26 September Monday

A friend wrote and asked for a recipe. Strawberry Meringue Cake by Ms. Bevelyn Blair of Columbus, Georgia. I was more than happy to oblige, and shared my slightly revised recipe which doubled the amount of milk in the original recipe. When I made the confection in a much celebrated installment of this serial, I announced that it was wonderful, and I went ballistic for it, declared her to be a great genius of the kitchen, and that was that. When I asked how it turned out, my friend said it was good, but the crust (not cake) was chewy and maybe too dense.

So, I think it might be time to revisit the recipe and perhaps concede that there is errata in her work, which doesn’t make her a bad baker and certainly not a bad person. A bad editor, maybe. It clearly says tested cake recipes on the front cover. I wonder if anyone down there in Columbus, Georgia helped her test the recipes, poor thing. A book like this is a lot of work. Well I’d sat here and stewed long enough. I decided to contact Ms. Bevelyn Blair of Columbus, Georgia.

I was a little surprised to see that she had a Twitter account, less so to see that she has two followers and has never sent a Tweet. It is apparently the only way to contact and nag her with annoying questions about how much milk goes in things. But gosh dern it, I’m gonna try! At its core, the dilemma is this- Is there something wrong with the Strawberry Meringue Cake recipe, or should it really be called Strawberry Meringue Bars? Fearing she may not check her social media all day, I had to have another method of figuring out the answer to this question. So, like the great scholars of old, I went back to the source, the manuscript, the scroll, the cave etchings to look for clues. Sift for them, if I may. Get it?

I thought it best considering the season, to start with her selection of pumpkin recipes. What I am looking for is a recipe that is similar to the strawberry one in terms of proportions of ingredients.

Ah, the pumpkin. The strawberry’s oafish cousin. The sweet delicate berries of summer have been crushed by the stubborn and withholding gourd. Hmm, I was just thinking that the pumpkin is often portrayed as empty headed or angry or as a goofy tag-a-long in literature or whatever, media, whereas the strawberry isn’t portrayed at all. Could you imagine the Headless Horseman launching a strawberry at Professor Crane? Where’s the drama in that?

I launch myself back into Country Cakes. Looking for recipes similar to Strawberry Meringue Cake starring pumpkin. There is a Pumpkin Cake recipe which looks very traditional, with whole eggs, oil, sifted flour, the regular cast. Not what we’re looking for. And that’s it. A pumpkin bread. Other than those, it seems she may not have been fond of pumpkin.

Then, a raisin cake, same sort of deal, only with hot water instead of milk. That one looks good actually. The next recipe, Raspberry Cake. OK, ok, it looks similar in that the eggs are separated, the ratio of dry to liquid is the same as the other cake (which in this case could be ruinous). With a batter that is really a dough, I mean, ya can’t fold egg whites into that. One can’t fold egg whites into a dough. Anyway, the whole concept of the cake sounds absolutely amazing, not the least reason being that the entire cake, after being covered in deep red raspberry whipped cream, is showered in finely shaved sun yellow citron, an ingredient I have a really hard time finding, in fact I’ve never found it here in San Francisco. Blair does that sometimes, uses an ingredient that seems really far away from me. Like a product called Vanilla, Butter, and Nut baking flavoring. Ever use that? My new Twitter friend, Bevelyn Blair of Columbus, Georgia certainly has.

Will I try the Raspberry Cake? Yes. Will I wait to see if I hear that she reached out to touch me? Hmm maybe a few days. How thrilling, another mystery!