Recently we had a recipe with Apricot Nectar. Here is another and a family favorite. It is quick, easy, inexpensive, and just a bit grown up and different from Nini’s Apricot Nectar cake…not better…just different.

Apricot Rum Cake

1 pkg yellow cake mix
4 lg eggs
3/4 c oil
3/4 c Apricot nectar

Rum Glaze
1/2 c butter
2/3 c sugar
1/3 c rum

Combine cake mix, eggs, oil and apricot nectar and beat well with mixer. Pour into lightly greased and floured tube pan and bake for 50 minutes at 325 F. Combine butter, sugar and rum in saucepan and bring to a boil. Use fork to poke holes in cooled cake. Slowly pour glaze over top and sides.

This is the time of year my family starts calling or emailing and asking for this recipe. The origin of this recipe is a very cute kids book (and actually it belongs to a series. The book is called Old Witch and the Polka Dot Ribbon.

This is the cake you want at your house in the fall. It works for Halloween! It works for Thanksgiving. It works for breakfast on those chilly mornings. (err pumpkin is healthy…)

I read it in my elementary school library and had to make the recipe because the book was so good. The resulting cake was so good that yes, my family expects it on a yearly basis. My copy of the recipe is scrawled in my mothers hand in the back of my Joy of Cooking for Boys and Girls. It is much spattered and abused. In fact, it is sort of hard to read these days.

Anyhow…you should definitely go for this cake. You won’t be sorry.

I use either pecans or walnuts (or skip them altogether-just decorating the top with some). You can also reduce the sugar by 1/2 cup easily. I do double the frosting recipe though (actually now that I think about it, we only frost half these days so I don’t need to double the recipe anymore. It keeps so well and really, no one can pass it up.

Old Witch Cake AKA Witchy Pooh Cake (and apparently it really was called Old Witch’s Magic Nut Cake)

3 eggs
1 lb pumpkin
3/4 c vegetable oil
1/2 c water
Beat together

Add
2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/4 c sugar
1 1/2 t. soda
1 1/4 t salt
3/4 t. nutmeg
3/4 t. cinnamon
1 c yellow raisins
1/2 c chopped walnuts

Pour batter in greased tube or bundt pan. Bake 1 hour 15 min at 350 degrees F.

Icing
4 oz cream cheese
3 T butter
1 t. lemon juice or vanilla
1/2 box confectioners sugar
Cream together. Frost cake. Sprinkle with chopped walnuts.

Girl child asked about carrot cake the other day. It seems one of her friends prefers carrot cake. I have to admit, I prefer cream cheese icing-no matter what kind of cake. Carrot cakes are much easier in these days of pre-grated carrots or a food processor to grate carrots swiftly.

This was a widely circulated basic recipe for years, most likely put out by a test kitchen since it uses brand names. It works well. I tend to make it in a bundt pan and bake about an hour-then just frost the top.

Carrot Cake

2 c. sugar
2 c. flour
2 tsp. soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
11/2 c. Wesson oil
3 c. grated carrots

Combine dry ingredients and mix well. Add eggs and oil and mix well. Now add carrots and beat on medium speed with electric mixer about 2 minutes. Grease and flour three 9-inch cake pans and bake 25-30 minutes.

Filling

1 8oz pkg Philadelphia cream cheese
1 stick butter
1 box confectioners sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. chopped pecans (optional)

Cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Add sugar gradually. Add vanilla and pecans. Put between layers and on top. Do not ice sides.

A different cheese cake today-a chocolate one. This is a no bake cheese cake and chocolate making it a hit for many of you. It isn’t my favorite chocolate cheese cake - I am not a gelatin cheesecake fan. It is quite retro in prep though…including the cooking of the chocolate pudding.

