A Love Affair with Southern Cooking (63 page)

Cake

³¹
/
₃
cups sifted cake flour (see Tip at left)

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter (no substitute)

2 cups sugar

1 cup milk mixed with 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

6 large egg whites

¹
/
₈
teaspoon cream of tartar

Filling

8 large egg yolks

1½ cups sugar

¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter, melted

1 cup flaked coconut

1 cup moderately finely chopped pecans

¾ cup dried currants (see Note at left)

¹
/
₃
cup moderately finely chopped glacéed red cherries (optional)

¼ cup bourbon or brandy

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Icing

2 cups sugar

½ cup water

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

2 large egg whites

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1.
  For the cake: Preheat the oven to 350° F. Grease and flour four 8-inch layer cake pans well, tap out the excess flour, and set aside. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt onto a piece of wax paper and set aside also.
  
• 2.
  Cream the butter in a large electric mixer bowl, first at low speed and then at high for 2 to 3 minutes or until light and silvery. With the machine at moderately low speed, add the sugar gradually and continue beating for 1 to 2 minutes or until fluffy.
  
• 3.
  With the mixer at low speed, add the sifted dry ingredients in three batches, alternating with the milk mixture and beginning and ending with the dry. Beat after each addition only enough to combine.
  
• 4.
  Beat the egg whites until silvery in a second large bowl with clean beaters, add the cream of tartar, then continue beating for about 3 minutes or until the whites peak softly.
  
• 5.
  Mix about 1 cup of the beaten whites into the cake batter to lighten it, then gently fold in the rest until no streaks of white remain. Divide the batter among the four pans, rap each sharply on the counter once or twice to expel large air bubbles, then bake in the lower third of the oven for about 25 minutes or until the cakes are springy to the touch and a cake tester inserted midway between the center and the rim comes out clean.
  
• 6.
  Cool the cakes in the upright pans on wire racks for 5 minutes, then turn out on the racks and cool to room temperature.
  
• 7.
  Meanwhile, prepare the filling: Set the top of a double boiler on the counter and add the egg yolks and sugar. Using a hand electric mixer, beat at moderate speed for 5 minutes or until thick, then, beating all the while, drizzle in the melted butter. Set over simmering water and cook, beating constantly, for about 8 minutes or until thickened. Fold in the coconut, pecans, dried currants, glacéed cherries, if you like, bourbon, and vanilla, then cook and stir 1 minute longer. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.
  
• 8.
  To assemble: Place one cake layer upside down on a large round platter and spread with one third of the filling. Add a second layer, right side up this time, and spread with another third of the filling. Add a third layer, placing upside down, and spread with the remaining filling. Set the fourth and final layer in place, right side up. Let the cake stand while you prepare the icing.
  
• 9.
  For the icing: Combine the sugar, water, and corn syrup in a medium-size heavy saucepan and insert a candy thermometer. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves, then cook without stirring until the syrup spins a long thread (234° to 236° F.)
  
• 10.
  Beat the egg whites and salt with an electric mixer at high speed until soft peaks form, then, beating constantly, add the boiling syrup in a thin stream. Continue beating for 3 to 4 minutes or until the icing is stiff enough to hold its shape; stir in the vanilla. Swirl the warm icing over the top and sides of the cake and cool for at least 1 hour before cutting.
  Note:
  Because the filling and the icing both contain egg, refrigerate any leftover Lane cake.
  

LOUISIANA FRESH FIG CAKE

MAKES A
10-
INCH BUNDT CAKE

Back-roading through Louisiana shows the Pelican State at its best: antebellum plantations approached by long allées of live oak, sleepy towns that time forgot, bald cypresses wading in the inky waters of the Atchafalaya. No surprises here. But what did surprise me were the miles and miles of sugarcane rustling in the wind, the vast pecan orchards, and, in every yard, it seemed, fig bushes bent under their burden of fruit. This dark and spicy cake puts those figs to good use along with Louisiana pecans and raw sugar. The figs that thrive in Louisiana, indeed throughout most of the South, are green figs. And they are what local cooks would use here. I’ve discovered, however, that black Mission figs work equally well.

2¾ cups sifted all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

½ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter

1¼ cups raw sugar

3 extra-large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

1½ cups coarsely chopped pecans

½ pound firm-ripe figs, washed, stemmed, and coarsely chopped (see headnote)

• 1.
  Preheat the oven to 350° F. Coat a 10-inch (12-cup) Bundt pan with nonstick oil-and-flour baking spray and set aside.
  
• 2.
  Sift the flour, baking powder, soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and salt onto a large piece of wax paper and set aside also.
  
