Ube Pound Cake

I ran across a recipe for an ube pound cake online. Now, as with so many things online, especially recipes, a lot of people post them without any attribution, which kind of sucks because when someone posts a recipe, they are happy to share it, they just don't you reposting it on your site without the slightest thank you. 

Over at Asian in America, Betty Ann posted her recipe for an ube pound cake. It was really cool and pretty unique -- the "pound" part not the "ube" part. When she got ready to make this cake, and even though it was a very original idea, she used another pound cake recipe on which to base her cake. She used a recipe from Nancie McDermott's cookbook Southern Cakes and she credited it!

Many years ago, over at Cookbook Of The Day, we did a post about a White Fruitcake. The recipe is credited to Eudora Welty, though Miss Eudora was always quick to point out that she stole the recipe. And speaking of Southern cakes, Miss Eudora's stolen recipe also found its way into McDermott's Southern Cakes. 

I made my ube pound cake in a Lucinda's Wood Cake Box, so I tweaked the recipe a bit.  I would have never made it if my friend, Jurry, hadn't dropped what she was doing to head over to the Filipino market to score my ube. I made the above cake and a spare to send out to Jurry.

One cannot always find a clear attribution to recipes.  I often see MY cornbread recipe printed in many places and I can assure you it is the same cornbread recipe my great-great-on-and-on grandmother made. It's even the same skillet!  So it is mine. People are always writing books on where this or that recipe came from. Go ahead, ask a Southerner the exact origin of the Red Velvet Cake.  Everyone thinks they know...

I think recipes are a lot like songs. You sing them in the kitchen, and sometime you sing louder, and sometime you sing slower, and sometime you have to look up the words, and the vast majority of the time you sing it, even if you didn't write it. But if you do know where a recipe comes from, say thanks.

So join in the chorus:

Click on over to Asian in America for her recipe.

Buy yourself a copy of Southern Cakes, for good recipes and even better stories.

Make friends with Jurry, or another Filipino to help you find unique ingredients

Always bake extra and remember, you are never in the kitchen alone.

Coo Day Ta

i am taking over this blog.  From now on it will be Teddyville.

 It's coup d'état!  Learn to use spell check!  And you are not taking over.

But i sneeked in under the cover of darkness with my cat-eye-vision because you are not posting...


Teddy should know the reason. Bless his little heart for trying to get me engaged. A blog should be a fun place where you learn things. Not just how cute cats are (they are!) or about your kids or your grand kids or your kitchen or whatever.   Reading a blog should be fun, educational, and interesting.  Not pitiful and sad. So during our pitiful periods, we simply do not post.

Here at Lucindaville we are having a continuation of our sucky year and frankly, you do not want to hear about it. Fine. The entire month of May we had water issues. While I am convinced that nothing would stop me from surviving the zombie apocalypse, I can assure you that not washing my hair would be the end of me.

I can live through hot temperatures.

Cold temperature.

No Internet, though I would be very cranky.

No television, though I would miss Gilmore Girls reruns...and NCIS.

No overhead lighting.

I could even go for days, weeks, months wearing the same jeans and sweatshirt...as long as I could wash my hair.

No shampoo. No conditioner. No life.

It is a pretty tacky thing to state given that hundreds of thousands of people die each year for lack of clean water and I bitch about my hair. So actually, my life could be exponentially worse. However,  in a month without laundry...I was faced the prospect of a closet with one old prom dress, a tattered tutu, and bleach stained Harley shirt. While I would have turned nary a head at ye ole Walmart, the prospect of blogging in a bright orange prom dress with dirty hair was simply inconceivable.

As June dawns, all appears to be working again.  We have water on a consistent basis. The washer (repaired after breaking during a late spring snow) and the new dryer (the old one died the day AFTER the washer was fixed) have us flush with clean clothes.

And, yes, it would be very funny if it wasn't me.  In keeping with that, one last "woe is me tale."

While being without water to properly wash dishes, I managed to drop a nearly full jar of coconut oil.  The good news is the oil was rather solid, so while the glass broke into a hundred pieces, the oil kept the jar close by.  I set it in a bowl and it sat on the counter for weeks.  When I got water, I decided to wash the bowl and dispose of the coconut oil. 

