Lady Baltimore Cake

Looking through Grandma's Oak Recipe Box, I found a recipe for Lady Baltimore Cake in her hand.

1/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup sweet milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 egg whites
2 cups flour


The recipe seems quite incomplete. So, I did what we all do today and I "Googled" it. Here is what I learned in Wikipedia:

History[edit]

The most popular legend of the Lady Baltimore is that Alicia Rhett Mayberry, a Southern belle, baked and served the cake to novelist Owen Wister in Charleston, South Carolina. Wister was said to have been so enamored with the cake that he used it as the namesake of his novel, Lady Baltimore.^[3][4][5]
Wister included a description of the cake in Lady Baltimore:^[6]

"I should like a slice, if you please, of Lady Baltimore," I said, with extreme formality ... I returned to the table and I had my first felicitous meeting with Lady Baltimore. Oh, my goodness! Did you ever taste it? It's all soft, and it's in layers, and it has nuts—but I can`t write any more about it; my mouth waters too much.

Delighted surprise caused me once more to speak aloud and with my mouth full. "But, dear me, this is delicious!"

According to food historians, the cake may have actually originated with Florence and Nina Ottelengui, the longtime managers of Charleston's Lady Baltimore Tea Room, who developed the cake based on a version of the common Queen cake from the late nineteenth century. The Ottelenguis are said to have annually baked and shipped a cake to Owen Wister as a "thanks" for making their creation famous, and were known to ship hundreds of cakes around the country at Christmastime.^[2][3]
The first recorded mentions of a cake with the name of "Lady Baltimore" began appearing in 1906, with several newspaper articles referring to it as the "famous" or "original" cake.^[1]

Recipe[edit]

The first printings of the recipe were copied in several newspapers, including Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's Daily Gazette and Bulletin, The Columbus Journal, and The Washington Times, in 1906:^[1][7]

Beat the whites of six eggs. Take a cup and a half of granulated sugar, a cup of milk, nearly a cup of butter, three cups of flour and two teaspoonfuls of good baking powder. Sift the flour and baking powder together into the other ingredients, adding the eggs last of all. Bake in two buttered pans for fifteen or twenty minutes.

For the frosting: Two cups of granulated sugar and a cup and a half of water, boil until stringly, about five minutes usually does it. Beat the whites of two eggs very light, and pour the boiling sugar slowly into it, mixing well. Take out of this enough for the top and sides of the cake, and stir into the remainder for the filling between the two layers, one cup of finely chopped raisins and a cup of chopped nuts. This is delicious when properly baked.

Modern versions of the recipe may call for a meringue, boiled, or 7-minute frosting, and may include rum or liqueurs in the filling. The cake itself may be white or yellow. There is also a version known as the "Lord Baltimore cake" made with the leftover egg yolks instead of whites.^[8][

Witch Salad

This recipe was hand-written on a recipe card...in Grandma's oak recipe file box:

Witch salad was devised for Hallowe'en but it tastes equally good any other day in the year. To make it, mix one cup chopped apple, 1cup chopped celery, 1/2 cup chopped dates and moisten well with mayonnaise. Arrange a mound of this mixture in th center of a next of shredded lettuce. Over each, invert half peach, rounded side up, from No 2 1/2 can peaches. On each peach make a face using whole clove for eyes and nose and narrow strips of canned pimento for mouth. Pass extra mayonnaise with salad. Serves 8.

Snow Cake

It has been way too long since I posted a recipe from the recipe box of our Grandmother Helen Pecar, but today I was inspired by our cousin Virginia Cenkner to do so. I looked through Grandma's box and found a wintery day recipe fit for this cold New Year's Eve morning. I will print the exact wording, as written by her hand, on the recipe card from her box.

Snow Cake
Moderate oven. 45 Minutes

1/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 egg whites
1/2 cup milk
1 2/3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Cream butter, add sugar and vanilla, beat egg whites to a stiff froth and add. Sift flour and baking powder together and add in with milk.

That's it! The recipe card does not indicate the size of pan to use or the oven temperature. I would assume 350 degrees and with the amount of flour, maybe 9 x 9 or bundt pan, greased and floured. Be sure to post your comments if you try this!



Happy New Year!

Judy Crockett

A Night Blooming Cereus

I had to post this conversation filled with much history over the Night Blooming Cereus plant we all grew up with and remember:

My night blooming cereus is going to bloom!!!

