Square Cake with a Round Hole

by Sheila Connolly

I told you I went to Vermont recently. While I was there I went antiquing. I came back with (you guessed it!) more vintage cookware. It’s an addiction.

But who could resist a square pan with a tube in the middle? I didn’t have one (who on earth does?), and I paid three dollars for it. So I brought it home, and then I had to take it for a test drive.

I went searching through the cookbook collection and pulled out Heirloom Baking, by the delightful Brass Sisters, and found a wonderful recipe called Reverend Brown’s Cake, which the sisters found on an old index card. They thought it was a late nineteenth century recipe, so it’s just the right period for my new old pan. I hope they don’t mind my borrowing it, but since they too collect vintage cookware, I’m sure they’ll understand.

Reverend Brown’s Cake

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

2 cups brown sugar

3 eggs, at room temperature

1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9” pan. Fit a parchment paper liner to the bottom, then grease and flour that too. Tap the pan (over the sink!) to remove extra flour.

Sift together the dry ingredients.

Cream the butter and brown sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer, using the paddle attachment. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing each one thoroughly.

Add the sifted ingredients alternately with the buttermilk and beat to combine after each addition.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 55-60 minutes, or until the edges of the cake begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and a tester comes out clean. After a few minutes, remove the cake from the pan (don’t forget to remove the paper too!) and let cool on a rack.

Topping (or you could call this butterscotch sauce):

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1 Tblsp light corn syrup

1/4 cup butter

1 cup heavy cream

Pinch of salt

Combine the sugar, water and corn syrup in a heavy saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring with a wooden spoon.

Dip a brush in water and wash down the sides of the pan. Reduce the heat to medium high. Do Not Stir! Continue boiling until the mixture turns golden brown (not too dark), which should take about 6-8 minutes.

When it's ready

When you start

Remove the pan from the heat and swirl gently, twice. Add the butter and stir slowly until it melts. Add the cream (the liquid may foam up for a moment) and stir again. (If you end up with a glob of goo in the middle, set the pan over medium heat and keep stirring until it all smooths out.) Add the salt.

While still warm, pour the sauce over the cooled cake and smooth the top and sides.

You can store the sauce in glass containers in the refrigerator if you happen to have any left over (stop laughing! Yes, there is some, but I have a spoon.). 

By the way, while I was antiquing I found a small friend for one of my favorite pans, a vintage melon mold. I don’t know what the tiny version was supposed to be used for, but it was too cute to pass up.

Coming in October. With recipes! (Think there will be one with apples?)

Available for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

www.sheilaconnolly.com

Swans Down Chocolate Cake

by Sheila Connolly

A couple of months ago I drove to Pennsylvania and Maryland for a couple of bookstore signings, including a nice one at the Chester County Book Store in West Chester, Pennsylvania. I chose that because it’s literally right down the road from where my most recent book, Razing the Dead, is set. Is that serendipity or what?

I love that area of Pennsylvania—my family lived there for decades, and I lived there for a while myself, years ago. It includes Kennett Square, mushroom capital of the country, so of course I stopped at a café for a bowl of mushroom soup. And then I went antiquing, and I ended up with four hexagonal Swans Down baking pans (among other things!).

A brief history of the company, founded in Evansville, Indiana, can be found here. They’ve been around for a while!

Of course I wanted to try out my new old pans. A quick scan online suggested that they date from the 1920s, so I set out to find a Swans Down recipe from the same era. This one comes from an ad from that time (note: the original recipe was made by hand—I’ll let you use a mixer!). What sold me was the attached recipe for mocha frosting, which was one my mother made often. (BTW, the hexagonal pans hold 3 cups of batter. This is the same as a standard 8” baking pan, BUT it is not as wide and it is deeper, so I had to adjust your cooking time.)

Once again let me note that this is a half-recipe (I like cake, but not enough to eat a whole one!), or one pan’s worth. If you want a more typical two-layer cake, just double it (use only five eggs total).

