A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [216]
MAKES A 10-INCH TUBE CAKE
Marion Flexner, an Alabaman by birth and a Kentuckian by adoption, tells a little-known tale in her classic Out of Kentucky Kitchens (1949). To quote: “This cake isn’t a native Kentuckian at all, and Dame Rumor asserts with authority that a certain Frankfort matron (about 25 years ago) coaxed a famous New York maître d’hôtel to give her the recipe by crossing his palm with a lot of silver.” I wonder. Savannah-based southern food historian and cookbook author Damon Lee Fowler doubts the “palm-crossed-with-silver” story and believes that Kentucky bourbon cake may descend from early southern fruitcakes, which, like this one, have a pound-cake base. The Rich Fruit Cake in Mary Randolph’s Virginia House-wife (1824) is similar, although it contains more dried fruits and brandy instead of bourbon. Ditto several recipes in Lettice Bryan’s Kentucky Housewife (1839). I find an even closer match in the Kentucky Cake in The Blue Grass Cook Book (1904) by Minnie C. Fox; egg whites are used instead of whole eggs and the nuts are lacking. In my many years in New York I never once encountered bourbon cake, and I had to travel to Kentucky to try the dense pecan-and-raisin-filled Christmas favorite that the Bluegrass State calls its own. The only liquid ingredient? Good Kentucky bourbon. Note: Use a 10-inch tube pan to bake this cake, a light-colored one to discourage overbrowning; and butter and flour it well. You’ll note that the oven temperature is unusually low—250° F.—and that the cake bakes for at least 2½ hours. That explains its fine texture. Some southerners wrap the cooled cake in a bourbon-soaked cloth and let it “season” for a week or so, adding more bourbon as needed to keep the cloth moist. I find that unnecessary; the cake’s plenty spirited without it. Tip: If the butter is refrigerator-cold, you can cream it to uncommon fluffiness.
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
3 cups lightly toasted pecans, coarsely chopped (10 to 12 minutes in a 350° F. oven)
3 cups seedless raisins
1½ teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pound (4 sticks) butter (no substitute) (see Tip on Chapter 6)
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups sugar
6 extra-large eggs, separated
¾ cup bourbon
1. Preheat the oven to 250° F. Generously butter a 10-inch tube pan, dust with flour, then tap out any excess flour and discard; set the pan aside.
2. Place ½ cup of the sifted flour in a large bowl, add the pecans and raisins, and toss well; set aside. Whisk the remaining 3½ cups flour, the nutmeg, baking soda, and salt together in a second large bowl and set aside also.
3. Cream the butter and vanilla in a large electric mixer bowl at low speed for 3 minutes, scraping the bowl often, then raise the mixer speed to medium and cream 2 to 3 minutes longer or until light and fluffy. Scrape the bowl well, set the mixer at moderately low speed, and add the sugar gradually. Raise the mixer speed to high and beat hard for 3 to 5 minutes or until fluffy and almost white, pausing several times to scrape the bowl.
4. With the mixer at low speed, add the egg yolks one by one, beating well and scraping the bowl after each addition. With the mixer still at low speed, add the sifted dry ingredients alternately with the bourbon, beginning and ending with the dry—four additions of the dry and three of bourbon are about right.
5. Using clean beaters, whip the egg whites in a separate clean bowl until soft and billowing—the stage just before soft peaks. Fold about a fourth of the beaten whites into the batter to lighten it (it’s very thick), then fold in the balance—gently—until no streaks of white or yellow remain. By hand, fold in the dredged pecans and raisins and all dredging flour.
6. Scoop the batter into the pan, smooth the top, and rap once or twice on the counter sharply to release large air bubbles. Note: Kentucky cooks often decorate the surface of the batter with pecan halves and candied red and/or green cherries before the cake goes into the oven. A nice touch at Christmastime.