingbird recipes is one you probably won’t try and one I’m making up as I go along.  I wanted to include Pickled Pig Knuckles for one reason only, because the section of the book where this shows up is so touching, it brings tears to my eyes whenever I read it.  Atticus has lost his case and Tom Robinson is on his way to prison.  The next morning, as the children struggle with what has gone on, Atticus sits down to breakfast, only to be greeted by an incredible plate of food like he has never seen before.  Confused, he lets Calpurnia lead him into the kitchen, which is filled to overflowing with gifts from everyone who appreciated all he did for Tom Robinson:

The kitchen table was loaded with enough food to bury the family: hunks of salt pork, tomatoes, beans, even scuppernongs.  Atticus grinned when he found a jar of pickled pigs’ knuckles.  “Reckon Aunty’ll let me eat these in the diningroom?”

Calpurnia said,”This was all ’round the back steps when I got here this morning Mr. Finch.  They – they aren’t oversteppin’ themselves, are they?”

Atticus’ eyes filled with tears.  He did not speak for a moment.  “Tell them I’m very grateful,” he said.  “Tell them – tell them they must never do this again.  Times are too hard.” 

I searched for Pickled Pigs Knuckles recipes, this one for Pickled Pigs Feet seemed like the best one, so  thought I’d link to it, since I’m not likely to recipe test it anytime soon.  I think you could easily substitute knuckles without any ill effects.

Pickled Pigs Feet:

Nowadays the commercial products are just so expensive that it’s more economical to make your own. Besides, homemade pickled pigs feet taste far better than what you can get from the jar. I prefer to make my own as opposed to spending about 1 dollar and 25 cent for each piece of pigs feet.

Pickled Pigs Feet Recipe

6 – fresh pigs feet, split in half lengthwise
2 – red chile peppers, fresh
1 – medium onion, chopped
2 – bay leaves
2 – tablespoons salt
1 – teaspoon peppercorns
1/2 – tablespoon mustard seed
1/2 – tablespoon coriander seed
1/4 – teaspoon cloves
sliced ginger
white vinegar
water

to read more, go here

The Ambrosia appears earlier in the story, at a disastrous Christmas celebration, where the only redeeming feature is the food.

….Aunt Alexandra didn’t understand girls.

But her cooking made up for everything: three kinds of meat; summer vegetables from her pantry shelves; peach pickles; two kinds of cake and ambrosia constituted a modes Christmas dinner.

Ambrosia is pretty simple, but a fresh ambrosia salad in 1930’s Alabama in December, I wasn’t sure what would be used.  I decided that peaches, grapes, banana, whipping cream, pecans, little bit of sugar and mixing it together could work.  For a more modern touch, substitute ginger ale for the sugar and sprinkle with coconut.  Neither may be authentic, but they are tasty all the same.

Thunder Cake Update

A snow day and a friend’s birthday provided me with the perfect excuse to spend some time in the kitchen, so I baked a Thunder Cake.  It was pretty much a fool-proof recipe and the cake came out great.  So if you need a quick chocolate cake, give it a try.

Update:  Todd Daily gave me this recipe originally and we had this conversation this morning.

Todd:  I hope you remembered the most important ingredient. The Thunder! According to the book, that’s the only way that it really works.

Me:  I checked my cooking equivalency and substitution chart and found that I could substitute a 36 hour blizzard for an afternoon of thunder, so it worked out okay.

Food In Fiction: To Kill A Mockingbird – Lane Cake

Photograph by Neil Ravenna

For the Lane Cake, I won’t be posting a recipe, but instead, because of the wonder of the internet can offer the history of how it came to be. In all the years I’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird, I really didn’t have a clear idea of what a Lane Cake was, except I knew it had liquor in it, as described when Atticus’ sister came to stay and help with Scout and Jem:

Maycomb welcomed her. Miss Maudie Atkinson baked a Lane Cake so loaded with shinny it made me tight….

Before that, Miss Maudie baked a Lane Cake as a thank you to one of the men who helped fight the fire that burned her house to the ground:

“Mr. Avery will be in bed for a week – he’s right stove up. He’s too old to do things like that and I told him so. Soon as I can get my hands clean and when Stephanie Crawford’s not looking, I’ll make him a Lane Cake. That Stephanie’s been after my recipe for thirty years, and if she thinks I’ll give it to her just because I’m staying with her she’s got another think coming.”

I reflected that if Miss Maudie broke down and gave it to her, Miss Stephanie couldn’t follow it anyway. Miss Maudie had once let me see it: among other things, the recipe called for one large cup of sugar.

