Holiday Baking

I don’t bake much anymore, but the holidays are here, and my daughter-in-law Jess likes my pound cake. So before Thanksgiving, I made sure I had plenty of butter, eggs, sugar, and flour and the special ingredient, almond extract, and set aside a morning to bake.

The ritual of baking ties me to my mother, grandmothers, and aunts. They are all gone now, and I miss them. But when I pull out the pound cake recipe, given to me by my aunt Mary Frances many years ago, I feel them near.

The recipe is in a newsletter called Festive Foods, typed and mimeographed and sent out by Duke Power Company as a service to their lady customers in the 70’s. Mary Frances must have submitted it to them.

At the top of the page, Mary Frances has thanked me for asking for the recipe and penciled in Yours will be better than mine. I have to smile. One of the traits of my father’s family was to always put oneself down, especially in comparison to someone else. Praise or acknowledgement of any achievement or talent was frowned upon. The idea was that good and humble Christian people did not brag on themselves or their immediate family. It has taken many years of soul-searching for me to learn that it is okay to feel good about myself and my accomplishments — even my pound cake!

I drag out the heavy Kitchen Aid mixer my mother gave me over 30 years ago – or more accurately, gave my son Adam. I picture Adam as a 4-year-old, standing on a kitchen chair while we make cakes together. He loved the zoom, zoom of the mixer. Today he loves to cook, and uses only fresh ingredients, never a can of cream of mushroom soup or Velveeta in his dishes. I like to think that his love of cooking started on that kitchen chair all those years ago.

My mother taught me to put down a piece of wax paper to catch the drips and mess from baking, so this goes down next to the mixer. This old recipe calls for shortening, and I pull out the can of Crisco, a staple of my mother and grandmother’s kitchens. The butter, Crisco and sugar meld together, then the eggs, one by one. As the mixer rotates, the lovely yellow batter emerges. I add the White Lily flour, alternating with the milk, until the bowl is full to the brim.

I bring out my grandmother’s round tube pan, thinking of all the cakes it has produced. I’m thankful for the invention of flour spray, so that I don’t have to grease and flour the pan like my mother and grandmother. I use a spatula to get all the rich yellow batter in, then it goes into the oven. Before long the sweet almond smell fills the kitchen. When I take it out an hour later, I will let it sit on the stove to cool, then turn it out onto my cake plate in all its glory.

By the time I’ve cleaned up the mess, my morning is gone, but that’s the point. Baking is a gift of love because it is a gift of time. The gift is in the planning, the mixing, and the cleaning up. It is in the joy of making a loved one happy with something special.

I realize that I took my mother’s love and care for granted while she was alive. In the days ahead of the holidays, she and my aunts and grandmothers prepped and planned, baked for days, polished the silver, and set the table with the good china —this was their love language.

Now I see those traits in Adam and Jess as they hosted Thanksgiving dinner this year. I know my mother is smiling down from above.

Here is my family recipe for pound cake (also known as Carolina Cake).

• 2 sticks butter
• ½ cup shortening
• 3 cups sugar
• 5 eggs
• 3 ¼ cups flour
• 1 cup milk
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. almond extract

Cream shortening and butter. Add sugar gradually. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add flour, baking powder and salt, alternating with milk. Add flavoring. Bake for 1 hour and 25 minutes in 350 degree oven. Use stem pan well-greased and floured.