I took my mother's old Tupperware colander that has been around the kitchen since before I was born and dumped the glass and oil in it and set it out in the sun to separate oil from glass. In my excitement over having mounds of clean clothes, I forgot it was outside.  During the night, a raccoon stole my colander.  This colander had survived at least twenty moves, three generations of cooks, and my carelessness in leaving it on a hot stove resulting and lima bean sized hole that had to be plugged with finger when washing lentils.

A raccoon stole my colander!  This is my life.

So, if you see a raccoon running around with an old, green Tupperware colander, it's probably mine. Tell him I want it back!

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

You may thing you know nothing of Tennessee Williams' life, but if you have even a vague understanding of popular culture, you know an awful lot about Williams.  It is virtually impossible to extricate the life of Tennessee Williams from his work.  Any biographer will admit this fact and delve into the man to explain the work. John Lahr in his book Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, did the opposite; he looked at Williams' work to explain the man.

If Tennessee Williams is one of the leading dramatists of the last of 75 years, John Lahr is one of the leading drama critic and uniquely qualified to unravel the work to find the artist.  In addition to the plays that are ingrained in American culture, Lahr was the first biographer to be allowed to look at diaries, letters, journals, and other ephemera.

Williams made it very clear that Lyle Leverich was to be his biographer, alas his literary executor, Maria St. Just, refused to allow Leverich to quote from letters or journals.  In 1995 he published Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams, the first volume of the two-volume biography.  When Leverich died, he left his archive to John Lahr.   Lahr once famously said that Maria St. Just, "was neither a lady nor a saint nor just."  Upon her death, the flood gates of Williams' material became available and Lahr was privy to the information.

With all this information, Lahr turned the tables looking at Williams' life within his work.  The biography reads like an extended Tennessee Williams play.  Lahr has seen and studied enough plays to brilliantly understand drama and he brings all the drama, trauma, and comedy of Williams life alive. In addition to a wide cast of supporting characters, the book is filled with photographs.  The photos alone illustrate vast history of the American stage.

While its style is a bit unusual and it is quite long, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh is a worthy binge read.

Lilac Syrup

 Every year I have that same day.  I walk out into the yard and discover this, sweet, cloying small that makes me think I dropped a bag of sugar somewhere.  Then I notice the blossoms on the lilac bush and remember that sweet smell emanates from those white petals.  Several years ago, I harvested those blossoms and made a lilac jamely.   I loved it. 

This year, I harvested the flowers and made a simple syrup.  While it was, in preparation terms, a true simple syrup, it was in culinary terms a complex and vibrant syrup; sweet, aromatic, and slightly floral.  A perfect accompaniment to cocktails, an added jolt to ices tea, a surprising glaze for chicken, and so much more.

 Lilac Syrup

4 cups prepared lilac blossoms
2 cups sugar
2 cups water


To get to this point, one needs to pick the flowering buds off their stalks.  It is time consuming as any hint of the green will leave a bitterness that distracts from the sweetness.  It a job that can be done by hand, of if delft, a pair of sharp embroidery scissors.  To make approximately one quart for syrup, you will need four cops of lilac leaves.  Pack them down to insure a good four cups.  Place them in an sealable container and add 2 cups of sugar and leave them over night.  (It is fine to leave the container sitting out, but should you get distracted and find you need an extra day or two before making the syrup, place the container in the refrigerator. )  When you are ready to make the syrup, put the lilacs and sugar into a large pot, add 2 cups of water and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Cover and let steep for several hours.  Into a large glass container or bowl, pour the now cooled syrup through a strainer lined with cheesecloth to remove the solids.  Discard the solids.  Store the lilac syrup in the refrigerator

Another great use for lilac syrup is as a base for sorbet.  Blues berries, cantaloupe, honeydew, or my favorite, raspberries.

Raspberry Lilac Sorbet

1 1/2 cups lilac syrup
2 cups fresh raspberries

In a blender add the raspberries and the syrup.  Blend for about 45 seconds.  Place the mixture into an ice cream freezer and follow the manufacturer's directions.

Think about it, the world is a better place with flowers in it.  And so is your sorbet.