Chocolate Cheese Cake

2 cups crushed cinnamon graham crackers
1/2 cup unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
2 4-oz. packages chocolate pudding
2 cups milk
1 12-ounce carton (1 1/2 cups) cottage cheese, sieved
1 cup heavy cream, whipped

Prepare crust, mix crushed graham crackers and melted butter together. Press on bottom and sides of 9-inch spring-form pan. Soften gelatin in water. Cook chocolate pudding according to package directions; however use only 2 cups milk. When thickened, stir in gelatin. Fold in sieved cottage cheese. Cool to about room temperature and then fold in whipped cream. Pour into crust. Chill until firm. This dessert may be frozen. Makes 10-12 servings. Garnish with whipped cream and shaved chocolate, if desired.

I have no clue on the name. Part of me wants to say it was a “diet” recipe…but then part of me thinks it must be because you forget it is in the oven with the door closed for 6 hours. In fact, that must be it. In any case, this is a cheese cake for the cream cheese and/or ricotta cheese hating folk in your family. It produces the cheesecake that I tend to think of as a classic cheesecake…not NY or those various and sundry variations on the Philly cheesecake. Really, nice texture, not too sweet. It is time consuming and you must make it first thing in the morning for dinner…or make it the day before.
The skipping of the ricotta and cream cheese also brings the price of this cheesecake down to definitely thrifty. (What on earth is going on with the price of cream cheese by the way? Every time I actually look at the price I am taken aback) 

“I remember” Cheesecake

1 6 oz pkg zwieback
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 lb creamed cottage cheese
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cram
1/4 teaspoon salt
Grated rind and juice of large lemon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour

Roll zwieback into fine crumbs, melt butter or margarine and sift the confectioner’s sugar. Now mix up sugar and zwieback crumbs, then stir in the butter or margarine thoroughly. Start your oven at 250F or slow. Grease an 8″ spring form pan and pat crumbs onto bottom and sides, saving crumbs left over for top of cake.

Now push the cottage cheese through a sieve. Separate eggs and beat yolks until very thick. Then gradually stir in 1/2 cup granulated sugar. Next beat the cream until it stands in peaks and mix into yolk-sugar mixture. Finally, mix in salt, lemon rind and juice, vanilla extract, flour and cottage cheese. Beat egg whites until stiff, then gradually beat in the remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Mix or fold egg whites gently into cheese batter. Pour into pan, cover with remaining crumbs and bake 1 3/4 hours. Leave Cheesecake in the oven, with the door closed, until cold, so it won’t fall. This will take at least 6 hours, perhaps longer but it’s worth it. Perfectly delicious with hot coffee and cool canned pineapple.

Today is my birthday! Somehow, apples and apple festivals have become a tradition for my birthday. Mostly, these consist of pretend apple festivals, since we do not live further north where apples grow. An apple festival + a birthday calls for an apple cake. Here is a lovely apple cake that comes from my great grandmother’s friend Frances Sears. Well, it is lovely in that it is delicious. I have yet to see a truly pretty apple cake that also tasted good.

I skip the nuts these days, but have used pecans in it. The frosting is really a nice change of pace, a sort of brown sugar boiled frosting.  I also tend to bake it at 350 for about an hour and 15 minutes or until done. Use orange pippin apples if you can get your hands on them. Otherwise a granny smith, Jonagold, Winesap or whatever good cooking apple is available in your area.

Fresh Apple Cake

2 c sugar
1 1/2 cups Wesson  oil
4 eggs
3 c flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar and Wesson oil, add eggs, one at a time. Sift together and add flour, salt, soda, and baking powder. Fold into mixture 3 cups peeled and diced apples and 1 cup chopped nuts. Add vanilla. Bake in tube pan at 300 degrees F. for 2 hours.

Frosting

1 cup light brown sugar
1 stick oleo
1/4 c. evaporated milk

Cook until thick, beat and spread over cake.

If there is a cake I have an everlasting fondness for, it is this one. No chocolate. Just a simple glaze. Not only that it comes from a mix. It doesn’t matter…this is good.