• 3.
  Cream the butter in an electric mixer at low speed for 5 minutes or until silvery and light. Add the sugar and cream at low speed for 3 minutes. Beat the eggs in one by one, then beat in the vanilla.
  
• 4.
  With the mixer still at low speed, add the sifted dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry. To avoid overbeating the batter, I add the dries in three batches, the buttermilk in two. By hand, fold in the pecans and figs.
  
• 5.
  Scoop the batter into the prepared pan, spreading to the edge. Also rap the pan sharply on the counter two or three times to level the batter.
  
• 6.
  Bake the cake in the lower third of the oven for about 1 hour or until it begins to pull from the sides of the pan, is nicely browned, and a cake tester inserted halfway between the rim and the center tube comes out clean.
  
• 7.
  Cool the cake in the upright pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes; loosen around the edge with a small, thin-blade spatula; then invert on the rack and cool to room temperature.
  
• 8.
  Cut into wedges and serve as is or top each portion with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a drift of whipped cream.
  

COLD-OVEN POUND CAKE

MAKES A
10-
INCH TUBE CAKE

This recipe comes from Lenora Yates of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the best pound cake baker I know. Now in her eighties, Lenora was my father’s secretary long years ago when he was a professor of botany at North Carolina State College. She still bakes this pound cake regularly for family and friends and always has a wedge of it waiting whenever my stepmother stops by on her way to our mountain house near Boone. Starting the cake in a cold oven, Lenora believes, accounts for its fine texture. But vigorous creaming of the butter, shortening, and sugar surely helps too, as do Lenora’s years of experience. Note:
Choose a good all-purpose flour for this recipe, not cake or “light” flour; neither has enough gluten to support the heavy batter. Also use a light-colored pan for baking this cake; the batter is so rich that a dark pan or one lined with a dark nonstick coating will cause the cake to overbrown.
Tip:
If the butter, shortening, and eggs are refrigerator-cold, you can cream them to supreme fluffiness.

3 cups unsifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup (2 sticks) butter (see Tip above)

½ cup vegetable shortening

3 cups sugar

6 extra-large eggs

¾ cup milk

2 teaspoons lemon extract

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 1.
  Butter and flour a 10-inch tube pan, tapping out the excess flour, and set aside. Sift the flour and baking powder together onto a large piece of wax paper and set aside also.
  
• 2.
  Cream the butter, shortening, and sugar in a large electric mixer bowl at low speed for 3 minutes, scraping the bowl at half-time, then raise the mixer speed to medium and cream 2 to 3 minutes longer or until light and fluffy.
  
• 3.
  With the mixer at low speed, add the eggs one by one, beating well and scraping the bowl after each addition. With the mixer still at low speed, add the sifted dry ingredients alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry—four additions of the dry and three of the milk are about right. Scrape the bowl well, then beat in the lemon and vanilla extracts.
  
• 4.
  Scoop the batter into the prepared pan, spreading to the edge, then rap the pan several times on the counter to level the batter and release large air bubbles.
  
• 5.
  Place the cake in the lower third of the oven, set the thermostat at 350° F., turn the oven on, and bake the cake for 1 hour and 10 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes or until it begins to pull from the sides of the pan, is springy to the touch, and a cake tester inserted halfway between the rim and the central tube comes out clean.
  
• 6.
  Cool the cake in the upright pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Using a small thin-blade spatula, loosen the cake carefully around the edge and around the central tube. Invert the cake on a wire rack and cool to room temperature before cutting. Delicious as is or with sliced sweetened-to-taste fresh strawberries or peaches ladled on top.
  

BROWN SUGAR POUND CAKE WITH WILD HICKORY NUTS

MAKES A
10-
INCH TUBE CAKE

When I was about ten, I rescued a robin hatch-ling that had fallen from its nest and raised that bird to maturity. Mitzy spent the night in the tall hickory tree just outside my bedroom window and each morning would peck at my screen until I came down to greet her. In the fall, when hickory nuts rained down upon the ground, my brother and I would gather them for Mother while Mitzy perched on a branch above. Hickory nuts, our father told us, were related to pecans (he knew such things because he was a botanist). They did indeed taste like pecans although they seemed—I’m searching for the right word here—“smokier.” There all similarity ends, however, because hickory nuts are hard-shelled and their meat exceedingly tedious to extract. Mother baked hickory nuts into cookies and stirred them into fudge. But she never baked this cake because I didn’t obtain the recipe until after she had died. It is an old North Carolina favorite and I must say that it is heaven. Note:
Choose a good all-purpose flour for this recipe, not cake or “light” flour; neither has enough gluten to support the heavy batter. Also use a light-colored pan for baking this cake; the batter is so rich that a dark pan or one lined with a dark nonstick coating will cause the cake to overbrown.