A Cake Bakes in Brooklyn (2024)

Much to DH's dismay, the name of this delicious cake is a bit of a misnomer. It's not like this miraculously bakes in a cold oven, but it is placed in a cold oven (and then you turn the heat up to 325 degrees). As you might imagine, this is not ideal in 90 degree July temperatures. In New York City. In a house without air conditioning. Ah, the sacrifices one makes for pastry.

There seems to be a whole genre of cold oven cakes. I have many in my collection; most are from the 1920s, 30s and 40s. I selected this one because I found two cards, each written in a different hand, each bearing this exact recipe. Cold oven cakes go against the prevailing baking chemistry that the batter needs to be placed in a hot oven so that it can properly rise. Baking powder, for example, reacts with heat to help raise the cake. But this cake has no leavening in it -- save for the beaten egg whites folded in at the end. Yet, rise it did.

The key to easy cake and cookie baking is having the butter at room temperature. This way, you (or your mixer) need not fight with it, but instead beam with pride as it whips easily, smoothly blending with the sugar. (Of course, I just this minute realized that I misread the recipe and used just two instead of three sticks of butter.* I also mistakenly used the skim milk instead of whole milk. I even can't blame the heat of the preheating oven for clouding my judgement.)

Even if I was a stick short of butter, the five egg yolks added a rich texture to the cake.

Although this recipe doesn't mention it, I'd advise greasing and flouring the pan. It makes releasing the cake so much easier, and practically eliminates the possibility that you'll be scooping out chunks of stuck cake from the pan. If that should happen, as it did to me once during a dinner party, simply put the cake pieces in large wine goblets, and spoon fruit or chocolate sauce over them and pretend this was your intention all along.

Most tube pan cakes are turned out from the pan and served as is, so that the cake at the bottom of the pan becomes the top. But, as you can see (above), the cake looked upside down when I did that, so I just flipped it over (below), to create a more pleasing presentation. Don't be afraid to buck convention and flip your cake.

This was an absolutely wonderful cake, with a dense texture and nice, subtle flavor reminiscent of Sara Lee pound cake, only far better as homemade cake tends to be. I can't imagine how much this cake will rock when I make it again -- using the right amount of butter and whole milk. I look forward to turning on the oven for this cold oven cake -- as soon as it's November!

*This recipe, like so many others, calls for Oleo, but I always use unsalted butter.

The recipe called for butterscotch chips, but having none on hand at 11 p.m.when I made these, I substituted chocolate chips. I also bought some sort of yuppie gourmet potato chips, which I wouldn't recommend for this. Stick with something basic.

These couldn't be easier to make, especially if you start with room temperature butter. It's fun to crush the potato chips; just put them in a plastic bag and smash with a rolling pin or wine bottle.

A Father's Day request by DH (a terrific dad to our children) and beautiful blueberries at the farmer's market meant just one thing -- a homemade blueberry pie for dessert last Sunday.

Determined to find a recipe on a hand-written card, I went through hundreds in my collection and turned up NONE! I came to realize that blueberry pies are so simple, that no one bothered to record the recipe; to those housewives in the first half of the 20th century, it would be akin writing instructions for boiling water. So I did what any self-respecting c. 1940s housewife would do -- I used common sense and put together a delicious pie.

I used my go-to crust (2.5 c. flour, one tsp. each salt and sugar, one stick of butter and 6 tbsp. of leaf lard, and about five tbsp. ice water) and rolled out the dough for an eight-inch pie. I rinsed the blueberries, put them in a bowl and coated them with a bit of flour. I added some sugar, maybe 3/4 cup, some tapioca for good measure (perhaps about 2 tbsp.), squeezed a lemon over the berries and placed in the unbaked pie crust. For good measure, I dotted the pie with a generous amount of unsalted butter.

Let's just say that this was so good, that in some ways I'd wished I'd recorded the recipe exactly. However, I do like being part of the tradition that embraces the notion that making pie is as easy as pie and baking is indeed an art sometimes (and not a science). And the good news for my readers is, if I can do it, you can too!

Sometimes, the most promising things in life turn out to be the most disappointing. And so it was with this Double Fudge.

The recipe looked amazing -- a two-layer bar candy whose ingredients are chocolate, heavy cream, sugar, butter and nuts. And all cooked in a single saucepan. What could be better? My mouth was watering as I prepared the bottom layer, even though I could sense not all was going well. The mixture seemed a bit too grainy and the instructions to cook for seven minutes were a bit cryptic. Should I stir the entire time, do I start timing after the butter melts, how high should I make the flamewere just some of my unanswered questions.

I especially wanted to make this because I'm reading a fascinating new book, The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins, which chronicles the rivalry between William Randolph Heart's New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The Double Fudge recipe is from The New York Evening Telegram Cook Book published in 1908.

The bottom layer was ok. But the top layer was a disaster -- it somehow seized in the pan, turning into a sandy mess instead of the smooth caramel topping I was expecting. Still, in the face of disappointment, I continued on hoping for the best. But it was not to be.