Maybe it is what I will do for my birthday. (Just over 16 days until my birthday you know!)

Apricot Nectar Cake

From my Great Grandmother’s friend Mrs. Bill Dorsey

Oven 350 degrees–Bake in loaf or tube pan

1 Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix
1 orange Jello
3/4 cup apricot nectar, warmed to dissolve Jell-o
3/4 c. Mazola
4 eggs, 1 at a time, bake.

Glaze cake while hot — 2 t. melted butter
1 lemon — juice and grated rind
1 c. powdered sugar (may use more)
To thin icing use milk.

About the recipe, prepare in the normal way-throw ingredients in bowl and mix and obviously any vegetable oil can be substituted for the Mazola.

As I mentioned yesterday, it is HOT outside. This is something my great-grandmother would make for dessert during hot Mobile, Alabama summers. It looked elegant and tasted wonderful. On top of that, it is super easy and you make it the night before in the cooler hours of the day. I prefer it with the ladyfingers, but the vanilla wafers really are fine too. You can add a touch of rum to the chocolate instead of water, if you prefer a more “grown up” dessert. Try it. It is a nice change of pace from the ice cream and retro jell-o desserts of summer…without the fuss of say…those new fangled frou-frou desserts.

There is also a Chocolate Snowballs recipe on the card, basically a scoop of ice cream rolled in coconut and chocolate. As long as you don’t have coconut haters in your house-another hit for summer.

Easy Icebox Cake

1 package Baker’s German Sweet Chocolate, melted

1 1/2 tablespoons water
1 egg yolk, unbeaten
1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 egg white, stiffly beaten
12 ladyfinger halves or vanilla wafers

Blend the melted chocolate with water. Add egg yolk and beat until smooth. Mix in the sugar. Whip cream and fold into chocolate. Fold in beaten egg whites. Line an 8×4x3-inch loaf pan with wax paper. Layer wafers with chocolate mixture. Chill overnight. Unmold. Serves 5.

I have been in a pineapple mood lately. Maybe it is the summer heat sending me tropical thoughts. In any case, this is a wonderful retro dessert for these hot summer days. It isn’t your average pineapple upside down cake, instead it is more like a frozen banana pudding.

Note: there is an error on the card and it should say add pineapple and lemon juice, not add pineapple juice and lemon juice.

Pineapple Icebox Cake

3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup sugar
1 can or 2 cups crushed pineapple, drained
1 package vanilla wafers
2 teaspoons bottled lemon juice
1 cup heavy cream

Beat yolks with sugar until mixture is smooth and thick. Add pineapple and bottled lemon juice. Cook over hot water, stirring constantly until thick enough to coat the spoon. Remove from heat and cool.

Beat egg whites until they stand in peaks. Whip the cream until it also holds a shape. Then gently mix or fold egg whites and beaten cream into thepinapple mixture.

Put crushed vanilla wafers in bottom of quart-sized refrigerator tray and spoon pineapple mixture on top. Freeze until fir, about 5 hours. Cut in thick slices to serve 8.

This is a popular cake recipe from my great grandmother. There are a lot of steps, but really, it is worth it.

½ cup butter
½ cup sugar
4 egg yolks
½ cup cake flour
4 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons cake flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugar. Add flour which has been sifted before measuring alternately with milk. Sift remaining 2 tablespoons flour, baking powder, salt. Pour into 2- 8″ pans.

Meringue
4 egg whites
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup nuts

Beat whites to froth and then add light sifting of sugar at a time. When well mixed add vanilla. Spread on uncooked layers of cake. Sprinkle with chopped nuts.

Bake 20-25 minutes at 325-350° F.

Filling
1 cup whipping cream
½ tablespoon powdered sugar
1 cup crushed pineapple
¼ teaspoon vanilla

Place one layer meringue side down on cake platter. Whip the cream, add the powdered sugar, pineapple and vanilla. Spread on first layer and top with other layer.