From the Encyclopedia of Alabama:

The Lane cake, one of Alabama’s more famous culinary specialties, was created by Emma Rylander Lane of Clayton, Barbour County. It is a type of white sponge cake made with egg whites and consists of four layers that are filled with a mixture of the egg yolks, butter, sugar, raisins, and whiskey. The cake is frosted with a boiled, fluffy white confection of water, sugar, and whipped egg whites. The cake is typically served in the South at birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and other special occasions. The recipe was first printed in Lane’s cookbook Some Good Things to Eat, which she self-published in 1898.

According to chef and culinary scholar Neil Ravenna, Lane first brought her cake recipe to public attention at a county fair in Columbus, Georgia, when she entered her cake in a baking competition there and took first prize. She originally named the cake the Prize cake, but an acquaintance convinced her to lend her own name to the dessert.

The Recipe

Lane’s recipe states that the cake should be baked in medium pie tins lined on the bottom with ungreased brown paper, rather than in cake pans. She specified “one wine-glass of good whiskey or brandy” for the filling and that the raisins be “seeded and finely clipped.” She also insisted that the icing be tested with a clean spoon. In Lane’s time, the cake would have been baked in a wood stove. Lane also suggested that the cake is best if made a day or so in advance of serving, presumably to allow the flavors to meld. Lane used the cake recipe as the basis for other cakes in her book, some frosted with orange or lemon cream.

The Lane cake has been subjected to countless modifications and twists over the years. Coconut, dried fruit, and nuts are common additions to the filling described in the original recipe. Home bakers who wish to avoid the whiskey or brandy in the original recipe have substituted grape juice, especially for children’s birthdays. Another common variation is to ice the entire cake with the filling mixture. The Lane cake is often confused with the Lady Baltimore cake, another fruit-filled, liquor-laced dessert with a different pedigree.

In Alabama, and throughout the South, the presentation of an elegant, scratch-made, laborious Lane cake is a sign that a noteworthy life event is about to be celebrated. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Alabama native Harper Lee, character Maudie Atkinson bakes a Lane cake to welcome Aunt Alexandra when she comes to live with the Finch family. Noting the cake’s alcoholic kick, the character Scout remarks, “Miss Maudie baked a Lane cake so loaded with shinny it made me tight.” Shinny is a slang term for liquor.

To Kill A Mockingbird: Crackling Bread

The book that had the greatest influence over me as a child was To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. I read it for the first time when I was 12 and have read it every year or two since. My Gram Rullo gave me a hardbound copy that is probably my favorite gift ever - except for the two special rings my brothers won at the county fair when they are little and gave to me. Those I keep in a ring case in my jewelry box.

To Kill a Mockingbird is filled with food, good southern food, that as a child I’d never heard of before. It was an exotic world filled with scuppernongs and Lane cakes and of course, Bo Radley. I’ll start with Crackling Bread:

Perhaps Calpurnia sensed that my day had been a grim one: she let me watch her fix supper. “Shut your eyes and open your mouth and I’ll give you a surprise,” she said. It was not often that she made crackling bread, she said she never had time, but with both of us at school the day had been an easy one for her. She knew I loved crackling bread. “I missed you today,” she said.

Crackling Bread

• 1 1/2 c. cracklings or crisp bacon, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups white cornmeal
• 3 tbsp flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven ot 450° and grease a heavy oven-proof skillet (cast iron works great). Or preheat to 350° and grease 12 count muffin tin, but do not preheat the tin.

Sift together dry ingredients and then mix in cracklings. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add buttermilk and egg. If batter seems to thick, you can add a bit of water.  Pour into a hot, greased skillet. Bake in 450 degree oven (or 375 degrees for muffins) for about 25 minutes or until light brown.

Food In Fiction: Thunder Cake

When I said I was going to base some recipes on food found in my favorite fiction book, Todd Daily sent me this recipe from a children’s book called, you guessed it, Thunder Cake.  I am going to make it, just haven’t gotten around to it…waiting for a special occasion, which may come up later this month.   I have now read the book by Patricia Polacco about overcoming her fear of thunderstorms by gathering  the ingredients for the cake with her grandmother.  Here is her recipe:

Thunder Cake!

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together one at a time:

• 1 cup shortening
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 eggs, separated ( blend yolks in. Beat whites until they are stiff, then fold in.)
• 1 cup cold water
• 1/3 cup pureed tomatoes

Sift together:

• 21/2 cups cake flour
• 1/2 cup dry cocoa
• 11/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt

Mix dry mixture into creamy mixture. Bake in two greased and floured 81/2 inch pans at 350 degree for 35 to 40 minutes. Frost with chocolate butter frosting. Top with strawberries.  ENJOY!!!

Thanks Todd for sharing both the book and the recipe with  me.

Growing Up Trixie: Venison Stew

This book takes place over the Thanksgiving holiday, so it is full of good food.  My favorite recipe comes from Mr. Maypenny, an independent gent, who lives in the middle of the Wheeler game preserve.  They think he’s a poacher and he ends up becoming their gamekeeper, but not until he shows off his cooking skills to Trixie and Honey.

