Cakes and Pies

• Make a cake and you have an instant party!  My mama and all her five sisters loved a pound cake.  When they visited each other, a pound cake usually travelled with them.
• This German Chocolate Cake is famous!  It has graced our family tables on many special occasions and has travelled across many state lines with Mama and her sisters. It's so good that traveling with it could be considered illegal.
• Fluffy is desirable for cakes, towels, cats, and  blankets.
• Mama, the patron saint of patience, would curse when trying to remove cakes from their pans.  Mama only had one curse word in her vernacular, shit.  She claimed it was acceptable to say it, because her mother used it only when sewing.  Mama used it while sewing, but expanded it to baking, as well.
• Springform cheesecake pans - every I want to make a cheesecake – the bottom of the pan cannot be found.  It's like that elusive sock that gets lost.  No matter where you look, it is gone!
• To cut your cheesecake:  Unless you've already grabbed a fork and are digging in, use a hot knife.
• My Grandmother Annie used to yank a straw from her broom and stick it in the cake in the oven.  If it came out clean, the cake was done.
• Do not be tempted to open that oven door and check on your cake too soon.  Do that and your cake will sink like the Titanic.
• Aunt Bessie was a great cook, a dry wit, and had fantastic posture!  Maybe her pies had something to do with all that.
• I grabbed one of those pies.  My miserable mood magically disappeared with one swing of my arm, as I hurled Mama's famous chocolate meringue pie into the ditch.
• Mama used to eat all pies with a knife.  Hmmm... I'm thinking she did not want to share.

All quotes by Miss Cookbook ~  Pam Ricker