My Vintage Kitchen Column for OKRA magazine: Cardamom Sour Cream Pound Cake with Burnt Sugar Ice Cream

Cardamom Sour Cream Pound Cake with Burnt Sugar Ice Cream

Last month for my assignment as the Vintage Kitchen columnist over at OKRA magazine, I tested an old Alabama recipe for Cardamom Sour Cream Pound Cake with Burnt Sugar Ice Cream.

The recipe came from Sook’s Cookbook, Memories and Traditional Receipts from the Deep South which I came across in a box at an estate sale.  The cookbook is a compendium of old recipes from the Faulk family of Monroeville, Alabama.  Sook Faulk was Truman Capote’s great aunt and her special fruitcakes are immortalized in Capote’s lovely and sad short story “A Christmas Memory.”

Compiled by Marie Rudisill, Sook’s niece, the recipes date as far back as 1836 in plantation record books.  Marie and Truman started work on the cookbook in 1947 but put it aside until 1972 when they collaborated again, mostly by phone.

Marie wrote a great deal about the characters in the Faulk household:  the cook, Little Bit; Corrie, the housekeeper and sometime cook; Sem Muscadine, another cook and handyman; and Truman, Aunt Jenny, and Aunt Sook.

Truman Capote's Aunt Sook, as illustrated by Barry Moser.

Truman Capote’s Aunt Sook, as illustrated by Barry Moser.

 

The cookbook is a charmer and the pound cake and ice cream recipes were fantastic!   I will definitely be making these again.  Pop over to OKRA, the digital magazine for the Southern Food and Beverage Institute (SoFAB), and check it out.

 

 

Things We Like: Awesome Garden Lights

And now, just for fun, here are three things around the web that are on the Corks & Cake wish list.

These items are available at Bourbon & Boots, a fun Southern-inspired handmade goods site.

 

Mason Jar Lights

 $69

Awesome lights for a garden party.  Photo credit:  Bourbon & Boots.

Awesome lights for a garden party. Photo credit: Bourbon & Boots.

 

These cool lights come 10 jars to a strand, on a 10-foot stainless steel wire, with a loop on each end for easy hang. You can choose between clear 1/2 pint OR full pint with silver colored lids. Or you can change the jar lids out with other standard mason jar mouth lids (antique blue or spray  paint lids with a custom color.) The strand comes with a 10 bulb set of indoor/outdoor G-40 lights.  

 

Solar Mason Jar Lights

$45 for set of 2

These mason jar lights are solar-powered!

These mason jar lights are solar-powered! Photo credit: Bourbon & Boots.

 

Solar Mason Jar Lights are perfect to line the walk to your patio or garden. These are one quart Ball Mason Jars with a solar lid that powers the LED light. Charge in direct sunlight and then use as an adorable night light to illuminate items you add in the jar (think sea shells or super balls). Solar panel is water resistant. The easy-to-replace battery is included. Find replacement batteries most battery stores.

 

Wine Bottle Tiki Torch

$25 for one

Fill these wine bottle tiki torches with citronella to keep mosquitos at bay.

Fill these wine bottle tiki torches with citronella to keep mosquitos at bay. Photo credit: Bourbon & Boots.

 

Mount a Wine Bottle Tiki Torch on a fence, deck, tree or your entry way to add some ambiance to your space. Citronella oil will help shoo away those pesky bugs. The extinguishing cap is attached by a chain to provide functionality and charm.

tiki torch copper mount

Cool copper mount.

Each torch comes with a long-lasting wick, all necessary hardware (no worries, it’s easy to install), and directions for installation. Torches can be mounted using a philips head screwdriver, but a drill would make your life all the easier. Tiki fuel not included.

Dimensions: 11.5 inches high x 3.5 inches wide. Flame burns 5 inches away from mount.

 

Sparkly shot glasses make me want to have an outdoor garden party!

Sparkly shot glasses make me want to have an outdoor garden party!  Photo credit:  Allison Beuker Photography.

 

And I bet if you are DIY handy or know someone who is, you could make any of these!  Ready for summer entertaining?

Cheers!

