Spice Cake w/Meringue Topping

 

This is one of those recipes from my Grandma's Recipe Box that required some research before I could consider giving it a try.  Why would that be, you might ask?  Well, when you see the recipe card, you'll understand.  

With ingredients lined up and a glance at the recipe, it became clear I had no idea what to do.  The cake part seemed standard, so I figured I could cream the butter and brown sugar, add the egg yolks and incorporate the dry ingredients, while adding the milk and come up with a cake. But when I saw egg whites, brown sugar and nuts as a separate part of this recipe, I became completely confused.  Fortunately, I found a similar recipe called "Helen's Spice Cake" at Cooks.com.  The recipes are very similar, up to including the Meringue on top of the cake.  Thank goodness for the internet!

You'll notice when looking at the recipe card, it virtually has no instructions.  The best you get is time and temperature.  And honestly, I found that they are probably too hot, for too long.  More about that later.  Although I am not much of a cook, I did think the batter texture of this cake was good and I had high hopes for today's adventure.  Then comes the "stuff" that was supposed to be cooked for another 20 to 25 minutes.  That stuff, come to find out is a Meringue (thanks to Helen, I figured that out.).  I have never had a meringue on a cake before, so now I am nothing but intrigued.  I've also never made a meringue, so for me it was "game on".  If nothing else, I was trying something new today.

The smell of this Spice Cake permeated the house.  I think they sell candles that smell just like this cake and I am pretty sure my Grandma got a whiff of it up in heaven.  She was probably cringing as I cooked that darn thing like the card said - right up to 30 min.  When I tested it for doneness, I knew I let it go too long.  And I still needed to put the meringue on and cook the cake some more. I plowed ahead, covered the cake in the brown sugar meringue, sprinkled it with nuts and put it back in the oven.  At about the 15 min mark, I thought I could smell the slight hint of burnt sugar or was it burnt walnuts?(Uh oh!!).  Out it came, just in time and just like that, the house didn't have that spice cake/candle smell anymore. 😮

Bubba more than willingly took one for the team and tasted the Spice Cake (with "stuff" on top).  He mumbled things like, "I thought this was gonna be like banana bread.  You know, moist and yummy."  I am pretty sure I heard him give me some cooking advice, something to the affect "I think it needs moisture."  

In retrospect, I probably know what to do differently if I ever make this again.  I would probably use Crisco, like the recipe calls for, rather than butter.  They say that substituting butter can affect the texture of some foods - maybe that is the case here.  I wouldn't cook the cake at 375 degrees and I might skip the whole meringue thing.  

At the end of the day, I'm glad I made another of my Grandma's recipes.  The teacher in her would say something to me like "Good, you learned something today! Keep cooking and keep learning."