Famous Food Friday -- Zora Neale Hurston

Hurston in Eau Gallie

Today's Famous Food Friday features Zora Neale Hurston.  Hurston was so much more than a novelist; she was a writer, folklorist, activist, and anthropologist. Most people might remember Hurston from reading Their Eyes Were Watching God in school, but know little else. If one were ask Hurston, she would have said she was born and raised in Eatonville, Florida, but in truth, she is an Alabama girl, born in Notasulga.  Since she was just a child when the family moved to Eatonville, she probably had little memory of Alabama. Her favorite spot may have been Eau Gallie, Florida where she wrote to friend,  "Somehow this one spot on earth feels like home for me. I have always intended to come back here. That is why I'm doing so much to make a go of it."

For Hurston, home was Florida.  In his book, Zora Neale Hurston on Florida Food, Professor Fred Opie delves into Hurston's early twentieth-century ethnographic research to examine the food of Florida that appears in her writing.  A graduate in anthropology, Hurston conducted ethnographic research with Franz Boas and worked with both Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead.  After her death, Hurston's papers were ordered to be burned, but a friend happened to pass by the house and stopped, put out the fire and saved the collection.

Fred Opie has studied Hurston's ethnographic research and her literary works to look specifically through the lens of food. The book is loaded with historical photos that bring the period to life. There are fields of collards, enormous barbecue pits, chicken frying, church picnic, and advertising encouraging the consumption of lots of corn.

He augments Hurston's writings on food with a collection of recipes belonging to Hurston and to the African-American community from traditionally black newspapers and other period cookbooks. Opie spends special attention to the descriptions of how foods were cooked whether braised or barbecued, smoked or fried. There is also an emphasis on traditional ingredients such as cornmeal, fish, and rice and peas along with folk remedies Hurston collected. Many of the farm laborers and sawmill workers had little or no access to doctors or medical attention so plant based cures were common among workers.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog and his mind deteriorates from the infection. He needs a doctor but the closest one is in Palm Beach and there is no way for Tea Cake to be saved.  In her research, Hurston came across a remedy for "Loss of Mind."

Loss of Mind Remedy

Sheep weed leaves
Bay leaf
Fig leaf
Poison oak
Sarsaparilla root
2 cups water

Take the bark and cut it all up fine. Make a tea. Take one tablespoon and put in two cups of water and strain and sweeten.  You drink some and give some to the patient. Put a fig leaf and poison oak in show.  (Get fig leaves off a tree that hasn't borne fruit.  Stem them so that nobody will know.)

 We may make a big jug of this and keep it handy!

We collect cookbooks not just for a collection of recipes, but because they root us in a specific time and place. What we eat is embedded in our lives and history.  It reveals who we are.  Zora Neale Hurston's life can be found in the food of her beloved Florida.  We might never have known that if not for Fred Opie.

Beth's Gluten Free Carrot Cake

I sent my friend, Beth Ellis a Lucinda's Wood Cake Box. Though she claimed not to be the greatest baker (great cook yes!) she said she had a recipe to try. 

Later she sent me a photo (see above) and said it looked OK, she would tell me later if it was any good. If it was she would forward the recipe. Frankly, if I had just pulled that cake out of the oven, I would have cut into it way too soon and tried it! Later, I got and e-mail stating it was wonderful -- hence the name.  So here it is.

Wonderfully Magnificent Gluten Free Carrot Cake
Makes 1 large cake
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 2 hours 45 minutes

Parchment paper and Butter for greasing the pan

3 cups All Purpose Gluten free Flour
1 Teaspoon baking powder
¾ Teaspoon baking soda
¾ Teaspoon fine sea salt
2 Teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ Teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ Teaspoon ground all spice
2 cups light brown sugar
½ cup white granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon Qia cereal or chia seeds
5 large eggs at room temperature
1 ¼ cups vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 lb. carrots, trimmed and peeled and coarsely grated on the largest holes of a box grater or on the grating blade of a food processor.
½ cup raisins
½ cup chopped walnuts

For the Frosting:
4 oz. cream cheese
4 oz. salted butter
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar
4 oz. chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit inside the baking dish.  Butter the paper well then put back in the cake pan.

Measure then Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the brown sugar and white sugar and the Qia cereal or chia seeds and beat on the lowest speed to break up any lumps. Add the oil slowly while the mixer is running. Add 1 egg and continue to mix on low until smooth and incorporated. Shut off the mixer and scrape down the bowl and paddle.

