Jessie, Here's The Prune Cake Recipe

There is nothing especially on my mind this morning except the fact that it is just an incredibly beautiful morning. Cool and bright-light-shining-down. I love the way the blooming phlox seem to catch that light and intensify it and send it back out, a different thing, light but jewel, too. Suddenly, my yard is ablaze in pink fire.

The light travels from blossom to bloom throughout the day. Each and every head of flower gets its moment of glory. 

Jessie called me on her way home from work this morning, as she does sometimes. She's so tired after a long, hard night (and last night was especially hard) and if she talks to me, she stays awake. It's so odd in the baby-business how complications seem to all arise at the same time. Thus it was last night. Instead of her usual peaceful and fairly uneventful mommy-baby care-taking, she was taking care of babies who needed lots of extra care and observation and she never did get her thirty-minute break. She ate a salad while attending to one of her sick babies. 

"Well, it's my job," she said.

Yesterday when she got home, Vergil had her an omelet ready and waiting on the table. He's such a good boy. His mama did such a good job of raising him. 

Speaking of Vergil's mama, she's about to become a grandmother. Vergil's sister is due any time to have her first baby and they're all so excited. When Jessie and I were talking about the coming event this morning, I remembered that I'd promised Jessie the prune cake recipe because she wants to make it for Pearl after she has her baby. I joke that we should really call it the Post-Partum Cake because I always make it for ladies after their babies come. As I have said, it is a substantial cake, heavy and dense and moist and I first had it when I was a little girl. My mother made it for my grandfather's birthday one year and I always remembered it and when I went through her recipes when I was much, much older, I found the recipe and immediately remembered it and was so delighted to have it.

Now that's some cake for me to have remembered it all those years!

Or, you know, I just really like to eat. 

And so, since I don't have anything of world class importance to talk about this morning, I'll give you the prune cake recipe. The card I have it written on is stained and soft from use and a little confusing so I'll do my best to translate it. There's not much you can do to mess it up if you just get all the ingredients in there somewhere, seeing as how it is not a cake of fluff and spun sugar. Not that there's anything at all wrong with a cake of fluff and spun sugar. This just isn't one of them.

Prune Cake

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Butter and flour a stem-pan. I use a Bundt pan and I also use that Baker's Joy which is probably crap but boy, is it easier.

Mix: 

1 Cup vegetable oil 

1 1/2 Cups of brown sugar.

Add: 

2 Cups flour

1 1/2 tsp. each of salt, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, and allspice. I add about a tsp. of ground cloves, too.

Mix well. You can do this by hand if you want. 

Add:

I Cup of prunes which have been cooked and mashed. I just cover them in water and bring them to a simmer and let them cook until they're tender and have absorbed most of the water. Drain if necessary and mash them with a potato masher. 

1 Cup of pecans, chopped

1 Cup of buttermilk to which has been added 1 1/2 tsp. of baking soda. 

After you've incorporated all of that, put in three whole eggs and mix again. 

Bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Icing

1 Cup of brown sugar

1/2 Cup of buttermilk

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. white Karo syrup

1/2 stick of butter

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Combine all of these in a heavy pot on the stove. Cook, stirring, until it forms a hard ball in cold water. 

Do you know how to do this? If not, I'm sure someone on Youtube can show you.

I sort of put the icing on in stages. I spoon a little on and it sort of pools up around the edges some and in the middle too. Shouldn't pool up too much if you've cooked it long enough. Then add more. Repeat until it's all used up. The cake sort of absorbs some of it and it's just...well. Delicious.

And it doesn't hurt a thing to add more chopped pecans to the top of the cake.

This is a great cake to take to a new mama in that she can just grab a piece whenever she gets a second and it will restore her body and her soul both. Also- prunes. Mostly though, just really good. 

All right. That's it for now. I have a walk to take and a chicken coop to clean and clothes to hang on the line to dry in this sweet, shining day.

Later.

Love...Ms. Moon