Grandma Baldwin's Orange Nectar Cake

This was my mom's favorite cake growing up. Her mother made it for her every year on her birthday. My mom couldn't remember what kind of icing her mom used so I made an orange buttercream. Tonight I visited my family to celebrate my mom's, my sister in law's, and my birthdays (today is my actual birthday). I made this orange cake - it's one of the recipes I'll be publishing in my Taste Book. Unfortunately my grandmother did not put any directions on the index card- just a list of ingredients and an oven temperature. I had to use one of my cake books and a bit of common sense but wasn't hopeful that it would come out. I have never in my life made a cake without butter so I didn't know where to begin and what to expect. This is a very dense cake- even denser than a pound cake- and was very tasty. Upon tasting the buttercream, it suddenly came to my mother that her mom actually made a glaze that she drizzled over the two layers, not a frosting. She believes it was nothing more than powdered sugar mixed with orange juice and possibly a little milk until it was the right consistency for drizzling. I think next time I will cook the cake batter in a bundt pan and drizzle the glaze on top instead of using a heavy buttercream.

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Orange Blossom Cake

3/4 cup vegetable shortening (Crisco)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 orange, grated zest of (only the orange part, not the white pith)
1/2 lemon, juice of
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup orange juice (fresh squeezed from above zested orange)
3 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
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Preheat the oven to 375 F.

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With the paddle attachment mix together the sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt) with the shortening on low speed. Once the vegetable shortening has coated the flour, add water and turn up the speed to med-low. Add the orange juice, zest and sugar and continue to mix. Turn up to med-high and add the eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl and mix again, for several minutes to aerate the batter. Pour into two 9x1.5 inch cake pans that have been greased and floured. Bake in oven for 30-35 minutes or until golden on top and a toothpick comes out clean.

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Buttercream Frosting

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3 cups vegetable shortening (Crisco)

2 sticks butter, softened

2 pounds confectioner's sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

For Orange Buttercream: add the zest of one orange and enough juice to taste.

Whip together all of the ingredients then split the batter into two bowls and whip each separately until the right consistency.

Dad's Chicken a la King

The cookbook I am in the process of putting together for my mom will have mostly recipes from my maternal grandmother. As I've mentioned on a previous post, I do plan on including recipes from my immediate family as well. It's a pretty gloomy day today and I have been craving some serious comfort food. Nothing is more comforting than a big bowl full of my dad's chicken a la king: Chunks of white meat chicken, peas and carrots and a creamy gravy that was piled high over white rice. It's the perfect dish for a January night.

This dish was a favorite of mine throughout my childhood. My dad loved to cook and did so every weekend while he played his favorite old vinyl records: ABBA, Zorba the Greek, and Blackwatch (Scottish Bagpipes). I remember standing at the stove next to my dad as he made the roux, added the stock and milk and later the cooked chicken and the vegetables. I have seen many recipes for this dish and most of them call for red bell peppers. I don't recall my dad adding them to his recipe. He's not around to ask, but I'm assuming he thought that peppers would be to sophisticated to introduce to a child. I'm used to it the way he made it: simple, creamy and delicious.

I started to get out some cookbooks to get some sort of "baseline" or a place to start. It just frustrated me so I relied on my common sense and my memories. This is my first attempt at re-creating my dad's famous dish. I plan on freezing a portion to bring to my brothers' homes to get their opinions on how close I am to the real deal. I'm sure there will be some tweaking needed, but here's the first run:


Dad's Chicken a la King

2 8-ounce chicken cutlets
4-6 carrots, chopped
1 medium white onion
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup milk
1 10-ounce box of frozen peas
salt and pepper, to taste

Heat 1-2 tablespoons of butter in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook until nearly translucent. Add the chopped carrots and saute for 2-3 minutes. Salt and pepper the raw chicken chunks and add to pot, saute until browned.

Add the remaining butter and the flour to the pot and mix well, making sure all of the flour is coated with the butter. Stir for 1-2 minutes to cook the raw flour taste out of it. Add the stock and continue to stir. Bring to a boil. Add the thyme and some salt & pepper.

Stir in the milk (you can substitute heavy cream or 1/2 & 1/2 if you prefer) and cook on the stovetop until the carrots are tender and the chicken chunks are cooked through. Adjust seasoning to taste.