UnlikeUnlike · · Share

• You, Theresa Pecar-Moore, Joseph C. Pecar, Nancy Alden Pecar and 15 others like this.
• 

  Joseph C. Pecar Are you cereus?

  July 17 at 7:51pm · Unlike · 3
• 

  Kathy Lightbody It's a cutting from my dad's plant...it's like 50 years old!!

  July 17 at 9:55pm · Unlike · 2
• 

  Joseph C. Pecar 50 years old? Cereusly? That's as old as my sister!

  July 17 at 9:59pm · Unlike · 3
• 

  Candi Holliday Braun Thats awesome. :-)

  July 17 at 10:20pm · Like
• 

  Diane Pecar Kathy, my mom has one from Grandma Pecar. I wonder if your Dad's plant came from her house too.

  July 17 at 11:52pm · Unlike · 1
• 

  Kathy Lightbody Yes, Diane Pecar for sure! 50 years old was a conservative guesstimate :) Same plant, for sure

  July 18 at 12:00am · Unlike · 2
• 

  Chelle Davis Have you heard the story about Mom, Dad Joseph Pecar. aunt Carol and Uncle Jim James W Pecar?? They took it with them in Uncle Jim's RV when they were on the road" and they told and showed a bunch of people / strangers... ;). Pretty cool. I have a piece of it too. Cereus! ;).

  July 18 at 6:31am · Like · 1
• 

  Tom Pecar That " Mother" plant was not doing well so I brought it home. last bloom we had was fantasti,,, I don't remeber how many flowers but it was a lot

  July 18 at 7:54am · Unlike · 1
• 

  Margaret Pecar Fallone ceriously?

  July 18 at 9:28am · Like
• 

  Margaret Pecar Fallone oh I should have looked at all the previous comments before adding my own - duh - well, great Pecar minds think alike, I guess! We have a photo somewhere taken in the 50's where Daddy's plant had multiple blooms - have you ever seen that?

  July 18 at 9:30am · Like
• 

  Margaret Pecar Fallone It's way over 50, Kathy - I was about 5 when his had a major bloom - and I, as you know, am also well over 50! :-(

  July 18 at 9:31am · Like · 1
• 

  Tom Pecar I got it looking all pretty again. all these big blooms, the news did a story ouhs and ahhs, but not one mention ( or Plug ) for the shop

  July 18 at 9:34am · Like
• 

  Tom Pecar thats fine I is retired

  July 18 at 9:34am · Like
• 

  Tom Pecar WAY WAY WAY over 50 it is at least as old as Maggie, at LEAST, just sayin'

  July 18 at 9:35am · Like
• 

  Margaret Pecar Fallone Tommy I don't know how to make a'sticking out your tongue" icon - but I am THINKING it! xoxo

  July 18 at 9:37am · Like
• 

  Tom Pecar What???

  July 18 at 9:38am · Like
• 

  Margaret Pecar Fallone ;-)Tommy I think you were there when that plant bloomed in the mid-50's -

  July 18 at 9:59am · Like
• 

  Tom Pecar yeep

  23 hrs · Like
• 

  Kathy Lightbody :P for Margaret Pecar Fallone :)

  21 hrs · Like
• 

  Craig Moore Shirley you can't be cereus. Yes I am cereus, and stop calling me Shirley.

  17 hrs · Like · 1
• 

  Kathy Lightbody ....the sh*t's really gonna hit the fan, now. Roger, roger. Over, Under.

  16 hrs · Like · 1
• 

  Diane Pecar So I copied the picture of the Cereus and some of the "cousin conversation" and sent it by email to Aunt Ethel, who does not have a Facebook account. Here is the reply she just sent, which rounds out the story of how old the original cereus really is: " I sure enjoyed the story of the Midnight Cereus among all the remarks.
  Thanks for sending it. I am going to add to the discussion---
  It's a heck of a lot older than 50 years as some think.
  Kathy's dad would remember as I do---we were kids on a visit to KY--
  WE stayed at our Grandma's house? connected to a store--connected
  to a gas station--one pump--I think it was GULF. Some came with horses
  and tied them up once in a while a car-MOdel A would pull up for gas.
  Uncle Julian and Grandma ran the store, etc.
  
  There was a neighbor down the road who had this plant--and one night
  when we were there, it started to bloom. WE all went to see it and they
  had it on a porch and would shine a flashlite on it so we could see it.
  My Mom got a slip from it and brought it to Detroit. I would guess this
  was in the 1930's.
  
  You might want to put this on facebook so everyone hears the story.
  A. E. [Joes's 50 year old sister]"