Cakes I have made

It's coming up on harvest time, which means, here in Texas, that everything outdoors is deader than a doornail. That's why most of August is hay-making season in Texas: hay is dead grass.

In gentler climes, as I understand it, they harvest things because of the approach of cold weather, not the omnipresence of hot weather. Which sounds lovely, except it leads to romantic blunders like this Harvest Ribbon Cake, from Good Housekeeping's November 1953 issue.

Full disclosure: I have made this cake. And I have even served it to guests, although admittedly they were guests with excellent senses of humor. I did not, however, decorate the cake with almonds and what are said in the recipe to be sprays of grapes, but which look more like prunes. Maybe I did the orange peel (yeah, it looks like coconut, and wouldn't that be even worse?).

And pardon me for being petty, but are those daises in the background? Which are not exactly fall flowers?

Already in '53 they are leaning on the cake mixes for novelty:


I love this woodcut. The little Puritan girl looks like a child in one of those don't-talk-to-strangers comic books. The woman appears to be offering her a pan of lard, which would horrify me too.

I think when I made this, rather than use half of one cake mix for cupcakes (who's going to want extra cake in the house after making this?), I bought one of those little Jiffy mixes that makes half a cake. (Hey, they will send you a free recipe book! I am so there! I wonder iff all the recipes call for two boxes of cake mix, like the ones online do?) The tiny Jiffy mixes intrigue me. As does Sea Foam frosting, which I actually made, with its peculiar, synthetic texture. I find it intriguing, but I don't actually like it. Most cake frostings used to be cooked, not buttercream (well, OK, in the 50s anyway). But buttercream is what I was raised on; everything else seems exotic but not very tasty.

But the real disappointment in this cake is that none of the three layers are chocolatee. I guess that would overwhelm the other flavors; chocolate is pretty strong. But the spice layer looks dark, and it makes promises it can't keep.

Tomorrow, Blogger willing, I'll show you two more cake recipes from this mag that I've made, which are actually pretty good.

As always, click the photos to enlarge--if you dare!