Lane Cake Layers

I made the Lane Cake for a Mardi Gras themed potluck dinner. Now, I confess, Lane Cake has little or nothing to do with Mardi Gras. It is from Alabama, which, hey, is the state next to Louisiana. On the other hand  the New York Times Heritage Cookbook had no recipe for King Cake, which is that fat, gaudy confection with little crowns or coins in it, for sale at Whole Foods and other emporia before Mardi Gras.
It turns out that Lane Cake has a long and respectable history as a Southern dessert, first appearing at the Columbus County Fair in Columbus, Ga. in 1898. It is named for its creator, Ms. Emma Rylander Lane. Lane Cake also appears in To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the greatest books about the American South ever written.
 I never pass up an opportunity to cross a recipe off my list, so at 6:30 Saturday morning, I was downstairs, waiting for the butter to soften for my Lane Cake layers and cleaning up the kitchen.
Lane Cake is a white layer cake. The only step that is a little unusual in the cannon of cake baking is the baker incorporates 8 beaten egg whites into the batter. Prior to adding the egg whites, the batter has the consistency of, say, ... the red clay of the Texas Hill Country. It adheres to the beaters and climbs up the stem of the beaters until the mixer makes a tired, groaning noise that makes the cook fear for its life. The life of the mixer, not the life of the cook, that is.
Since I couldn't figure out how this unbatterlike batter would be transformed into a cake, I poured 1/4 cup of milk into the bowl, scraped the stuff off the beaters and tried again. The result was more like batter. Then, I remembered the egg whites.
One small piece of advice. If you are separating more than two or three eggs, I advise the three bowl method. One large bowl for all the egg whites, and two small bowls, one for the yolks, and one for the white of the egg you are currently separating. Assuming there is no egg yolk in the white, you dump that into the big bowl and move on. If there is egg yolk in one white, you can chuck it, and not have wasted 3 or 5 or 7 perfectly good egg whites.
The addition of the eight beaten egg whites resulted in a soft, shiny batter that poured easily into the pans.
It came out 25 minutes later, tasty looking a golden brown. I removed the cake from the cake pans a few minutes later and put the cakes on wire racks to cool.
While the layers were cooling, Bob and I took all the old florescent mercury containing light bulbs that had been secreted all over the kitchen and basement and the old TV and drove up to Northeast DC to recycle them. A triumph for the environment, as well as for cake.

Lane Cake

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/4 cups flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
8 egg whites, beaten until stiff but not dry.

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Grease and flour three nine-inch layer pans.
3. Beat the butter and sugar together until very light and creamy. Beat in the vanilla. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt twice.
4. Stir the flour mixture alternately with the milk into the batter. Stir in one-quarter of the egg whites. Fold in remaining egg whites until just mixed. Spoon into the prepared pans and bake twenty to twenty-five minutes. Cool in the pans for ten minutes , then turn out onto racks for further cooking.

Clam Souffle

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Thank goodness our church has reestablished its dinner groups. Parishioners sign up as part of a revolving group of potluck diners. We all take turns hosting the dinners. Usually, the person who hosts makes the main course. Everyone else brings appetizers, salad, a vegetable or dessert. It's a great way to knock off some of these shellfish dishes that Bob can't eat, as well as meeting people you see every Sunday, but don't know who they are.
Saturday night we served up two main courses. I made clam souffle and Bob made chicken piccata. Safeway was out of rice flour, so it was not gluten free. If you want gluten free clam souffle, use rice flour instead of wheat flour.  We were cooking and cleaning at the same time, so I didn't get started on the souffle until just before the guests actually walked in the door. Really, that worked out  fine, as souffles have to be made, baked and eaten with dispatch. You don't want them sitting around, as my son would say, festering.
I had the base, the butter, flour, clam juice and cream made before I bolted upstairs for a shower. It was supposed to cool slightly so that gave it the opportunity to do so.
Back downstairs, I separated the eggs. Note that this recipe makes two souffles and uses 12 eggs. It would be easy to cut it in half.  When you are separating eggs and need a large quantity of egg whites, separate each egg into a small bowl, and add the egg white to the other egg whites. That way, you avoid contaminating eleven egg whites with a tiny bit of yolk from number twelve. If you do end up contaminating an egg white, you can add it to the four left over yolks for scrambled eggs the next morning.
Honestly, souffles are not particularly difficult if you possess a hand mixer. If you have never separated eggs, watch a you tube video and then practice with a dozen eggs. If you mess up, you can have scrambled eggs. Anyone can separate eggs with a little practice. Just don't be scared of the egg.
I beat the egg whites, folded them into the base and popped the souffles into the oven in their buttered dishes. The diners were full of complements. I found clam souffle somewhat bland. The clams don't have a great deal of taste, but that's just my opinion. If you like lightly flavored foods, go to it. You could also add things, like Parmesan cheese for extra flavor.

