From the Vault: Applesauce Cake

This easy, tasty little cake is from my grandmother's Lily Wallace New American Cook Book, copyright 1946. (This is the cookbook that we feared was missing, which to our great relief, turned up at the bottom of a box of recipe clippings during last month's garage sale.)

Just the right amount of spice and moistness. Grandma's handwritten notes suggested icing it with a powdered sugar/butter/vanilla frosting and adding raisins for a dessert cake. I made it this morning with apple slices arranged on the bottom of the pan for a simple decoration when inverted. Very tasty as a coffee/breakfast cake.

Applesauce Cake

Oven to 350 degrees

1/2 cup shortening (1 stick butter)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup thick applesauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp clove
1 1/2 to 2 cups flour (I split the difference and used 1 3/4 and it turned out just right.)
1 tsp soda

Cream shortening, sugar and egg together. (It helps if all ingredients are at room temperature.)
Dissolve soda in applesauce and add. Sift salt, cinnamon and clove with part of the flour and add to the first mixture. Add enough more flour to make a fairly stiff batter. Pour into a greased (or buttered) loaf pan (I used a deep 9" round cake pan.) and bake in a moderate oven 50-60 minutes. 1 cup raisins may be added to the batter.

After buttering the pan, I added 2 sliced apples arranged in a circle, to the bottom of the pan, along with a sprinkle of brown sugar, then poured the batter in on top of the apples, spreading it out with a spatula so that the middle was slightly lower than the edges to even the cake out.

Lovely!


The sky on my way home Friday.

Any Fruit Coffee Cake

If you're up early because you couldn't sleep, because something was troubling you the night before, you'll have the time to make this coffee cake. It's a little complex, just because there are three parts to it (cake, fruit and crispy top) but in the end, it's comforting to awaken to the smell of apples and cinnamon baking in a classic coffee cake like this. Just as good the next day with afternoon tea. If you don't have time, just pour yourself a cup of coffee and make a Dutch Baby.

From one of Grandma's old cookbooks, it's called the "Any Fruit Coffee Cake".

Note: the ingredients are grouped together to save space, but the sugar, butter and flour will be divided and used in separate sections of the recipe. In case you're one of those folks who jumps ahead without thoroughly reading the recipe like I am.

1 1/2 cups chopped, peeled apples, apricots, peaches or pineapple or 1 1/2 cups blueberries, raspberries, or any other berry. I used apples.
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
6 T butter
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup buttermilk or sour milk (since I almost never have buttermilk in the house, but I almost always have yogurt, I substituted almost 1/2 cup plain yogurt thinned with enough milk to make it 1/2 cup)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon* my own addition. Optional if using fruit other than apples or pears.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Step 1: Fruit
(If using raspberries, do not simmer.)
In a saucepan combine fruit with 1/4 cup water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Cover and simmer 5 minutes (or less if you like a bit more toothsome fruit) or until tender. Combine 1/4 cup of the sugar and cornstarch. Stir into fruit mixture. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir 2 minutes more. Set aside. (This will produce that shiny, pretty stick-together fruit filling you always wondered about.)

Step 2: Cake
In a mixing bowl, stir together 1/2 cup of the sugar, the 1 1/2 cups flour, the baking powder and baking soda. Cut in 4 tablespoons of the butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Combine the egg, buttermilk (or substitute), and vanilla. Add to flour mixture. Stir until moistened. Lightly grease an 8x8x2 baking pan or equivalent round. Spread half of the batter in the pan (it will be thick, and may only make a thin layer). Spread fruit mixture over batter. Drop remaining batter in small mounds atop filling.

Step 3: Topping
Combine the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour and cinnamon. Cut in remaining 2 tablespoons of butter with a fork until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over batter. Bake in 350 degree oven 40-45 minutes or until golden and a tester comes out clean (except for fruit).

Best if left to rest a bit, but too tempting warm!

Simple Chocolate Icing

Here is the icing I used with Lucille Williams' Never Fail Cake:

Simple Chocolate Icing
(Ghirardelli's card No. 13, no date)

3/4 cup ground chocolate (I only had cocoa powder, so this is what I used)
3 tablespoons milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp butter
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients except vanilla. Cook in double boiler until it thickens, stirring constantly. Cool a bit and add flavoring.

This makes a fluid icing that forms a smooth, fudgy shell over the cake, dripping attractively down the sides until it hardens. It turned out to be just the amount of sweetness that the cake needed. I don't recommend whisking before spreading, as this caused bubbles in the icing that later popped and made my cake's surface a bit moon-like. I think it would be ok to pour this on when the cake is still a little bit warm. I encouraged drips down the side by pulling a little bit of icing away from the center with a spatula. If the icing cools too much before it's time to ice, try putting it back on the double boiler to warm, and stirring gently with a silicone spatula.

PS- While I was visiting this week, I asked Grandpa if he knew who Lucille Williams was. No clue. So while she has gone on to bigger and better things, her cake will live on via the internet.

From the Vault

Lucille Williams' "Never Fail" Cake

1/2 c cocoa powder

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c water

1/2 c butter

1 c sugar

3 egg yolks
1/2 c milk

2 c flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

add egg whites beaten dry

This recipe was among the hand-written cards in the metal White King Flour recipe box given to me by my grandmother on a recent visit. This box, and the other boxes and binder that came with it, are a treasure to me. Some of the recipes in the box are my grandmother's, some my great-grandmother's (my grandfather's mother). Others are from their friends, neighbors, newspapers and advertisements collected over many years.

When I volunteered to bring dessert to some friends' house for dinner today, I thought it would be fun to pull one from the vault and try it. Looking through the neatly filed cards, I thought of all of the women who had carefully written, typed, taped and glued the recipes together.

Lucille Williams' cake may have been "Never Fail" because she knew the recipe so well, or because back in the 30s or 40s or 50s or even 60s, whenever this recipe was placed in the box, everyone knew how to make a cake from scratch. The recipe consisted only of ingredients. No directions, not even an oven temperature. The only thing that was indicated (thank goodness) was that the first three ingredients should be cooked together.

I had all of the ingredients already without having to make a trip to the store, and I was intrigued to find out if the cake's name would hold true, so I guessed at the method and went for it.

Here is what I did: (Preheat oven to 325º)

1. Cook brown sugar, cocoa and water over low heat, stirring until smooth and melted

2. Cream butter and sugar, separate eggs and set aside whites, add yolks one at a time

3. Add chocolate mixture

4. Add dry ingredients (flour sifted and bp, bs and salt mixed in), alternating with milk

5. Beat egg whites until dry, fold into batter

6. I lightly sprayed and greased a 9" straight-sided cake pan and had a second at the ready.

Once filled, it didn't look like I could fill another whole cake pan, so I filled two 4" porcelain ramekins. This worked well for post-bake testing of the cake to make sure I didn't need to punt with a last-minute apple pie in case of cake failure.

7. Bake at 325º for approximately 50 minutes, or until a sharp knife comes out clean.

The cake was fairly moist, cocoa-y and not too sweet. I did feel that it needed a glaze or icing, so I chose one from the box as well, which I will post later.