• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 568 0

back of a box of crackers. My grandmother says you can make this heavenly pie with saltines, but I’ve only made it with buttery golden Ritz crackers. Although they contain both partially hydrogenated oil and high-fructose corn syrup, Ritz are worth buying if for no other reason than to make angel pie.

Butter and flour, for the pan

3 large egg whites

1 cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ teaspoon baking powder

18 Ritz crackers, broken into fairly large pieces

⅔ cup coarsely chopped walnuts

1 pint very cold heavy cream

Sugar to taste, for the cream

Fruit (such as strawberries), sliced and sugared to taste, for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9-inch pie plate.

2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, gradually adding the granulated sugar and vanilla. Fold in the baking powder. Mix the crackers and nuts and fold into the egg whites.

3. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan.

4. Bake for 35 minutes. The pie will be craggy and cracked and set. Cool to room temperature.

5. Whip the cream until it’s soft and thick and whip in sugar to taste. Fill the pie with the cream and serve with sweetened sliced fruit.

Serves 8

POUND CAKE

I still don’t know Mrs. Funsten’s first name, but when I was growing up she regularly donated this brick-shaped pound cake to the elementary school bake sale. This unshowy cake was famous in our community and rightfully so. My mother, who didn’t bake, always made a beeline for it and my sister and I liked to break off shards of the sweet, crackly crust and eventually, if no one stopped us, the whole cake would be stripped, as if it had been peeled. The crust is incredible, but so is the interior, flaxen from the butter and eggs and generously freckled and perfumed with nutmeg. Sara Lee makes a tidy, trim, very tasty cake, but she’s no Mrs. Funsten.

Make it or buy it? Make it.

Hassle: Like any old-fashioned scratch cake, this requires about 10 minutes of creaming, egg-cracking, beating, and measuring.

Cost comparison: Ounce for ounce, homemade costs about a third of the price of a Sara Lee frozen pound cake.

½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pan

2 cups cake flour or all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan

2 cups sugar

5 large eggs

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon brandy or rum (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan and put a piece of parchment paper in the bottom.

2. Beat the 2 sticks butter and sugar for about 5 minutes, and then beat a little more. The mixture should be pale and lemon-colored. Add the eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

3. Sift together the 2 cups flour, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg. Stir anything that remains in the sifter back in with the sifted ingredients.

4. Fold the dry ingredients into the batter. Fold in the vanilla and the liquor, if using.

5. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1½ hours. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean.

6. Let the cake cool in the pan. Well wrapped, this will keep for about a week.

Makes one 9-inch loaf

VANILLA EXTRACT

You can save a formidable amount of money by making your own vanilla—but only if you get a bargain on beans. For years, amazon.com has sold eight-ounce packets of fat, moist Madagascar vanilla beans for about $0.41 a bean, shipping included. As I type, Safeway currently charges $11.49 for a single bean.

Granted, to get the good price on beans you must buy in bulk, and most people don’t really want fifty-four vanilla beans at a go. You can use the vanilla beans to make ice cream and crème brûlée or you could also just sextuple the following recipe and never have to buy (or make) vanilla extract again, depending on how much you bake. Vanilla extract keeps indefinitely, tightly capped in a dark, cool place,