Tag Archive for: southern food

All the Buzz- Caramel Cake

/2 Comments/in /by

I read the book, “The Help” when it first came out and absolutely loved it!  I have not had a chance to see the movie, but it is on the long long to do list.  However, I have had a chance to sample the actual Caramel Cake that was featured in the movie which is clearly the most important part!  The cakes in the movie were provided by Caroline’s Cakes in Annapolis, MD.  She is a native of Charleston, SC and will hopefully be opening a shop here soon!  Her bakery is centered around her Caramel Cakes, and they are phenomenal!!  She has over 120,000 people on her list that order them every year!  She obviously keeps this recipe pretty well guarded, so I am going to post another and quite tasty recipe for a Caramel Cake that comes from Eudora Garrison’s Favorite Carolina Recipes.   Eduora Garrison was food critic and editor for the Charlotte Observer.

Caramel Cake

1/3 cup plus 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar, divide and use
1/3 cup boiling water
3/4 cup butter
3 eggs
3 cups sifted cake flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Melt the one-third cup of sugar in a heavy skillet, stirring constantly until a deep-brown syrup is formed- a process called caramelization.
Remove from heat and slowly stir in boiling water, being careful that steam does not burn your hand. Set the syrup aside to cool.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease two 9-inch cake pans, place parchement paper in the bottoms, then grease and flour the cottoms and sides.
Cream butter in bowl with electric mixer. Add 1 and 1/4 cups sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating until each is well incorporated.
Stir in 4 tablespoons of the reserved syrup.
Sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt.
Combine milk and vanilla.
Add flour mixture to the batter alternately with the milk mixter, beginning and endin with the four mixture. Beat until smooth.
Divide batter evenly among the two prepared pans and bake for 25 minutes, or until wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove pans from oven and let stand about 10 minutes, then turn out cakes onto wire rack, peel off paper and cool completely.

Caramel Frosting

3 cups (light) brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons half and half
1/2 stick of butter (4 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Mix sugar and half and half in a heavy saucepan and cook, stirring over low heat until syrup reaches the soft-ball stage,
235 degrees on a candy thermometer. If lacking a thermometer, check doneness by dropping a tiny bit of syrup into a cup of cold water. When the syrup can be gathered up in fingers and will almost hold its shape, it has reached the soft-ball stage.
Remove pan from heat.
Stir in butter, then let syrup cool.
Add vanilla and beat until frosting reaches spreading consistency. A little cream (or half and half) may be add if mixture is too thick.

Cheerwine Cake- who knew cooking with soda could be so good!!

/0 Comments/in /by

This past week was the first week of third grade for my 8 year old son, Walker.  As a, “yay school is back in session” celebration, I decided to try a new recipe I was sent by The 1861 Farmhouse Restaurant in Valle Crusis, NC.  They just added this cake to the menu and were so generous to share the recipe with us!!  It is a Cheerwine Cake, and it is amazing!!  My mother has a recipe for a Sprite pound cake, and I have a recipe for apple fritters using Mountain Dew, but this was the first I had heard of baking with Cheerwine.  Needless to say, I think the people at the 1861 Farmhouse Restaurant are incredibly smart.  For more of their yummy goodness, go check out their restaurant at www.1861farmhouse.com.   Here is the recipe and a picture of how it turned out.  I didn’t use the nuts in the icing because I don’t like them, but I would think that if you did, it would be delicious.

Cheerwine Cake

1 box chocolate cake mix
1 cup Cheerwine
1 tsp. almond extract

Icing:
1/3 cup Cheerwine
21/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup margarine
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup cocoa

Directions

Prepare cake as directed on box, except substitute the water for the Cheerwine. Add almond extract, mix well. Pour into greased bundt pan.

Icing: 

Heat Cheerwine, margarine and cocoa until it comes to a boil. Pour mixture over powdered sugar, blend til smooth. Stir in almond extract and mix in nuts. Let cool, pour over cake.

