Tag Archive for: southern baking

Festiveness, Stacked Up Southern Style

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Just looking at the photo of this layer cake makes me salivate. I wonder If I have the patience to create something with this many layers! If I do, trust me, I’ll post about it…right after I eat it!

THREE LAYERS? WHY BOTHER? Martha Meadows of Slocomb, Ala., with her little layer cake with boiled chocolate icing. She will make 10 of them this year.

Festiveness, Stacked Up Southern Style

IN this corner of the country, where cotton and peanuts pay the bills and the Florida border is a morning’s walk away, the worth of a cook can be measured in cake layers.

All across the South at Christmas, layer cakes parade across virtually every sideboard. But in the small towns of southeast Alabama, they are more than holiday tradition.

They’re currency, comfort and status. Everyone knows whose cakes are tender and whose consistently reach 12 layers or more.

“Three or four weren’t nothing to brag about,” said Franklin Peacock, who has been eating layer cake here since the 1930s. “Five or six is about where you’d want to start talking about your cake.”

Martha Meadows, 77, learned to bake 15-layer cakes from her mother, who cooked each layer one at a time in a cast-iron hoe-cake pan…

For the complete article from The New York Times, please click here.

Durham NC’s Watts Grocery Bakes

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Pecan-Cornmeal Butter Cakes

The New York Times April 20 Dining section has a great story about the flowering of restaurants in Durham, North Carolina (Durham, a Tobacco Town, Turns to Local Food).  When I lived there in the 1970s, the food was great, but the range of cookery was nowhere as bountiful as it is today.

Watts Grocery represents the best that Durham has to offer these days, and that’s alot –  Frommer’s gives it 5 stars:

“…this down-home eatery run by Durham native Amy Tornquist serves the best farm-fresh fare in the area. The chef-owner believes in serving the best of Piedmont produce, and every rib-sticking dish is homemade. You can get fried chicken gizzards here just like grandma used to make when she wasn’t baking those red velvet cupcakes. Sandwiches, burgers, and salads dominate the luncheon menu, featuring a fried green tomato BLT, even (our favorite) hand-cut buttermilk onion rings with a chipotle-blue cheese dipping sauce. At night it gets fancier with entrees ranging from braised rabbit in red wine to yellowtail snapper filets stuffed with crabmeat. Buttermilk pancakes and shrimp and grits highlight the breakfast menu.”

Amy gave us her recipe for Pecan-Cornmeal Butter Cakes that ran in the NY Times, and now that I have baked up a batch, I can affirm that this is a wonderful and unusual dessert that perfectly represents the new style in Southern cooking.  Enjoy making and eating them.  If you’re like me, you’re already thinking about your next trip to North Carolina to visit this restaurant!

Time: One hour, plus at least 3 hours’ cooling

9 ounces unsalted butter, plus extra for pans

1 cup pecans, toasted and cooled

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for berries (optional)

3/8 cup all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

7/8 cup white cornmeal, plus extra for pans

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

8 egg whites

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Berries, for serving

Ice cream or whipped cream, for serving.

1. In a small pan, simmer butter over low heat until light brown and toasty, 8 to 10 minutes. Strain and set aside.

2. In a food processor, rapidly pulse pecans, confectioners’ sugar and 1/4 cup granulated sugar until finely ground.

3. Sift flour and baking powder together. Mix in cornmeal and salt. Mix in pecan-sugar mixture.

4. Whisk egg whites and vanilla together just to combine and whisk into dry ingredients. Whisk in melted butter. Refrigerate batter at least three hours or overnight.

5. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Thickly butter 10 four-inch tartlet pans or a muffin-top tin. Dust well with cornmeal. Fill each a little more than halfway. If you have extra batter, make a second batch.

6. Bake until golden, 18 to 20 minutes. Cool 5 to 10 minutes in pans, then immediately turn out on a rack. Serve warm, topped with berries (if you like, stir with a little sugar and set aside for a few minutes), ice cream or whipped cream.

Yield: 8 to 12 small cakes.

Thank you Amy Tornquist and the Watts Grocery, located at 1116 Broad St, Durham, NC – call 919/416-5040 for reservations.