The Planning Stages

OK, I just mailed out letters to my two uncles in CT informing them of the planned surprise party for my mother as well as my ideas on publishing a cookbook about my grandmother's recipes. I am hoping to get a lot of information from them, I know it's a lot to ask but I'm hoping they'll see that the fruits of their labor will be sweet. They will have a book that they can pass on to their kids who will then pass it down to their children. I'm interested in some detailed information about Grandma Baldwin.... details they know about her life in Orono, Maine as well as how she met my grandfather, what kind of teacher she was, what kind of mother she was, and especially information about the food she baked for them. I'm planning on the book being part family memoir and part cookbook. I'm not certain if or how I will combine my dad's and other family recipes in a way that it will blend well. I'm still working on that. Maybe they won't work together at all (??). I'm at ground level at this point. Anyone that has any ideas or suggestions please feel free to comment. Uncle Alan and Uncle Bob, if you're reading- any information you can provide would be most appreciated as well. I'm hoping to make one of Grandma Baldwin's recipes this weekend.... stay tuned for a recipe and some photos. :)

Although this blog site is dedicated soley to my grandmother's recipes, they will also be posted on my main food blog: http://www.threebitesfoodblog.com/ . For those new to Three Bites, it's a place where I journal all of my culinary experiences.

One last note... please scroll to the bottom of the page and answer my poll. I am very interested in your responses.

The Beginning...

Many of you know me from http://www.threebitesfoodblog.com/. It's my online journal of my culinary adventures in the kitchen cooking through 100+ cookbooks, all while maintaining a healthy lifestyle and slowly losing weight. My brother and I decided to start planning a surprise birthday party for my mother that will be catered at a local restaurant complete with live music and all of her friends and family. She grew up in the Berkshire Mountain region of Massachussets (on the beautiful western part of the state- nowhere near Boston). Her mom, my Grandma Baldwin, grew up in a very small town in Maine called Orono, not too far from Bangor. She was a school teacher until she had the first of four children. Apparently Grandpa Baldwin had a serious sweet tooth because my mom recalls them having a fresh homemade dessert seven nights of the week (cakes, custards, pies, puddings). She also baked her own bread (she let her dough rise on the wood burning stove in the kitchen).

I was browsing through my mother's recipe box and found many recipes. All were on old, yellowed index cards and they were either in my grandmother's handwriting or typed on an old fashioned type writer (remember those?). Most of the recipes had no direction or instructions, just a list of ingredients, the oven temperature and sometimes an indication as to what "pan" to use. I was asking my mother about the recipes and it brought back so many wonderful memories for her. She smiled when I mentioned the Orange Blossom Cake..... it was the cake that was made for her every year on her birthday. I decided to begin a project of duplicating each and every one of her recipes while keeping track of the process in an attempt to publish it for my family so we have a permanent record that can be passed down from one generation to the next. This, too, will be a surprise for her (as it will be for me if I finish in time..... I've got lots of baking ahead of me!!).

I have decided to make one of her baked goods at least twice a month, most likely on a Sunday so my husband Ken and I can try one piece and bring the rest to my job so we don't grow enormous in the process. I look forward to being in the kitchen with Grandma's old recipes. She died when I was in third grade (and I still remember her blueberry pie and her boiled Maine lobster!). I think this will be a way to get to know her better, at least as a baker. She was a wonderful woman and I am thrilled at the possibility of keeping all of her recipes alive. The few that my mom has made for us over the years have long been cherished by my brother's and I (and now our spouses). I can't wait to get going!

I was very lucky in that my mom was a wonderful baker and my dad had a great passion for cooking. He passed away in 1988 after a short battle with cancer. I used to stand next to him at the stove when he would cook on the weekends, drooling as he would add every ingredient. He was a fantastic cook and traveled the world for business, bringing home countless ideas for meals he would prepare on the weekends. I'm thinking about including some of his best recipes which will take some elbow grease because he never used a recipe and didn't write things down. I will have to rely on my memory. I think my mom will be blown away by this book, especially if I include a chapter on my dad's recipes.

Stay tuned.... I will be posting each and every attempt complete with failures and successes. I have little to no direction so I will have to rely on my experience in the kitchen as well as good old fashioned common sense. Wish me luck!