From Trixie Belden and the Mystery Off Glen Road:

“Well, now,” Mr. Maypenny said, sitting on the bunk, “a stew just isn’t worth putting into a pot unless you put everything in your garden in it.  In that I got turnips and parsnips and carrots and potatoes and beans and corn.  And I don’t use any water a-tall.  Why should I?  Onions and cabbage and tomatoes are full of water – the right kind of water.  I must have used a peck of tomatoes in that goo-lash.  Spices, too.  I’m a bit heavy with garlic and basil and thyme.  There may be some folks who don’t go for such, but it suits me to a T.”

 Trixie had been eating steadily…..”It suits me, too.”

In all honesty, I think that recipes says it all.  Start with 1 pound of stew beef or venison, cut into 1-inch pieces, brown in a bit of oil.  Add  the meat and the remaining ingredients, cut up about 4 tomatoes, 1/2 head of cabbage, 3-4 carrots, 2 turnips, 2 parsnips, 4 potatoes, 1/2 lb of green beans, 1 onion,  1 cup of corn and 1/2 cup water or wine, also - salt, pepper, garlic, thyme, basil, salt and pepper to taste - into a slow-cooker, cover, set on low and cook for 8-12 hours.

Beef Stew

• 1 lb lean stew meat
• 1 small onion, quartered
• 4-6 small potatoes, quartered
• 8 oz baby carrots, halved
• 2 tsp rosemary
• 2 bay leaves (remove before serving)
• ½ tsp ea. salt & pepper
• 1 tsp crushed garlic
• 7 cups water
• 3 tbsp flour

slow-cooker

Place meat, onion, potatoes, carrots & spices in crockpot, add 6 cups water and cook according to crockpot directions, (usually 8 to 10 hours on low). Before serving, turn heat to high, mix 1 cup water and flour completely, add to stew, stirring constantly, and cook until thickened, about 1-3 minutes.

Growing Up Trixie: Chocolate Cake and Spiced Grape Juice

Every time I read this book in the Trixie Belden series, when Mrs. Smith serves up any of her delicious food, it made me hungry.  But when she serves the girls her chocolate cake and spiced grape juice, I thought  it sounded like the best dessert ever.

From Trixie Belden and the Red Trailer Mystery.  Mrs. Smith speaking to Trixie:

“I must get to my baking before it gets any hotter.  You and your honey-haired friend come back for tea.  Grape juice and chocolate layer cake.  Spiced juice from my own grapes and I bottled it myself last year.  You must help us drink it up.”

[later] 

“It’s not the best cake I’ve ever baked,” she apologized, although Trixie and Honey had never tasted anything like it.  “Somehow my baking reflects my moods.  I was so depressed this morning all four layers fell and I couldn’t do a thing with the icing.  But this is grape juice is the best in the county, if I do say so myself.”

I must confess I’ve never been able to bake a decent layer cake.  I’d blame it on living at high altitude, as I do now,  but I’ve lived from coast to coast and altitude is the least of my cake baking problems.  But Spiced Grape Juice, that I can handle:

Spiced Grape Juice

• 64 oz unsweetened concord grape juice
• 4 sticks cinnamon
• 12 whole cloves
• 2 tbsp whole allspice berries
• 1/2 cup sugar – most recipes call for this, I’ve never added it myself. 

large sauce pan

Add all ingredients and heat over low heat for 3 to 4 hours, stirring occasionally.  Strain spices from juice before serving.  Or if you like, you can put the spices in cheesecloth, tied with string and let steep that way.  I’ve also used a tea infuser for steeping.

Can be served hot or cold, though I prefer mine over ice.  You can serve with lemon slices.  Chocolate layer cake is optional.

Refrigerate any leftover.

Growing Up Trixie

Note: I’ve searched and searched for the actual quote from the books that has the recipe, but couldn’t find it today. If I find it later, I’ll add it to the post. Meanwhile….

My first strong female literary character was Trixie Belden. She rocked. You have to be a woman, and probably a woman of a certain age, to be a hardcore Trixie fan. A sister’s friend game me my first Trixie Belden book when I was in the hospital for surgery. By the end of the first chapter, I was hooked.

It is fitting then, that I begin the series on Food in Fiction with Trixie Belden and one of the first recipes I tried on my own, cooking for my parents, adapting  and experimenting, even then:

Perfect Hamburgers

• 1 slice bread, crusts removed
• 1//4 cup milk
• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1 tsp crushed garlic
• salt & pepper to taste

Soak bread with milk for 5 minutes, mix together all ingredients together completely. Form into 4 patties and grill or fry to desired doneness.

This works especially well with extra lean ground beef, keeping it moist and flavorful, even if you like them cooked to medium-well.