3 Sour Cream Spice Cake Recipes and a Viet Nam Story

You can't have spice cake without spice, and one of the main spices (pictured) is cinnamon...ground, of course, plus another popular spice. Here is my Mother-In-Law's variation on the recipe, told just as she shared it...not written in "typical" recipe format....I can hear her voice now in my mind, in spite of her having passed on about 6 years ago.

SOUR CREAM SPICE CAKE:

1) Sift together:
-1 1/2 c. Cake Flour
-1/4 tsp Salt
-1/2 tsp Cinnamon
-1 tsp Baking Powder
-1/2 tsp Nutmeg
-1 tsp Soda (I'm guessing she meant baking soda)

2) Fold:
-1 Cup Sugar into 1 c. thick Sour Cream

3) Add:
-2 Well Beaten Egg Yolks (save the egg whites)

4) Alternate wet and dry ingredients
5) Beat egg whites stiffly
6) Fold mix into egg whites

Bake 9 x 9 loaf (I think she meant square cake dish/pan) at 375 degrees until springs to touch.

The picture is my husband's mother's side of the family...they were the ones who put together the reunions. His Mom is 20 in this picture, the oldest, at the top left next to her father with her arm around her sister, Joan. In the center is their brother, John, the one I'll be telling you more about, and then there is Dorothy and Barbara...they span ages 6-20. My husband's Mom outlived all but her youngest sibling. Their parents, my husband's grandparents, immigrated from Holland, so there were always relatives who came from Holland to be part of the reunion.

Back to our recipe, this one is another variation I found on the same page as the one above, again, written just as it is in the book, not in "typical" recipe style, but you'll be able to follow it just fine.

Ingredients and instructions:

- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs, well beaten. Mix together (with sugar),
then add 1/2 cup sweet milk.
- 1 rounding teaspoon baking powder
mixed with 1 rounding cups of flour that
has been sifted 3 times before measuring
- 1 cup sour cream, with
1 level teaspoon soda beaten into it
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Bake in two layers, and put together with plain frosting.

Obviously that means that you mix all the ingredients together, and put them in 2 floured, greased round cake pans, and make a layer cake using a white frosting.

This recipe is on the page with the others, but does not include spice, instead fruit toppings. Here's the recipe:

Heat oven to 350 degrees
Grease and flour 2 cake pans

Beat:
2 egg yolks
1 Tbsp butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup thick sour cream

Add:
2 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 sm. tsp. soda
Pinch salt

Beat well: 2 min., high speed

Divide batter in half into the 2 13 x 9 x 2 cake pans

Sprinkle top with cherry pie filling OR apple pie filling.

Bake 25-30 min.

Glaze on back

This picture was downloaded from Flickr, click the picture to be taken to where I found it.