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Trilla Pando:
Stirring up memories
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Sour Cream Pound Cake, Blueberry Crunch and More
June 8, 2005
Just
about every time there is a function at the Eldorendo Baptist
Church, they serve
food. And just about every time
they serve food at the Eldorendo
Baptist Church,
someone is likely to come up to Irene Ethridge with the same request.
“Now,
Irene. You be sure and bring
your
special pound cake!”
What
makes Irene’s pound cake special—other than her light touch as a
cook—is not a secret. Any one
who really wants to know can find it right in the Eldorendo Baptist Church Cookbook that came out to celebrate the
church’s centennial in 2000.
“A century of good cooking,” the cover proclaims.
A
few weeks ago, Linda Howard of Brinson appealed to me for recipes for a sour cream
pound cake and blueberry crunch. I
passed the request on to “Stirring up memories” readers, and that
very day Irene gave me a call! She
had both recipes. And they
both sound mighty good.
Sour cream pound cake
3 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
6 eggs, separated
2 teaspoons
butter flavor
1 1/2 cups plain
flour
1 1/2 cups
self-rising flour
1 cup
butter-flavored Crisco
Beat the
egg
whites until they are stiff and set aside.
Cream the sugar and Crisco together. Add egg yolks, on at a time, beating
well after each addition. Add
flavoring and beat. Combine the
flours and add alternately with the sour cream beginning and ending with flour. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Grease the bottom of a tube pan and pour
in the batter. Bake for 1 1/2
hours
at 325 degrees. Do not preheat the
oven.
Irene
gave me a couple of tips. The
baking time may vary. Her electric
oven in town takes a little longer than the gas range she had in the country at
Eldorendo. She stresses she greases
only the bottom of the tube pan, not the sides.
“You
can’t climb a greasy pole,” she told me. “And a cake can’t climb a
greasy pan.” I didn’t
know that.
Blueberry crunch
1 20-ounce can
undrained crushed pineapple
2 or 3 cups
blueberries—fresh or frozen
3/4 cup sugar
1 box yellow cake
mix
2 sticks
butter
or margarine, melted
1 cup chopped
pecans
1/4 cup sugar
Butter a
9x13
inch baking dish and spread the following in layers: pineapple, blueberries, 3/4 cup sugar
sprinkled over the berries, dry yellow cake mix, melted margarine or butter
and
1/4 cup sugar sprinkled on top.
Bake in a pre-heated 325 degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until brown
on top. Serve warm or cold. Delicious with whipped cream.
On the go
When
I dropped by Irene’s house to pick up the recipes, I quickly realized
that, judging from her recipe and cookbook collection, Irene excels at more
than just sour cream pound cake.
She has several entries in the church’s cookbook, plus many other
cookbooks, each one stuffed with her handwritten recipes garnered from friends
and family.
Irene,
of course, has done lots more than just cook. She grew up in Baker County
and went to the county schools. She
married young and raised a family.
After the kids got good-sized, she went to work at the Jack Winter
factory where she was a seamstress for many years.
But
she decided it was time for a change.
She wanted to go to work for the State Hospital,
but there was a problem. Irene
didn’t have her high school diploma.
It turned out not to be much of a problem. After being out of school for over
30
years, Irene took herself over to Thomasville
(that is where they gave the test in 1968) and took the GED test. She pasted on her first try!
Good
for you, Irene.
She
went on to work for the State
Hospital for 15 years
before retiring in 1985.
But
she did something else exciting in 1976!
After they had both raised families, Irene met Henry Ethridge, a
patternmaker at Miller-Hydro (now Lynch Systems). They combined their households, shared
their grown children and had a great life until Henry died a couple of years
ago.
But being
alone doesn’t
keep Irene down. She’s
on the
go. She goes out to Eldorendo to church at least three times a week and is
out
and about town at other times.
“I like to
go to Belk’s and plunder,” smiles this over-eighty lady.
And she
cooks. So I asked her to share some
more recipes. Here are some of her
favorites. I can’t wait
to
serve friends the cornmeal pie!
Cornmeal pie
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 stick melted margarine
or
butter
5 tablespoons evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon vinegar
2 tablespoons self-rising cornmeal
Mix in order
given. Pour into an unbaked pie
shell and bake in a preheated 300 degree oven until golden brown, about 40
to
45 minutes.
Corn casserole
1 small package yellow rice
(5 ounces)
1 can Mexican-style corn
(don’t drain)
1 cup sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
(undiluted)
1 medium chopped onion
1/2 stick margarine or butter
Mix all
ingredients together. Bake for 25
minutes at 350 degrees.
Remove. Put grated cheese on
top and return to the oven until the cheese is melted.
Another cake
Irene
wasn’t the only one to respond with a cake recipe. Betty Jackson sent me a note and a
slightly different version of the sour cream pound cake.
“I got this recipe from my
niece back in the 70's and have been baking it ever since,” Betty
e-mailed me. Have looked in my
cookbook collection and have not found this particular recipe in any of them.
It is moist and delicious.
Betty’s Sour Cream Pound Cake
1 cup butter
1 pinch salt
3 cups sugar
1 pinch soda
6 egg yolks
8 oz sour cream
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon lemon flavoring
1 teaspoon almond flavoring
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
6 egg whites
Cream butter and
sugar. Add egg yolks one at a
time
while mixing. Sift flour, salt and
soda and add alternately with sour cream to the butter, sugar and egg yolk
mixture. Add flavorings. Beat the egg whites until they form
stiff peaks. Fold into the cake
mixture. Pour into a well greased
tube cake pan and bake at 315 degrees for 1 1/2 hours.
Which pound cake
do you prefer?
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