 

Classic Pimento Cheese

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You would be appalled at what I knew (and loved) as pimento cheese as a youngster in St. Paul, Minnesota. Even though my mother was an excellent, daily-from-scratch cook, one of the items in her refrigerator was my favorite snack, Kraft pimento cheese, in a tiny, slender jar.

Eee gads, folks! This probably did not have any cheese in it at all but I did not care because I did not know any better at the time (hey I was eight.) I loved it on celery sticks the most and my mom would make it for me after school. It was always on her ‘relish’ tray (remember those?) for company dinners and holidays. I eschewed the black olives and the radishes though and went straight for the celery stick with the tangy cheese spread I couldn’t get enough of.

Vintage silver relish tray. Photo by Rebecca Penovich.

Vintage silver relish tray.
Photo by Rebecca Penovich.

Years later when I arrived at college in the South (Nashville, Tennesee to be specific), pimento cheese was on the counter at every single gas station along with a giant jar of pickled eggs. But man, this pimento cheese wasn’t anything I had seen before. In fact, it looked gross. Lurid orange, gloppy, maybe even sweaty. Needless to say, I wasn’t having any of that.

Eventually during my sojourn in the South, I was invited to the gracious Southern home of a well-bred Southern hostess whom I admired very much, and what did she serve? Yes, pimento cheese. But lordy, this wasn’t the gas station variety. This was creamy, tangy, fresh, redolent of good mayonnaise and maybe a tiny bit of onion. The red pimentos folded in were real, for goodness sake! I LOVED it all over again. On celery sticks (de-stringed if you are fancy), on Carr’s water crackers, on Pepperidge Farm thin white bread and cut into triangles, if you please.  On a wrap-around porch beneath a towering magnolia and served in a lovely, small silver bowl, please.

Here is an authentic and guaranteed recipe for Classic Pimento Cheese that I clipped from Southern Living May 2010.  It never fails to please my Southern-born and -bred friends and more often will elicit spontaneous recollections of their beloved grandmothers or great-aunts (the ones that entertained) or the beloved family cook of the grandmother (depending how far you go back).

Every well-stocked kitchen needs a box grater.

Every well-stocked kitchen needs a box grater.

The absolute secret to getting this right is two-fold:  hand-grate the cheese on a box grater and use two different size shreds, one medium and one fine.  Seriously,  don’t use the food processor and don’t skip the fine shred.  Yes, it will require a little more elbow grease, but lean in, people, this is pimento cheese we’re talking about!

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Our Favorite Pimento Cheese

(adapted from Southern Living May 2010)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups good-quality mayonnaise (Hellman’s or Duke’s)

16 oz. sharp Cheddar cheese (you can buy 2 8 oz. blocks if you prefer since you WILL be grating them separately)

1 4 oz. jar diced pimento, drained

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce (we use Lee & Perrin’s)

1 tsp. finely grated yellow onion

1/4 tsp. ground cayenne pepper

Method

  • In a large bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, drained pimentos, grated onion, Worcestershire sauce, and cayenne pepper until blended.
  • Shred 8 oz. of cheddar on the small size of a box grater and add to the mayonnaise mixture.
  • Shred another 8 oz. of cheddar on the large size of a box grater and add that to the mayonnaise mixture.
  • Fold gently until nicely blended.

Taste and enjoy!  Pimento cheese will keep in the refrigerator (in a tightly closed container) for up to a week.

(Note:  You can use artisanal white cheddar but the classic recipe (and look) calls for the orange cheddar.   I love English farmhouse white cheddars on my cheese board, but if I’m making pimento cheese, I’ll buy a good quality, sharp, orange cheddar cheese.)

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Southern Living calls for toasted pecans in their favorite pimento cheese, but we say skip that, and serve the toasted pecans on the side.

(Other Note:  we couldn’t stop eating the pimento cheese and crackers when shooting it for this post.  “It’s better to have 3 crackers in the shot than 5,” we said as we chomped.  Oh yeah. “This reminds me of Alabama!”  Allison exclaimed, remembering a trip to a favorite relative’s house there.)