THESE RECIPES ARE FROM MY MOTHer’s collection of recipe cards. Before we had the Internet and twenty-four-hour cooking shows, women shared recipes through their recipe cards. Space was limited on these treasured cards, so women only wrote the key ingredients and made the instructions as precise as possible with the understanding that the recipe was being handed from one Queen of the Kitchen to the Other.
They aren’t for the faint of heart, and you need to bring your own set of cooking skills. I once used a recipe and said, “Mmm, this recipe doesn’t call for salt,” and Mama replied, “Now you know that recipe needs salt.”
3 packages of dry active yeast
½ cup warm water—let the yeast sit in water while you mix up rolls
1 cup boiling water
1 cup Crisco
⅔ cup sugar
Mix together to melt Crisco
Add:
1 cup cold milk
2 eggs
2 cups plain flour (5–6 cups in all)
1 T. salt
Mix well then add the yeast mixture and additional flour to make a soft dough. It will stiffen when it chills.
Cover and let rise for one hour. You can either refrigerate to use later or go ahead and roll out and let rise again and bake at 400 degrees until brown as you like them. The dough will keep 3–4 days in the refrigerator. Take out 2–3 hours before you need them to allow plenty of time to rise.
These instructions came from Ms. Bonnie, who wrote them down while watching my grandmother make this icing. I promise if you have an ounce of kitchen skills and you can follow this recipe, then you’ll have caramel icing. But if you try and fail and fail again, then you understand why old Southern ladies guarded their recipes. We can’t all be Caramel Cake Ladies.1
Jenny Mae’s Caramel Icing
2 cups sugar
¾ cup half-and-half
¼ cup heavy cream
Mix all the above together and put in a heavy pot.
Stir constantly over medium-high heat until it boils fully.
Turn down to lower heat and cook about 5 minutes longer but still keep it boiling. Stir occasionally.
While this is boiling, heat ½ cup sugar in cast iron skillet until it turns golden brown.
Pour the caramelized sugar in the pot.
Add 1 stick butter and continue to stir about 5 minutes until it coats a spoon.
You can also check by putting a small amount in cold water and see if it balls up.
Let it stay on the burner and stir a little longer.
Set the pot in a sink with shallow cold water.
Add 1 tsp. of good vanilla.
Stir until cool and spread on cake.
This only takes 20 stressful minutes.
2 cups self-rising flour
1 stick butter plus extra for the pan
Buttermilk (about 1 cup)
Preheat oven to 450.
Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a cast-iron skillet.
Cut butter into flour, add buttermilk to make a soft dough. Roll and cut out biscuits. Place in the skillet turning each one to get butter on the tops of the dough. Bake at 450 for 10–12 minutes until light brown. Gen always teased me: Because I don’t turn my biscuits in the butter my poor family has to eat floury biscuits.
2 cups sugar
⅓ cup cocoa powder
Mix well and add:
½ to ⅔ cup milk
Bring to a rolling boil then add:
1 stick of butter
1 tsp. vanilla
Serve over hot buttered Biscuits.
1 The ladies know it goes on a yellow cake and nobody cares if it’s a box mix because the icing is the star of the recipe.