A Love Affair with Southern Cooking (60 page)

MAKES ONE
9-
INCH
, 4-
LAYER CAKE

The famous Confederate general never tasted this particular cake, for it’s one of the dozens of variations of Mrs. Lee’s Cake (see the Heirloom Recipe at left) that surfaced after the Civil War. This delicious but distinctly different version is the specialty of the historic Beaumont Inn in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, and has been ever since Annie Bell Goddard first baked it. That was nearly 100 years ago, soon after she and her husband bought a Greek Revival building (c. 1845) that had been a school for young ladies and turned it into an inn. As for the cake’s name, there’s an easy explanation for it as well as for the Lee memorabilia scattered about the inn, which Goddard descendants, the Dedmans, now run with style and grace. Annie Bell Goddard was a fan of Robert E. Lee and her cake does him proud. I ordered it for dessert when I visited the Beaumont Inn some twenty-five years ago and liked it so much that I adapted the original recipe (printed in
Beaumont Inn Special Recipes
)
for a “best of the Bluegrass” food and travel article I was writing for
Family Circle
.
This is my adaptation. Note:
When making the frosting, use the yolks of pasteurized eggs. They go in raw and though salmonella poisoning wasn’t a problem in Annie Bell Goddard’s day, it can be today (see About Pasteurized Eggs, frontmatter).

Cake

2 cups cake flour, sifted twice before it is measured

1½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

9 large eggs, separated

2 cups sugar, sifted six times

Finely grated zest of 1 large lemon

Juice of 1 large lemon

¹
/
₈
teaspoon salt

Frosting

Two 16-ounce boxes confectioners’ (10 X) sugar

½ cup (1 stick) butter, cut into slim pats and softened slightly

Finely grated zest of 3 large oranges

Finely grated zest of 2 large lemons

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

3 large pasteurized egg yolks (see Note, Chapter 6)

3 to 4 tablespoons fresh orange juice

• 1.
  For the cake: Preheat the oven to 325° F. Grease four 9-inch layer cake pans well and set aside.
  
• 2.
  Sift the flour with the baking powder and cream of tartar six times and set aside.
  
• 3.
  Beat the egg yolks in a large electric mixer bowl at high speed for about a minute until thick. Beat the sugar in gradually, then add the lemon zest and continue beating at high speed until the color and consistency of mayonnaise. This will take about 10 minutes. Beat in the lemon juice.
  
• 4.
  Sift about one fourth of the flour mixture over the yolk mixture and fold in by hand, gently but thoroughly. Repeat twice. The last of the flour mixture goes in at the end.
  
• 5.
  Beat the egg whites with the salt until stiff peaks form. Blend about one third of the beaten whites into the yolk mixture to lighten it, then scoop the remaining whites on top and fold in until no streaks of white or yellow show—easy does it. Using the lightest of touches, fold in the remaining flour mixture.
  
• 6.
  Divide the batter among the four pans and rap each lightly on the counter to expel large air bubbles.
  
• 7.
  Bake the cakes in the lower third of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until springy to the touch and a cake tester inserted halfway between the center and the rim comes out clean.
  
• 8.
  Invert the cakes on wire racks immediately but do not remove the pans. Instead, cool the cakes to room temperature in the upside-down pans. Lift off the pans and let the cakes stand for 1 hour before frosting.
  
• 9.
  For the frosting: Beat the confectioners’ sugar, butter, orange and lemon zests, lemon juice, and egg yolks until smooth and silky. Begin at low mixer speed, then gradually raise it to high as the sugar is incorporated. Finally, add just enough of the orange juice to make the frosting a good spreading consistency.
  
• 10.
  Sandwich the four cake layers together with some of the frosting, then smooth the rest over the top and sides of the cake.
  
• 11
  . Cut the cake into slim wedges and serve.
  Note:
  Because the frosting contains raw egg yolks, refrigerate any leftover cake.
  

