Sunday Favorites -- Grandma's Cake

On Saturday, my brother Kirby -- who is moving with his wife Doris to Virginia any minute -- gave us their snowblower. This will ensure mild and snow-free winters for the state of New Jersey, in perpetuity.

Also on Saturday, my other brother Lindy -- who is moving with his wife Carol to North Carolina one of these years -- gave me a rocking chair that had belonged to my grandmother. It needs a little TLC, and I'll get pictures of it soon.

Lindy says it was the nursery rocker for my Dad and his many siblings.
Hmmm....

I think a rocker I already have in our front pink bedroom --

-- is Grandma's old nursery rocker. Who is right? Well, I am of course.

But I still like the other rocker, and it deserves a makeover.

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Since I'm hopping on Chari's Sunday Favorites blog party bandwagon, I thought I'd share a post from almost a year ago, about my Grandma's cake. I'd make it myself today, except we are getting ready to scarper off to Florida on Monday.

Play nice while I am gone!

And visit Happy To Design for more Sunday Favorites!

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Grandma Cake... recipe and a little background.

My grandmother was born in Norway in 1875, and grew up in a house that dated back to Viking days. She lived until I was in college, and she was nearly 100. She'd wanted to make that century mark, but she didn't get her way on that one -- although she did on nearly everything else in her life.

She raised 7 children in New York City, in a big house on the rich farmland where JFK Airport now stands. My father is her youngest, and he is nearly 89. (Now nearly 90!)

She was a remarkable woman,
Margrethe Olave Eskeland Lindtveit.

She could draw sewing patterns freehand, sewed all the clothes for her big family, including coats and men's shirts, knitted like a machine, crocheted, tatted, and, until they fell apart from age and sunlight, a set of Hardanger curtains she made as a young bride hung in my family's dining room.

She had the greenest thumb this side of Eden, skipped lunch to afford fresh flowers, was barely 5-feet tall, opinionated, smart, determined, and she scared her family witless. Not one of your pushover grandmothers, my Grandma.

She walked barefoot in the morning dew 3 seasons of the year, had long glossy brilliant white hair that she washed in an enamel dishpan with a bar of coal tar soap and then dried outside, in the sunshine, the hair streaming down her back; to my sister and me she looked like an aging enchanted princess.

She loved boats and fishing and her husband Gunvald devotedly (and probably equally), could gut a fish and pan fry it to perfection, baked the flakiest piecrust, and made a bundt-style cake that is the best food, ever, anywhere on the planet.

She gave that recipe to my mother, least loathed of her daughters-in-law, and my mother promised to pass it on to me. She never did. When Mom sank into Alzheimer's, I figured the recipe for Grandma Cake was lost forever.

But recently my sister Peggy handed my mother's recipe box to me:

Lo and behold, there it was, right in front . . . the Holy Grail:

I love how my Mom wrote "Serves 12 - 15."

What family was she thinking of?

If you click on the picture, the recipe will greatly enlarge and you can easily read it. I love that it's in my Mom's distinctive handwriting. But, in case you have trouble deciphering it, here is the recipe:

GRANDMA CAKE
3 cups flour (unbleached)
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. mace
a pinch of salt
1 cup butter (no margarine; Grandma will rise up and smite you!)
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. pure vanilla

Mix all the above thoroughly and beat at high speed for 3 to 4 minutes. (Note: If you are using a high speed mixer, like a Kitchen Aid, cut back on the mixing a bit.)

Bake at 350 for approx. 1 hour.

(It's not written down, because you are clearly just supposed to know that the cake batter goes into a greased bundt or tube pan before you put it in the oven!)

This is not a fine-grained pound cake; it has a rather coarse crumb, and the outside gets quite dark and caramelized looking and as the cake ages a day or two the "crust" gets a bit of a crunch to it. Oh my. I may have to bake this. I don't bake anymore because Howard and I aren't eating sugary things. I may have to make an exception. Please let me know if you try it! -- Cass

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Update... I made the Grandma Cake ... Yum.

Pics and story here!

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