Mom never claimed to be a good cook. To her it was just a chore she had to do to keep us alive, and as a result of her cooking indifference we ate some pretty basic foods. Even so she did have a couple of things she made better than most people. In our family and among all our friends she was well known for her chocolate fudge icing. Everyone called it Nan Cake and if you had an occasion you could bet the bank she would show up bearing Nan Cake. I could not begin to count the number of birthdays. anniversaries, family reunions, Thanksgivings, celebrations, or times of great mourning that it was present. I am a much better cook than she was and I can not even begin to make it anywhere nearly as perfect as hers was.
She also had a second cake that she made regularly, her easily totable cake. It could never be for a birthday; that would have been a cake blaspheme. It was for picnics, Fourth of July parties, trips to the beach or middle of the winter cake to have with midday coffee. So with no further ado, I give you:
1 cup shortening (I used butter because I don't usually keep shortening on hand)
2 cups sugar
1 bar German Chocolate, melted
4 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons butter flavoring
1 cup buttermilk
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Cream shortening and sugar until creamy, add the melted chocolate and mix well. Mix in the eggs, then add the extracts and the buttermilk.
In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients (I never do this step but the recipe call for it so I included it)
Stir the dry ingredients into the wet and blend well. Pour into a well greased and floured bunt pan. Bake at 300 for 1 1/2 hours.
I halved the recipe because I did not want that much cake around the house, but I wanted to make something comforting and familiar. I have small bunt pans that are about 4 1/2 inches in diameter and much shallower than a traditional bunt. It only took the cake about 1 hour in those pans, and I wound up with slightly more batter than fit into 2 of them. The last pan was filled less than 1/4 of the way full so that cake was only about 2 inches tall after baking.
We always ate it as just a plain pound cake, but now that I have possession of the recipe box, I see Mom was holding out on us! The back the card has a basic glaze to spoon over a cooled cake. I didn't even look at the back of the card to know about the glaze until I was writing this post, so the joke is still on me.
1 bar German Chocolate
1 tablespoon shortening
1/4 cup water
1 cup confectioners sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Melt the chocolate add the shortening and water and stir over low heat. Add the remaining ingredients and stir well to blend. Spoon over the top of the cake.
TheHub bought a pint of ice cream because he does not like plain cake. I guess he suffered through enough years of eating it like Mom served it, and now he can eat it with a scoop of vanilla and not have to worry about offending anyone. Imagine how he will feel the next time I make it and add the well kept secret glaze!
BTW the texture is slightly different using the butter. Using shortening makes it a tad denser, I guess since shortening is full fat and butter has a little liquid in it.
Anne,
ReplyDeleteI would have to buy Crisco! I took chocolate pound cake everywhere! I do not ice well...lol. I suppose you will enjoy the recipe box.
I threw out a lot of the recipes and only kept those that she made on a regular basis.
DeleteI try to bake a never-baked-before-in-this-house cake for DH's every year. Some years the cakes go straight to the short list, other years, they are never to be heard of again. This one might just make it to the short list! Thank you. For what it's worth, my mother was a dreadful cook--at least as far as kids were concerned. Most nights of the year (save holidays) she would serve us dinner in the early evenings, then cook another meal which she and my father would eat alone, much later than all of us, and usually something different. In any case, I was doing some family research recently, and came upon an article in a newspaper from my parents' early married days stating "Mrs. X's hobbies include gourmet cooking from other countries." When I called my siblings, the response was, "Ah, so THAT'S what it was...silly us." There were, though, a few dishes she made which none of us can duplicate. I try to give women of that era a pass--in my mother's case she was trying to feed a big family on a limited budget. I figure that the shortcuts they took represented, on some level, freedom from drudgery for her and other women of this era.
ReplyDeleteMom just flat out did not like to cook, so our meals were less than stellar.
DeleteI'm pretty sure the recipe box is from the 60s. My mom didn't cook much at all in general but she could whip up the best holiday meals. Thanks for sharing the cake recipe :)
ReplyDeleteMom cooked but was thrilled when I started cooking and could take over sometimes. We had a deal. She would sew and make me anything I wanted if I would just cook dinner. I loved to cook and hated to sew so it was a perfect solution.
DeleteLook what I found! :)
ReplyDeletehttps://laurelleaffarm.com/item-pages/cook-books/60s-vintage-metal-Recipes-box-lot-of-hand-written-typed-recipe-cards-Laurel-Leaf-Farm-item-no-u2261.htm
Wow! Mom's box but in much better shape than hers!
DeleteI got my mothers recipe box and it is a treasure. My mother was not a good cook for everyday meas but boy could she bake.Can't wait to try this recipe thanks!
ReplyDeleteIt is a treasure to have these isn't it. My MIL did not have a recipe box but she had notebooks filled with recipes she used and I have those. Plus she was a great cook so her recipes are all things we ate over the years and loved!
DeleteMy mother copied down recipes in a note book; I have that book. She didn't cook until she came to this country, though. :)
ReplyDeleteI have my MIL's recipe notebook too!
DeleteI have folders and folders of recipes I have cut out/printed. Some time I should rationalise them.
ReplyDeleteHimself would like this (particularly with icing). With only two of us here mostly cake is a rare treat.
Covid is doing a number on me right now. When I am stressed I bake and having no where to go and no one to do things with is stressful.
DeleteYour mom sounds so much like mine in the kitchen-bland basic cook, but some things were incredible-moslty baking. Her speciality was apple squares, bars, that were like a pie, but thin-so good. This choclate cake sounds so good and rich. I'd love it with ice cream as you served.
ReplyDeleteThe apple square bars sound really good! I felt like a major rule breaker having it with ice cream!
Deletethey say we should all have a signature dish and i guess your mum made hers cake!
ReplyDeleteIn addition to her fudge cake she made the best meat loaf and baked beans I have ever eaten.
DeleteI finally got smart and actually started trying out the recipes I cut out of cookery magazines before sticking them in my books - that cut out an awful lot of waste as now I only copy out the ones I like, not the ones that look good in the pictures. I would love your mom's recipe box as I'm very sentimental. Aren't you glad though that you like cooking. It's something we all have to do, particularly when we have a family, so I feel for those that hate it. And yes I think we have to cut our parents' generation some slack too. We were a large but pretty poor family and there's only so much you can do with potatoes!
ReplyDeleteMom was continually on a strict food budget (to the penny) and I will cut some slack there, but she mainly hated to cook and it showed.
DeleteI keep a recipe book but it only has the tried and true recipes. Like you if they don't make the cut, I don't keep them.
Oh, that is one thing I love is to go through an old recipe box. I buy them at yard sales and go home and spend hours going thru them. I just love them. Your mother's looks like a treasure even though she didn't use the recipes much.
ReplyDeleteI love to find old cookbooks at second hand book stores that have hand written recipes in the covers
DeleteWhen we cleaned out my mother's house, I took all of her recipes--not at all neatly organized in a box. There are ones from great aunts, my grandmother, as well as my mother. I started the project to organize them and put together a family cookbook with the familiar ones. I am including pictures of them if they were handwritten and adding stories much like the one you told above. I got four recipes done and have been meaning to get back to it soon--for over a year now. Maybe this winter when there's not so much to do outside.
ReplyDeleteThat is a great idea! I need to do that with both Moms and my Mil's to pass on to my sons.
DeleteDon't tell this to anyone, because I don't want it getting out, but I always keep some Crisco around for those rare occasions. I buy the stick version and keep them in the fridge, where they stay good for ... I don't know ... ever?
ReplyDeleteI actually now have Crisco sticks on my shopping list because I do think there was a bit of difference in the texture.
Delete