After a few days of coolness, including a big rainstorm, we're back to Hot, Sticky and Still. Yuck.
Time to head to the air-conditioned trailer with a cup of coffee, and some of the wonderful fruit that's out there right now. I've been thinking about shortcake to go with it. Normally, I make a kind of biscuit for this, heavily buttered and the fruit poured over. But when we had supper with our friends, they served it on squares of 'hot milk spongecake.' This plain cake is tasty on its own, but absorbs fruit juice nicely. There are dozens of recipes out there, but this version is simple, frugal...and good.
NANNIE'S HOT MILK SPONGECAKE
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Heat milk until almost boiling; while it's heating, beat everything but flour together. Gradually pour in milk, then flour, a little at a time, until thoroughly mixed. (Make the flour measurements heaping, if you live at high altitude, like we do.) Pour mixture into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan, bake for 45 min. until light brown and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
Serve lathered with sliced strawberries, cherries or peaches mixed with a little sugar, and a generous topping of whipped cream. Ummm…
Just to get away mentally, I've been reading a biography* of Ted Hughes, a brilliant poet who was anything but kind when it came to his many women. (Why do talented writers have to be such pigs sometimes??) Simultaneously, I've been dipping into a volume of letters** by Sylvia Plath, his first wife. She could also be demanding, and more than a little narcissistic. But boy, could she write -- and cook. Lo and behold, Sylvia made spongecake, too. In a letter to her sister-in-law Olwyn**, she wrote:
"Here is a heavenly sponge cake recipe which you should make in a high cake pan with a funnel in the center so the cake has a hole in the middle:
6 eggs (separate)
1 1/2 cups sugar (sifted)
1 1/3 cups cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
"Directions for sponge cake: Beat yolks until lemon colored. Add sugar gradually. Add water nd flavoring. Beat. Add flour gradually, beating. Beat egg whites to froth; add baking powder and salt to frothy egg whites. Beat until very stiff. Fold gently, but thoroly [sic] into egg yolk mixture. Sprinkle granulated sugar lightly over top of cake before putting it in the oven.
Bake for one hour at 325 degrees. Do not remove cake from pan till cake is cold. Happy eating..."
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Hughes and Plath during their marriage -- go here for more
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This post ran on the Brickworks blog, as well.
*Ted Hughes: The Unauthorized Life by Jonathan Bate (Harper/Harper Collins, 2015). Extremely well-documented and fascinating...until the scum builds up. Huges was not exactly a Nice Man -- but then again, Plath wasn't always a Nice Woman, either, though she hid it better.
**The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 2: 1956-1963 (edited Peter Steinberg and Karen Y. Kukil, Harper/Harper/Collins, 2018). Sylvia's recipe is on pp. 323-324.
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