Clam Souffle

6 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons flour
1 cup clam juice
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups minced canned clams
8 egg yolks
1/4 cup freshly chopped parsley
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
grated nutmeg to taste (about 1/2 teaspoon)
12 egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. melt the butter and blend in the flour. Mix the clam juice and cream and slowly add to the butter-flour mixture, stirring constantly. Cook, stirring, until thickened. (How thick? Kind of like cake batter, if that's any help.) Add the minced clams and remove from the heat to cool slightly.
3. Beat the egg yolks thoroughly and add to the sauce. Stir in the paresley and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.
4. Beat the egg whites until firm. Fold them thoroughly into the sauce. Pour into two buttered two-quart souffle dishes and bake thirty-five minutes. Makes ten to one dozen servings.  
                                                                       

Angel Food Cake

I must have, at some point in my life, made angel food cake. We have an angel food cake pan, after all. I am not a person given to buying kitchen equipment because I might need it sometime in the far distant future. Usually I buy stuff after I have muddled along for a while and then decide, yes, I really do need whatever it might be. So, obviously, I made angel food cake. The index and my scrawled dates next to the recipe tells me, yes, I made Prize Angel Food Cake from the Northeast on January 20, 1995. It was not a memorable occasion.
I made this angel food cake because my son and daughter-in-law were coming to dinner. I wanted something easy. If you have an electric mixer, and who does not in these days, angel food cake is easy. You beat, mix, pour and bake. No standing over a hot stove stirring some concoction that does not want to thicken.  You do need a big bowl. Twelve egg whites beaten takes up a lot of space.
I can see why they call it angel food cake. In the bowl, the batter is pure white, as a child might imagine the robes of angels. It is also very fluffy, of course, with all those egg whites.
Readers might be puzzled by the picture. The directions for angel food cake tell the cook to stick the neck of the cake pan into a bottle, and let the cake cool upside down. This is a picture of my angel food cake cooling over the neck of a bottle. 
There is very little about the angel food cake to be intimidated by. One thing I suggest, is breaking your egg whites into a small bowl and adding them one at a time to the large bowl you plan to beat them in. That way, if your eleventh egg white gets some yolk in it, you have not contaminated an entire dozen eggs.
The recipe says not to grease the pan. This is important. The batter, as it rises, clings to the side of the pan and therefore stays up.
Wikipedia says angel food cakes are usually not served frosted, but with some kind of a sauce poured over. Bob, when informed that there was no frosting, went rummaging in indignation through the jams and jellies collection and heated up ginger marmalade to pour over the cake. That worked, and so would any other jam that you prefer.

Angel Food Cake

1 1/3 cups sugar, sifted twice
1 cup sifted cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups egg whites, (about 12 whites)
1 1/4 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Add one-third cup of the sifted sugar to the cake flour. Add the salt and sift the mixture together three times.
3. Beat the egg whites, preferably with a wire whisk (ahem, unless you are some sort of off the grid purist, use a hand mixer.), until they are foamy and add the cream of tartar. Continue beating until whites are stiff but not dry. Gradually beat in the remaining sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Fold in the vanilla and almond extract. Sift approximately one-quarter cup of the sugar and flour mixture over the batter. Fold in with a rubber spatula. Continue adding the sugar and flour mixture, folding in after each addition.
4. Pour the batter into an ungreased nine-inch tube pan. Bake about fouty-five minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly touched. Immediately turn the pan upside down, suspending tube part over the neck of a funnel or bottle. Let cake stand in the pan until cold, about one and one half hours. Makes enough cake to serve ten.