FRESH COCONUT CAKE

MAKES ONE
9-
INCH
, 3-
LAYER CAKE

To use an old southern expression, “it grieves me” to see young southern cooks abandoning family heirloom recipes in favor of cake mixes. Especially since many of America’s classic cakes originated down south: Lady Baltimore, Lane Cake, Japanese Fruitcake. I hesitate to add coconut cake to the list, but I will say that it’s always been a southern specialty and that no one made it better than Annie Pool of Halifax County, Virginia. Her kin all call her coconut cake “the nearest thing to ambrosia.” When I interviewed Annie Pool some years ago, she shared a few secrets: Only fresh coconut put through a meat grinder would do (if she’d had a food processor, she could have saved worlds of time), but even more important, Annie Pool sprinkled the water (from inside the coconut) over each cake layer before she iced it. That explains her cake’s exceptional moistness. Note:
If you’ve never grappled with a fresh coconut, here’s how to go about it: Before you break the coconut open, loosen the meat by rap-ping the shell all over with a hammer. Next, pierce two of the coconut “eyes” drain off and reserve the coconut water. Now using the hammer, crack the coconut into manageable pieces and pry the meat from the shell. Remove the dark skin with a vegetable peeler, then rinse the coconut in cool water and pat dry on paper toweling. Finally, cut the coconut into 1-inch chunks and pulse in two-cup batches in the food processor until finely ground.

Cake

3 cups sifted all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs, separated

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon lemon extract

Reserved coconut water (see headnote)

Icing

4 cups sugar

¹¹
/
₃
cups water

3 tablespoons butter

11 cups finely ground fresh coconut (you’ll need 2 to 3 coconuts) (see Note at left)

• 1.
  For the cake: Preheat the oven to 350° F. Coat three 9-inch layer cake pans with nonstick oil-and-flour baking spray and set aside.
  
• 2.
  Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt onto a piece of wax paper and set aside.
  
• 3.
  Cream the butter in a large electric mixer bowl at high speed for 2 to 3 minutes or until light and silvery, then, with the motor running, add the sugar gradually. Continue beating for 2 to 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and beat till fluffy.
  
• 4.
  Combine the milk, vanilla, and lemon extract. With the mixer at low speed, add the sifted dry ingredients alternately with the milk mixture, beginning and ending with the dry and beating after each addition only enough to combine. Beat the egg whites to soft peaks and fold into the batter—gently—until no streaks of white or yellow remain.
  
• 5.
  Divide the batter among the three pans and bake in the lower third of the oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until the layers pull from the sides of the pans and are springy to the touch.
  
• 6.
  Cool the cake layers in their upright pans on wire racks for 10 minutes, then loosen around the edge and turn out on the racks. Cool to room temperature.
  
• 7.
  For the icing: Combine the sugar and water in a medium-size heavy saucepan and insert a candy thermometer. Set over moderate heat, stir until the sugar dissolves, then cook uncovered without stirring until the syrup reaches 232° F. Remove from the heat, drop in the butter, and cool for 20 minutes.
  
• 8.
  Meanwhile, place 8 cups of the ground coconut in a large bowl. As soon as the syrup has cooled for 20 minutes, beat for 1 minute with a hand electric mixer at high speed. Pour the syrup over the coconut in the bowl and toss well to mix.
  
• 9.
  To assemble the cake: Center one layer on a large round plate. Sprinkle with
  ¹
  /
  ₃
  cup of the reserved coconut water, then spread with the icing—not too thick—and scatter some of the remaining ground coconut on top. Repeat with the two remaining layers, pressing each firmly into place. Cover the top and sides of the cake with the remaining icing and coconut.
  Note:
  Both are crumbly, but if you press them firmly into the cake, they’ll stick.
  
• 10.
  Let the cake stand at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours before serving. To cut the cake, use your sharpest serrated knife and a gentle seesaw motion.
  

LADY BALTIMORE CAKE

MAKES A
9-
INCH
, 3-
LAYER CAKE

While researching my
American Century Cookbook
(1997), I was surprised to discover how many versions there were of this beloved southern cake. Some were white cakes, and some were yellow like the original, a variation of the popular “lady” cake of the day, said to have been created by Alicia Rhett Mayberry of Charleston. While visiting the South Carolina town he called America’s “most lovely…most wistful” in the early 1900s, novelist Owen Wister discovered the cake at the Women’s Exchange Tea Room there.
Lady Baltimore
,
he called the cake, the tea room, and his best-selling set-in-Charleston novel published in 1906. Was his
Lady Baltimore
heroine based upon Charleston belle Alicia Rhett Mayberry? Some say so. There is no denying, however, that Wister’s rhapsodizing about Lady Baltimore cake sent readers scurrying for the recipe. He writes of it as early as Chapter 1: “I should like a slice, if you please, of Lady Baltimore…Oh, my goodness!…It’s all soft, and it’s in layers, and it has nuts—but I can’t write any more about it; my mouth waters too much!” The recipe here is updated and adapted from Alicia Rhett Mayberry’s, which appears in
Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cooking
(1930), a recipe anthology assembled by Blanche S. Rhett and edited by Lettie Gay. Note:
Refrigerate any leftover cake.