“Lord in Heaven,” my father said, as my mother entered the dining room with her coconut cake aloft. She gently lowered it onto the table. Fluffy and white, cosseted in coconut, the huge cake was too big to fit any plate we had, so it was iced on a piece of cardboard covered in foil, with white paper doilies fitted around the bottom, as though the cake sat on snowflakes. In early spring, she ringed the base with pink camellias; in summer, a wreath of orange and yellow nasturtiums; and during the winter holidays, tiny pinecones spray-painted gold, probably toxic.
My job in the preparation was to sit in the driveway with four coconuts, a bowl, an ice pick, and a hammer. I smacked the icepick into the eye of the coconut, drained out the liquid, then smashed open the shell. Getting the “meat” out wasn’t easy, and then the brown rind must be picked away and the hunks shredded. I didn’t like to cook but I liked to watch my mother cream the cup of butter with three cups of sugar, separating the entire carton of twelve eggs, and beating the whites into the butter and sugar. She saved the yolks in a bowl that she covered with a plastic, elasticized thing like a miniature shower cap. She then stirred into the batter a cup of milk, a splash of vanilla, and then—gradually—five cups of flour that she’d sifted with two teaspoons of baking powder. Sometimes she baked the cake in three round pans, but usually she liked two oblong pans because of the nice square slices from a rectangular cake.
The glory is the icing. All that fresh coconut! She cooked four cups of sugar and a cup of water to what she called “a long thread.” When it cooled a bit, she folded in four stiffly beaten egg whites. Biting her lip, she beat hard until the icing turned glossy. Then she stirred in almost all the coconut and spread the first layer all over with the smooth frosting. After she finished the top layer, she sprinkled on the rest of the coconut. One hundred calories a bite? We didn’t think of calories, ever.
Resplendent on the dining room table, the cake seemed more than just a cake. It was the cake of cakes. Or so we thought, until my mother brought forth, in a week or so, the next regal edifice, her lemon cheesecake, my father’s favorite. It was not a cheesecake as we know them: the tangy lemon curd filling must have reminded someone of curdy cheese. Looking at the recipe, I see a plain cake magically transformed by the divine, creamy filling and finished with Great-Aunt Besta’s white icing. I have no talent with tricky white icing. No matter whose recipe I use, the ingredients refuse to fluff. In fact, I suffer from Fear of White Icing. But my mother had the gift of frothy, glistening icings. Among her recipes, I find three, each of which I quickly could reduce to a limp glob.
The citrus filling is simple. She melted a half a stick of butter in a small saucepan, added the grated rind and juice of two plump lemons, added three beaten eggs, a tiny pinch of salt, and three quarters of a cup of sugar. She cooked it on a medium burner until, as the recipe instructs, it “falls in flakes.”
That is the only instruction on the yellowed paper, and that’s true of all her recipes. I suppose she didn’t bother to write procedures that she knew how to do. She might note, “cook to syrup,” or “mix and BEAT,” “soft ball stage,” or “hard crack.” Without such sure instincts, I’ve floundered when I’ve tried some of her recipes—one leaden lane cake into the trash—but I can perfectly re-create my favorite of her repertoire, the splendid, rich caramel cake, as monumental as my sister seemed in her wedding dress. I’ve served this every Thanksgiving of my grown-up life. This grandiose caramel cake (and please say “cara-mell” because that middle “a” gives the word its silky richness) contains, with filling and frosting, eight cups of sugar. That’s why I limit it to Thanksgiving, when everything is over the top anyway. The toil is long; the results are sublime. Everyone wants to fall on the floor in a swoon, that is, except for when I served it in Italy to friends who pushed it around on their plates, all finally admitting, troppo zucchero, too much sugar! I don’t know—maybe you must have been spoon-fed, maybe it’s one of those things like castagnaccio, the flat and bitter chestnut cake that I push around on my plate in Italy. For them it was a childhood treat and so remains, while I’m left to ponder cultural preferences.
At the table, wherever I am, I speculate: What is this food saying? I wonder how it reveals place, time, people, dynamics. Looking back at the pomp and ceremony of our sumptuous family desserts, I glimpse my mother, Frankye, who loved grand gestures and la bella figura, slipping the cake server under a large piece and passing it to me, my father, my sisters, grandparents, and guests. In such a small town, in a time folded way back into memory, there I sit, already plotting a second piece later in the afternoon, not at all knowing that for my whole life, here’s her gift: I always will be waiting for something spectacular.
Lemon Cheesecake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
½ pound butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour, sifted with the baking powder and salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 egg whites, beaten
• Beat together the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs. Stir in the flour and milk alternately and beat for three to four minutes before folding in the vanilla and egg whites.
• Bake in two 9-inch pans, buttered and lined with parchment, for twenty-five minutes. Cool the cakes and unmold.
Filling
2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons butter, softened
6 egg yolks, beaten
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup hot water
Juice, about 9 tablespoons, and zest of three lemons
• Mix the sugar and butter well and beat in the yolks and flour. Add the liquids and cook in a double boiler until “it falls into flakes,” stirring all the while. Cool. The filling should have the consistency of whipped cream.
• Spread the filling between the cake layers and on top, securing the layers with toothpicks if they start to slide.
• Frost the cake with a classic Seven-Minute White Icing.
Caramel Cake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1½ cups sugar
¾ cup butter, softened
4 eggs
3 cups self-rising flour, sifted with the soda and salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon juice
• Beat well the sugar and butter, then add the eggs one at a time. Fold in the flour mixture and the buttermilk alternately, lifting the batter to keep it light. Add the vanilla and lemon juice. Bake in buttered and lined 9-inch cake pans, for about twenty-five minutes, testing after twenty. Cool the cakes and remove from the pans.
Rich Caramel Icing
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
3 cups sugar
¾ cup butter
1 cup evaporated milk
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
• On medium-low heat, add the cup of sugar and cup of water to a cast-iron skillet and cook them for twelve to fifteen minutes, stirring as the sugar dissolves, caramelizes, and turns light brown. Don’t burn! Raise the heat to medium, and to the pan add the remaining sugar, butter, evaporated milk, salt, and vanilla. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon. After about five minutes, test the icing to see if it has reached the soft-boil stage; that is, drop a quarter teaspoon of the icing into a glass of tap water. If it forms a ball, it’s ready. Continue to cook until this happens. Remove from the heat, beat another hundred strokes, then frost the first layer of the cake, top with the second, and frost all around.