Swans Down Chocolate Cake

1-1/4 cups Swans Down cake flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

3 eggs, well beaten

1-1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted (originally this called for 1-1/2 squares of Baker’s Chocolate, when 1 square = 1 oz. There are a lot more options these days, and the measurements have changed.)

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease your baking pans well.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.

Cream the butter, then add sugar gradually with the mixer running, and continue until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Add the eggs and beat well. Then add the chocolate, and mix to blend.

Add the flour alternating with the buttermilk, beating after each addition. Add the vanilla last.

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until done (when a toothpick comes out clean). Remove from the oven and let cool before frosting. When you are ready to frost the cake, remove it from the pan and cut it in half crosswise.

Chocolate Mocha Frosting

2 Tblsp butter

5 cups confectioner’s sugar

1/8 tsp salt

2 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted

1/2 cup strong coffee

2 tsp vanilla

Cream the butter and add 1 cup of the sugar, blending thoroughly. Add the salt and the melted chocolate, and mix well.

Add the remaining 4 cups of sugar, alternating with the coffee, beating after each addition. (You may not need all the coffee—you want a smooth spreading consistency, not soup). Add the vanilla and blend.

And frost your cake! I have to say, the cake was lovely—light in texture, with a nice chocolate flavor. There’s something to be said for the old ways!

Swans Down wanted you to know that their flour is 27 times finer than ordinary flour! in the 1920s—and the same line is still on their box today.

Oh, right--there's a book coming out in October. In Picked to Die, Meg Corey is too busy harvesting apples and solving a murder to even think about baking a cake. But vintage cooking equipment will play a part in the next book!

Little Cake Molds

by Sheila Connolly

I'm sure I've said before that I love antiques fairs and yard sales and tag sales and all their ilk, because that's where I seem to get all my bakeware.  This month I went to the Brimfield Antique Show, the largest open-air event of its kind in the world, and it didn't disappoint. I came home with several treasures.  And for the first time, I actually haggled! (After learning from a cable TV show that I was supposed to, and that vendors expected it—I'm a slow learner.)

 

Remember those adorable little tartlet pans (also vintage) that I wrote about a while back?  Well, I discovered at Brimfield that they have big sisters, and of course I had to have them.  It's a mismatched set, all in good condition.  Now, what to do with them?

I believe that once upon a time, ladies who lunched made cute little cakes and served them as individual desserts, perhaps with some sliced fruit, a dab of whipped cream, and a mint leaf for garnish.  I decided that's what I'm going for—a basic pound-cake type recipe that's easy to make, and can be baked ahead and prettied up for serving.

 

Plain pound cake can be pretty blah (more vanilla!), so I added some ginger.  You might serve these with some fresh pears, in season now—there's a vendor at the Plymouth Farmers' Market who makes a Ginger Pear Jelly that I am addicted to.  It's a good combination.

 

GINGER CUPCAKE TARTS

 

½ cup (1 stick) salted butter, softened

½ cup sugar

1¼ cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

(if you feel daring, you can add some candied ginger, chopped fine and dusted with flour so the bits don't sink during baking)

 

Cream the butter and add the sugar gradually.

 

Beat the eggs until thick and lemon-colored. Sift together the dry ingredients.  Add the eggs and the dry ingredients alternately to the butter-sugar mixture.

 

Grease your molds (a cooking spray works well for this).  Fill each mold with about a quarter-cup each (this will depend on the size of your mold; you don't need to smooth them out).  Place the filled molds on a baking sheet and bake in a preheated 325 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the tops are golden.

 

Let sit in the molds for a few minutes until they come out easily. Unmold and let cool on a rack. Once cool, place them in an sealed container to keep them moist.

When the ladies are assembled for lunch, garnish and serve!



My first standalone ebook, Once
She Knew, has been in the Nook
Mystery Top Ten most of this
week, and in the top 100 among all
Nook books.  It will be released in
other e-formats on October 3 (no,
there are no recipes--my protagonists
barely have time to eat!)