The Walnut (no walnuts) Cake

The Walnut (no walnuts) Cake

This is the cake that my mom so often made as a birthday cake!

Her children and grandchildren remember this cake well.

It was called Walnut Cake but she never used walnuts,

in fact, she often decorated the top with pecans!

I have her hand written recipe which says it came from "Mrs. D. Schwartz",

her sister-in-law - Dad's sister Esther!

I wonder sometimes if my cousins, Laura Ann, Irene, Florence, David, and Wayne

remember their mom making this cake and if so how it was different.

Did Aunt Esther actually use walnuts or raisins???
Did she put brown sugar icing on it like Mom did???

My daughter, Becky, turns 33 today - I simply can't believe it

and this is the cake she requested - eek!

I know that my sister Evelyn has mastered the recipe (with it's scant/no instructions)

but I will give it a try.

After all, it has been so long since I've been able to bake a cake for Becky

on the day of her actual birthday.

In the past years, her birthday was celebrated by telephone or FaceTime while she was living in Alberta!

Sometimes I would bake a cake anyhow for the farmer and I - 😏

I began bravely, after consulting with my sister, putting together the ingredients.
On one of the recipe cards she had written "mix in order and alternate milk and flour".

First I greased and floured the actual cake pan that she always used for this cake.

Somewhere I found a recipe for greasing cake pans that is used by professionals so I mixed up a batch, greased the pan and floured it.

Cake Pan Grease:
Equal parts vegetable oil, shortening, and flour.
Beat till well blended and store in fridge for up to 5 months. This stuff really works well.

The cake baked beautifully (much to my surprise) and came out of the pan perfectly.
I didn't know what temperature to bake it at or how long but used 350F and baked for approx. 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle came out clean.






Now the icing (the cake with the "brown" icing) as requested by my birthday girl....
I wonder if this is why they all loved this cake?

Mom's Brown Sugar Icing (as written by her)

1 Cup Brown Sugar - packed

½ Cup Sweet Cream

“Boil till it forms a soft ball in bottom of a glass of cold water.  Add vanilla and a nice (walnut size) piece of butter.  Take off heat and stir till cool and creamy.  Lots of luck, Sarah”

I believe a walnut size of butter is about 2 Tbsp. - I used a heaping 2 Tbsp.

This is the actual depression glass cake plate that Mom always used to serve her Walnut Cake!

With a little fiddling and much needed practice with the icing technique,

it's iced and ready to go.

Pecans - no walnuts in the house, and Mom's apron
Just maybe she never had walnuts around either and used pecans instead? Who knows?

I'll come back later and let you know how it tasted and whether the "Walnut Cake"

 made the grade....

I think it was a success ...

The cake was a tad too sweet - but not as sweet as this girl of ours!
Happy Birthday Becky!

Oh, and one more thing - exactly 5 years ago I posted my very first blog post - Wow!
Here is the link .... (for some reason the pictures did not show up except for one)?
http://rhubarbandroses-rosella.blogspot.ca/2011/11/60s-here-i-come.html 

Till next time ......... Thanks Mom for being the wonderful mother you were and for making amazing memories for us all!!!! I miss you always.