Sour Cream Blueberry Cake

/0 Comments/in /by

We used to have blueberry bushes on the hill at my grandmother’s mountain house, and it was so marvelous to have blueberry pie, blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins etc. all from blueberries that we had picked that morning.  The bushes have unfortunately gone away, but I still have kept my love for blueberry treats.  I came across an old recipe for a Sour Cream Blueberry Cake that is delectable.  If you decide to make it, please let me know what you think!!

Sour Cream Blueberry Cake

1 stick butter
1 cup of sugar
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup blueberries

Directions

Beat the butter, sugar and eggs together until the sugar is dissolved, and it is a light creamy mixture.
Then add the vanilla.  Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.
Add half of the dry ingredients to the mix then half of the sour cream and stir.
Then add the remaining dry ingredients and sour cream and stir.
Pour half of the batter into a large greased and floured pan.
Cover with blueberries and top with remaining batter.
Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.  Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and enjoy!!

Cracked Pepper and Cheddar Cheese Biscuits

/6 Comments/in , /by

I am not sure what is better than waking up on a crisp summer morning in the mountains to homemade cracked pepper and cheddar cheese biscuits. I found a wonderful recipe in the Charleston City Paper from Robert F. Moss who has a fantastic blog! We have tweaked it a little bit to add the cracked pepper and cheddar, which so far is my favorite combination, but earlier in the week we tried bacon and cheddar and jalapenos and cheddar, which were also delicious!

Biscuits

2 cups flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 t baking soda
1/3 cup of cold butter
3/4 cup of buttermilk
1 tablespoon of cracked pepper
1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Directions

First, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl and mix together.

Next, cut in the butter- it is important to use cold butter. Cover the butter lumps with flour and squeeze them between your fingers to break them down into smaller bits and rub the butter into them. What is left in the bowl looks like broken crumbs.

Stir in the buttermilk and mix up the dough until the liquid is all absorbed by the flour.

At this point, you add the cheese and pepper or whatever combination you choose.

With your hands, knead and shape the dough until all the flour is worked in and the dough is of a single consistency.
It should be still be slightly sticky to the touch, but not so sticky that it clings to your hands and the side of the bowl.

Now you’re ready to roll out the biscuits

Profiteroles. Enough said.

/0 Comments/in /by

Yep, more from the mistress of the delectable Southern Coconut Cake (The Cake Slice)

Profiteroles

Recipe here

“…Pate a choux, the basis for these profiteroles, cream puffs, eclairs, and gougères, is a dough that is first cooked on the stove, then piped on a baking sheet. Once in the oven, this magical dough transforms into light and airy pastry puffs that are just slightly crisp on the outside and almost hollow in the middle…”

For the complete and totally amazing recipe for making your own profiteroles that will blow everyone you know away and cause them to worship you wholeheartedly and for all eternity, please click here.

(How, you may ask, are profiteroles Southern? Well, let’s just say that they’ve been makin’ them down South since the 1800’s.)

Benne Wafers with Blueberries and Cream

/0 Comments/in , /by

I can’t keep my surfing fingers off of “A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen” – here’s yet another recipe hot off that delicious spot in the bloggosphere:

I think you may agree that benne wafers with blueberries and cream sounds like the most delicious summer treat ever conceived. Also, benne wafers are extremely Southern!

facebook link

By Kim Morgan

A “Benne” seed is the old Southern name for “sesame” seeds. They were brought to the Lowcountry in 1769 by African slaves. They are still called Benne seeds to this day in the South, and frankly I would be surprised if that ever changes. It is part of the charm of the South. Southerners hold fast to traditions, refusing to budge, especially when it comes to food and entertaining. This is something we all can be grateful for, especially if you have the chance to try these wonderful buttery morsels.

Legend says that eating Benne seeds will bring you luck and good fortune. I am not one who subscribes to the notion of luck. Instead I prefer to hold to the belief that, “there are no coincidences” and that Benne seeds and the good fortune from eating them, are simply another of God’s great blessings.