Add the flour mixture in 3 batches, using a large rubber spatula to fold the mixture together until just incorporated. Fold in the carrots, along with the nuts and raisins, if using.
Pour batter into a 9 by 9 deep-dish cake pan.  Bake for 2 hours 45 minutes.

Directions For the Frosting:

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the cream cheese and butter and beat on medium until smooth, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Shut off the mixer and scrape down the bowl and paddle. Add the cinnamon and vanilla.  Add the confectioners sugar 1 cup at a time and beat on low to medium speed, scraping down the bowl and paddle as necessary, until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Stir in the walnuts.
Frost the cake!

Well, Beth confided that she never did frost her cake (as she is busily getting lean and mean) but I would go on and frost it as I am simply getting mean!

Thanks, Beth.

Has Spring Sprung?

Lovely flowers form the yard.  Today I found my most skittish cat, Treat, noshing on something in the floor.  I found one of the flowers, carefully removed from the vase and about to become a snack.  I caught him in time and the flowers were set on a high shelf.  Treat got a different treat. 

Yes, I think it might just be Spring.

Happy Easter

It was almost warm enough to eat outside.  But quite windy.  

There were the obligatory deviled eggs.

 

We made Bloody Mary aspic eggs with ramp pesto and chevre .

And cornbread eggs topped with a spread of country ham and pickled okra.

Chocolate Pound Cake

As you know, from my post about my Southern sojourn, I returned with Cruze Buttermilk. I had one thing on my mind -- pound cake. The very first thing I remember being cooked for me in the old wood cheese box was chocolate poundcake.

Six years ago, the New York Times published Cheri Cruze's recipe for Buttermilk Poundcake.  My friend, Anne, used her baking box to make one.

One rainy afternoon, I found my mother's old recipe box and rooted around until I came across my old recipe. It was on a piece of crumbling paper, written in my big, loopy juvenile hand. One the back was the recipe for 7 Minute Frosting, the usual frosting my great aunts used on this cake.  It had been violently scratched out and replaced with a 4 Minute Chocolate Frosting.

I started out, convinced that I had everything I needed, until I reached for the sugar jar and found it empty.  I am not a big cookie maker.  All the cookies I make and therefore eat revolve around the chocolate chip/chunk/peanut butter combination.  Since most of those recipes call for a combination of white and brown sugar, I keep a jar of premixed sugar.  That saved the cake.

When I got ready for the ganache (in lieu of 4 Minute Chocolate Frosting) I realized there was no sweet milk. There was a can of evaporated milk leftover from Thanksgiving pie making.  I was a bit skimpy on the ganache.  I really like it to be a thick covering of chocolate and this batch was a little slim.

This recipe has a scant 1/2 cup of cocoa, so the cake is not overtly chocolate. Which is why I like a thick gaunach on the top!  But it is quite good. Pound cake, like fruit cake needs to be cooked low and slow. The nice thing about pound cake is that it will keep for quite some time if you store it in an air-tight cake tin. Here is the recipe.  Be sure to check you larder BEFORE you crack all the eggs to make sure you have everything you need.

While I cooked this in my Wood Cake Box, the low oven is recommend even if you use a a Bundt pan or angle food cake pan.  In a pan with a center hole, the cooking time will be about an hour and a half.  In the cake box, it can take fifteen to twenty minutes longer.

Chocolate Pound Cake

3 cups AP flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups sugar
2 sticks butter
5 eggs
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 300F.

In a medium bowl, sift the dry ingredients together.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until bright yellow, about 4 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating till incorporated after each addition. Add the vanilla.  Alternate the buttermilk and the dry ingredients in three batches, ending with the flour.

Bake for 1 hour 45 minutes.   You want the cake to puff up and the top to crack just a bit.  A toothpick inserted in the cake should come out clean.

I think it needed another 1/4 inch of ganache!  But it was exactly as I remember it -- sans billowy white meringue icing.

This Needs To Stop

Yes, it is just, as the say on the weather report, a dusting, but come on!  When we first posted about the daffodils coming up, my BFF Beverly informed me they were crocus.  If they were squash, we would have recognized them.

We are expecting another "dusting" Thursday night.  Sunday is Easter.  Let's get this over with!