“Help” Yourself to Some Caramel Cake
“The Help” made me hungry.
Y’all know I grew up in the South and even though my roots are Latina I still love the straight-forward simplicity of southern cuisine. What you see is what you get. Not a lot of nuance here (except in barbecue). Fried chicken is crisp and juicy. Peach pie tastes like peaches.
I was reminded of just how much I miss southern cooking while reading “The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett. As far as southern cooking goes, this book is a page-turner.
I began feeling hungry on page three, with Aibileen’s chicken salad. Even though the book doesn’t say, I know exactly how she made that chicken salad. White breast meat, hand chopped into tiny cubes. Celery, mayo and salt. No onions. No pickles. Chilled.
Deviled eggs on page six. Pristine white halves of eggs filled with a fluffy bright yellow yolk mixture of prepared mustard, mayo, a tiny bit of sweet pickle relish, salt and pepper. Aibileen probably sprinkled a little paprika on top to make it a kinda fancy, since she was serving it at a bridge club luncheon.
The next page is ham sandwiches. I know they weren’t slapped together with packaged ham. These are delicate bite-size sandwiches made with (I’ll bet) home roasted ham on crust-less white bread with a smidge of mayo to hold the whole thing together.
But it was two words on page eight that brought a rush of childhood food memories flooding back: caramel cake. I hadn’t had caramel cake since I was a kid on a family vacation in the Ozarks. I loved that vacation for two reasons: Papa Daddy took me fishing with him before the sun was up, and I had my first bite of a delicate, sweet piece of heaven called caramel cake.
As you read “The Help,” you’ll find other classic southern food gems, like what’s growing in the gardens (eggplant, okra, gourds, tomatoes, turnip greens) and that Crisco is “the most important invention in the kitchen since jarred mayonnaise.”
Two things didn’t whet my appetite: A poke salad (which is made from pokeweed and is extremely poisonous unless you know exactly how to prepare it) and Minny’s special chocolate pie for Miss Hilly… and that’s all I’m going to say about that (I don’t want to spoil your reading pleasure).
I’ve always “cooked what I’m reading,” whether it be Indian writer Anuradha Roy’s “An Atlas of Impossible Longing,” or David McCullough’s “The Greater Journey, Americans in Paris.” But “The Help” was special because it brought back a rush of childhood food memories. But I must confess, “The Help” didn’t help Mama stay on her diet. No sireee….
Caramel Cake for the cake you’ll need… for the icing you’ll need… let’s make the cake… let’s make the icing while the cake bakes…. cooking know how…
prep: 30 minutes
cook: 20-25 minutes
2 cups cake flour, sifted (cake flour is supposed to be sifted already, but sift it again anyway)
1/4 teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vinegar
½ cup butter
2 1/4 cups light brown sugar (about a pound)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Make sure the middle rack is in place.
Grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans. (In the image you see 3 layers. I used a jelly roll pan to bake the cake and then cut out three circles for three layers after it was baked.)
Sift the flour and salt together and set aside. I do this on a paper plate so that I can bend it when adding it to the mixture later.
Cream the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer on medium low speed.
Add the eggs, one at a time, and then add the vanilla. Continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Turn the electric mixer up to medium and alternate adding the sifted flour and salt and the buttermilk to the butter mixture.
Dissolve the baking soda in the vinegar and add to the mixture.
Pour equal amounts of the batter into the pans, using a rubber spatula to remove all of the batter from the bowl and to evenly distribute the batter in the pans.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cake springs back when lightly touched in the middle.
Cool cake in the pans for 10 minutes; flip onto a wire rack and cool at least 1 hour.
Melt the butter on medium low heat in a heavy saucepan.
Whisk in the brown sugar and salt.
Add the evaporated milk and continuing stirring until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage (about 235°F).
Remove from heat and let cool 15 minutes.
Stir in baking powder and vanilla for 10 minutes, or until at a spreadable consistency. (Remember this is an icing so you won’t slather it on like you would a frosting).
Cool completely before icing the cake.
Icing and frosting are different. Icing is usually sugar based and is thinner, almost like a glaze. Frosting is thicker and tends to be cream or butter based.