I let the candy cool after I somehow managed (using an offset spatula and a lot of force) to spread the top layer.

But when I tried to cut it into squares, it mostly crumbled and fell apart; the two layers had an almost reverse magnetic force and seemed to repel one another. Plus, between the odd texture and the EXTREME sweetness (and I like sweet), it was unpleasant to eat. Luckily I had another dessert to serve for Father's Day dinner, a blueberry pie, the subject of a future post.

But never one to let disappointment have the final word, I plan to research and apply more modern-day candy making techniques to this diamond-in-the-rough recipe. Sometimes, when things don't work out as we plan, we're reluctant to throw good sugar after bad and walking away seems the easiest path. But, with attention and nurture and compromise, almost every problem (in baking and in life) can be solved. And the reward is perfectly sweet and rich. And sometimes, with luck, the best ever.

It's June, and I should be making all sorts of desserts with local strawberries and rhubarb, but I found myself with a very ripe pineapple -- and an intriguing c. 1950s recipe for upside down cake.

Fresh pineapple makes this dessert exceptionally delicious. I used a biscuit cutter to remove the core after I cut the fruit into 1/2 inch slices. And, as you can see in the picture at top, I used the extra pieces of pineapple in place of themaraschinocherries which, while colorful, are full of quite undesirable chemicals. (Full disclosure: I was actually saving my cherries for ice cream sundaes.)

Although the recipe (below) called for a cast iron skillet, I don't have one at the moment. I've had many, many in my life, but no matter what I do, they end up rusting, even after I follow all the seasoning directions. I didn't even have luck with one of the new-fangled pre-seasoned cast iron skillets. So, I just used a regular old frying pan, and the cake worked beautifully.

Unlike many recipes for upside down cake, this one called for separating the eggs and beating the egg whites with sugar into a meringue. This is an extra step and one that requires using another bowl and set of beaters, but the results are worth it.

The cake puffed up a lot (by the time I took this photo, it had settled a bit) in the oven, but it slipped out of the pan beautifully. Just put the serving plate upside down atop the cake and flip. And, in the picture at top, you can see that, despite not using cast iron, the top was caramelized.

You may notice that there's some liquid on the plate and I attribute that to the fact that I removed the cake from the oven ten minutes early because I wanted to get to a protest rally against the recent staff cuts and closings at the South Street Seaport Museum. So even though I thought I was sacrificing my cake for a higher cause (read about the Museum's struggles here), it turned out quite well. I only pray for the Museum to enjoy the same good fortune.

On Sunday, after a lively visit with DH's mother at "the institution" as she calls the assisted living residence where she lives, we stopped for dinner at Don Pepe II, a restaurant in New Jersey we'd passed many times.

This Spanish restaurant specializes in seafood (always a challenge for DH who is deathly allergic to shellfish), and everything was delicious.

I was quite looking forward to dessert, as always, but my heart sank when the waiter brought the menu. Listed at the top was a cliche of mediocre desserts, the kind I suspect were made in an Iowa factory six months earlier and shipped frozen to restaurants throughout the country. But then -- much to my delight -- below that list was one that said "Home Made Desserts." Bingo!

After a lengthy discussion with our waiter, I ordered the cherries jubilee (pictured above) and it was so fabulous, that even though I'd promised myself I'd just have a taste, I devoured the whole thing. (I did *allow* DH a few bites, however.)

I adore puddings so was thrilled to discover this c. 1950s recipe for rhubarb pudding, especially since I had just bought a gorgeous bunch of the red stalks at the farmer's market. So with great anticipation, I prepared the recipe. But what emerged from the oven wasn't pudding, but something else entirely, proving the axiom that one generation's pudding is another's cobbler.

Among the challenges of baking from old recipe cards is interpreting instructions across a generation (or two or three) and "blind" baking (i.e., there's never a glossy photo so one can see the final product). In fact, some of the recipes don't even have a title or instructions, but are simply a list of ingredients on a scrap of paper or a card, leaving me to wonder if I'm following a recipe or "baking" someone's shopping list.

Having said that, this "pudding" was absolutely delicious, and had the very high crust-to-fruit ratio prized by many. Do try this at home. If you don't believe me, just ask Karin and Jim, pictured below, who are very enthusiastic (and honest) eaters.

Chop up the rhubarb into about a 1/4 inch dice, below.

Combine it with the pineapple tidbits in an 8-inch pan.

Mix the pudding batter (sugar, eggs, flour and lemon juice) and pour over the fruit.

The topping is prepared like pie crust, so I used my food processor to make quick work of cutting the fat into the flour.

Sprinkle the topping on the fruit and pudding mixture and bake. And voila -- in under an hour you'll have a unique (in this century, at least) rhubarb dessert.

Jim and Karin enjoying some dessert. Note the large bottle of raspberry wine (aka "hootch") they brought over.