There are countless ways to make Benne wafers and you will find that no two recipes are alike…

 

Bring It On: Blue Cheese Pecan Bread!

/1 Comment/in /by

There’s been a lot of sweet stuff on here lately and so it’s high time for some savory. Kim Morgan writes about food on her blog A Yankee In a Southern Kitchen and here is yet another brilliant Southern delight from her long list:

Wanting a change of scenery and something savory to smell in the house and only having an hour to do the trick, I opted to make this bread, which I have had my eye on for some time. It is a snap to make; the house smelled wonderful all morning, and my daughter adored this bread. It is a light bread in texture and the flavor is very interesting, you don’t expect the blue cheese and pecans inside which are paired with crushed pepper on the top of the bread…

For the recipe (not to be missed!) and many, many excellent southern food articles and recipes, please visit A Yankee In a Southern Kitchen, here.

Lavender and Vanilla a Go Go!

/0 Comments/in /by

A Southern Peach Cobbler Recipe with a Lavender and Vanilla Twist

Cobbler and the South are like bread and butter, peas and carrots, hook ‘em and horns, and other natural combination. This is not to say that they don’t have cobbler in the North, but when I think of the many ubiquitous foods in my Southern heritage, cobbler is a stand out. When I was growing up our family would visit Tennessee and South Carolina with stops along the way in Georgia to acquire bushels (or maybe pecks) of peaches that we’d take home to El Paso to peel and freeze. And while those carefully stored peaches would find their way into other dishes, their main reason for finding their way half way across the country was as filling for cobbler. There’s just nothing quite like a peach cobbler overflowing with juicy, ripe peaches, particularly when the preaches are so sweet they don’t even need more than a pinch of sugar. Of course Texas isn’t too shabby in the peach department either…

For the recipe and complete post from Fete & Feast (and for their food blogger’s guide to Austin!) please click here.

Sweet Tea Made Simple

/0 Comments/in /by

Let’s put aside baking for just a moment (put aside what?, you say) – yes – yes – we simply must switch our focus for just a moment to…

Sweet Tea.

And let’s not fool ourselves, sweet tea is the perfect summer partner for anything else made Southern. Is there such a thing as too much sweetness? We think not.

On the Plate: Iced Tea in an Instant
By CAROLYN MAYNARD-PARISI

“For those unfamiliar with this supremely Southern invention, sweet tea is a staple of Southern kitchens. And let me tell you, when they say “sweet” down there they do not lie. Some recipes call for enough sugar to make a spoon stand up on its own…Make homemade iced tea instantly with some concentrate, a little simple syrup and lots of lemon.”

Read the rest of this piece on sweet tea from The New York Times, here.

Some Southern Wisdom: Cake for Breakfast

/1 Comment/in , /by

From a graceful little blog called A Southern Grace, comes a tasty recipe for Crumb Cake. This is the kind of cake you have for breakfast when you’re feeling like cake for breakfast is exactly the perfect thing (and we think it often is.)

Crumby Crumb Cake

(based on this recipe, which is based on this recipe – but all our credit goes to Grace from A Southern Grace for this one.)

Crumbs:
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Cake:
1/3 cup vanilla yogurt, low fat
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
To make the crumbs, in a large bowl, stir together the sugars, cinnamon, salt and butter until smooth. Stir in the flour with a spatula. It should look like a solid dough. Pat it down and set it aside.
To prepare the cake, in a small bowl, stir together the yogurt, eggs, and vanilla. In a larger bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the softened butter and a spoonful of the yogurt mixture and mix until flour is moistened. Add the remaining yogurt mixture in two batches, beating after each addition and scraping down the sides of bowl with a spatula. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the blueberries over the batter. Using your fingers, break the topping mixture into big crumbs, about 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch in size. Sprinkle the lovely crumbs over the blueberries. Bake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean of batter, 45 to 55 minutes. Cool completely before serving.