Cigar Box Recipes: Fresh Cherry Cobbler

This latest installation of Momer's Cigar Box comes to us from Abbie, my great aunt and Momer's sister. Aunt Abbie lived to be 101 years old. She lived in a retirement home and she told my dad that every time someone would walk by her room, she could hear them whisper, "That lady in there is 100 years old!"

Aunt Abbie and Beowulf

When I think of old-timey recipes, I always think of everything being wholesome and made from scratch but it cracks me up how many of my grandma's recipes use things like Crisco and Bisquick. I don't use that stuff so I found a recipe for a pancake mix from scratch.

Abbie's Fruit Cobbler
1 can sour cherries or other fruit (I used 1 lb. pitted fresh cherries)
1 cup sugar or sugar to taste
1/4 c. flour
2 Tbsp. butter
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
Cook until thick, about 5 minutes. Pour into baking dish. Put topping on top with spoon.

Topping:
1 1/2 c. pancake mix
1/4 cup Crisco
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 cup milk
Mix together.

And here's where the recipe ends...so I looked up a cobbler recipe online and it says to bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes. Turns out 350 for 30 minutes is perfect.


Janet's Notes: I had to laugh when I took my first bite and the topping tasted like pancakes. Is that how Bisquick tastes? Next time I'll use a biscuit dough. Adjustments to the recipe--I added 1/4 cup of water and cut the sugar to 1/2 cup because I used fresh cherries and substituted 2 Tbsp. cornstarch for flour because isn't using flour a little weird?

p.s. I'm not the gadget type, but have you ever used a cherry pitter? They are awesome!

Cigar Box Recipes: Coconut Cake

Once a year when I was growing up, Momer would fly from Alabama to visit us in California. As soon as she unpacked, we'd run to the closet and smell her clothes--it sounds so weird now, but we loved her smell. Sweet and baby-powderish.


And at some point during the visit, she'd make us her famous coconut cake. She'd go into the garage with a coconut and a hammer, pour the juice out for us to drink, and grate the meat for her recipe. She always insisted we wait three days to eat the cake, but I must admit that I made this recipe in the morning and we inhaled it that night.


Coconut Cream Cake
1 pkg. butter-flavored cake mix
2 cups sugar
1 8-oz. carton sour cream
12 oz. grated coconut
1 1/2 cups whipped cream
Bake cake in 4 layers. Cool. Combine sugar, sour cream and coconut. Chill. Reserve 1 cup for frosting. Spread remainder between layers. Combine reserved sour cream mixture and whipped cream; blend until smooth. Spread on top and sides of cake. Seal cake in air-tight container, and refrigerate for 3 days before serving. It's worth waiting for.


Janet's Notes: I baked this in 3 layers because I didn't have a fourth cake pan. The filling was a little grainy (maybe because we didn't wait 3 days to eat it) and I doubt I'll be more patient next time, so I might use powdered sugar instead of granulated. I also used packaged coconut instead of fresh.

The shirtless wonder bakes a cake.

Momer's Cigar Box: Shaker Lemon Pie

My great-aunt Willa (left) and my grandma, Momer.

In this installment of Momer's Cigar Box, I'm using a recipe from my great aunt, Willa Bennett. Aunt Willa is from Birmingham Alabama but moved to Hawaii when her husband took a job at Pearl Harbor. After he retired, they moved to Lanai, then finally to Missouri where her son lived. She died at age 84, leaving behind a recipe for Shaker Lemon Pie.


This recipe intrigued me because it uses whole lemons, rather than just the juice. I've never seen anything like it so had to give it a try.


Shaker Lemon Pie
2 large lemons
2 cups superfine sugar
4 eggs
pastry for a 9" 2-crust pie

Wash and dry lemons; slice into paper-thin slices. Remove seeds. Sprinkle with sugar and toss gently to cover all slices. Let stand at least 3 hours and up to 12 hours. Stir occasionally. Prepare pastry; line 9" pan. Combine beaten eggs with lemon mixture and pour into unbaked pie shell. Cover with top crust that has been slashed for steam escape. Bake 15 min at 450 degrees. Lower to 350 and bake 30-35 minutes longer. Serve warm. 8 servings. 422 calories per serving. (Recipe is from Redbook Magazine, August 1976.)


Janet's notes: I used 3 medium lemons and let it sit about 6 hours. Since I knew all the lemon slices would show, I opted for one crust instead of two so it would look pretty--plus, two crusts just sounded like it would be so dry. I put whipped cream instead of the top crust.

What I Did Wrong: Sliced the lemons too thick. I was trying to slice as thin as possible while keeping them in rounds. Next time I won't worry about the look of the lemons, since the look of lemon slices in a pie is striking anyway and some of the slices were tough.

Verdict: I loved this. I love tart things and the filling was sour enough to be refreshing but still sweet, and the lemon peel gave it a tiny bit of bitterness that my husband didn't care for, but that I liked. This would be a showstopper at your next summer picnic or dinner party. Email for my address so you'll know where to send the invitation.

Momer's Corn Bread

I'm starting a new series here on This is Beige: cooking from the cigar box full of recipes I inherited from my grandma. Since Momer was from the south, I have to start with cornbread. If there's one thing you should know about Southerners and cornbread, it would have to be this: they do not like it sweet (or cakey, but that's two).


How can you bite into a piece of this cornbread and not be transported back to the "old plantation days?"


Digging into this recipe box is going to be highly entertaining and hopefully delicious as well. My favorite line is, "Pour sweet milk over meal and stir till mixed good." And by the way, sweet milk is just milk, as opposed to buttermilk.

Southern Egg Bread
1/2 pt (1 cup) of sweet milk
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 pt (2 cups) of corn meal
2 Tbsp. lard (I used butter)
2 eggs


Sift meal in pan. Pour boiling water over it, just a teacupful (I used 6 oz.). Next add lard (butter) so that the hot water will melt it in the meal. Pour sweet milk over meal and stir till mixed good. Add baking powder and salt. Always add eggs last. Bake in hot oven about 20 or 30 minutes until nicely browned, serve plenty butter with them. (Serve plenty butter with them? Where is your editor?!)


Verdict and Janet's notes: It would have been easier to melt the butter before adding it. And since the recipe didn't bother with superfluous information like oven temp ("hot oven?") I baked the bread at 400 degrees. Twenty minutes turned out to be enough; I made sure a toothpick came out clean. This was good. The kids liked it with butter and honey.