A Year Ago Today: Loss, Remembering, and Bonnie Butter Cake
On my dad’s side of the family, I don’t think a birthday
went by without a celebration at my grandma’s (well, I called her Nanaw) house.
If I close my eyes and concentrate just enough, I swear I can almost take
myself back there. From turning into her long gravel lane and up to the small
house on the hill to the end of the boisterous family affair full of jokes and
laughs, I can envision every detail as if it happened yesterday.
---
The candles are lit, the lights go out, all sing, then
darkness. If it’s my birthday, the July heat settles thickly in the room,
occasionally interrupted by a pathetic breeze that drifts through and rustles
the thin white cotton curtains. The dulled sounds of… maybe it’s Jeopardy?…
drift in, unwatched, from an adjacent room. Someone switches the light back on
and lifts the darkness.
My parents, my sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, and Nanaw all
reappear, crammed around the floral vinyl tablecloth-covered kitchen table,
most likely doubling up in the chairs to make room for us all. It’s about that
time that the all too familiar smell of freshly extinguished birthday candles
hits my nose. That smell, Pavlovian in its effect, triggers the only response I
know: prepare for cake. And if it’s a birthday at Nanaw’s house, we’re eating Bonnie
Butter Cake.
My Aunt takes charge of slicing the cake, divvying it out
onto paper plates alongside a massive scoop of Edy’s vanilla ice cream. Nanaw
passes out cups of Coke or ginger ale. There’s a 97% chance that it went flat
about 2 weeks ago but I drink it anyway. The cake is the same as it’s always
been and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s buttery, as its name implies,
sweet, and fluffy but the real star is the caramel icing, the sort that gets an
ethereally thin crispy and flaky shell that shatters as my fork breaks into it.
It’s an intense toffee sort of flavor and needs the cake and ice cream to
mellow it out a bit.
If I’m lucky, there will be a few slices left that I can
wrap up to take home with me. I’ll nibble on it bit by bit, drawing out its
existence as long as I can. In the meantime, all of us, dazed in a post-cake
coma, continue chatting around the table. I hear stories from my dad and his
siblings. We all laugh as they regale us with tales of the antics they got up
to as kids growing up on a dairy farm. Nanaw, the last to sit down with her
slice of cake and ice cream, sits by quietly, shaking her head occasionally at
the rowdy rest of us. We continue for hours, long after the residual bits of
ice cream have melted on our plates, yet the sweet taste of Bonnie Butter Cake
seems to linger on the palate, a taste I’ll never forget.
---
When Nanaw died one year ago today, I worried that my mind
would not be able to move past the memories I had of her in her final years.
She was still the same person, of course, but old age and illness took their
tolls. But time went on and before I knew it those final images trickled away
and the happier memories returned. Memories of the woman who watched as I
learned how to ride a bike in her backyard, who watched over me during the
summer while my parents were at work, withstanding the countless hours of The Price
is Right I put her through. The woman who let me sit in the middle of her old
white pickup truck and shift gears when she pressed the clutch (which probably
was not legal), who let my cousins and I parade through her garden to find
rotten vegetables to make our “witch’s brew” in a 5-gallon bucket. The woman
who made us Bonnie Butter Cake year after year because we all knew it wouldn’t
really feel like a birthday without it.
Other than knowing that Nanaw made this cake for more family
birthdays than I can remember, I hardly know any more about it. Where did she
get the recipe? When was the first time that she made it? Was it her favorite
cake? I may not ever know the answers, but rather than dwell on the questions I
can no longer ask, maybe remembering what I do know is the most important thing.
I know that Nanaw lives on in the blood that runs through my veins, in my
memories that I have and share with others, and through the things she’s left
behind, things like a cake recipe scratched onto an old bit of paper.
Bonnie Butter Cake
Makes one 2-layer cake
Note: the ingredients list for the cake and the entire
recipe for the caramel icing is written exactly as it is on my grandmother’s
hand-written recipe. Instructions for making the cake were not included so I wrote
those on my own.
For the Cake
2/3 cup butter or margarine
1¾ cups sugar
2 eggs
1½ teaspoon vanilla
3 cups Softsilk cake flour (I actually used King Arthur)
2½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1¼ cups milk
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and thoroughly butter 2 cake
pans. Cream the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer for 4 minutes on
medium speed until it’s light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping
down the sides and the bottom of the bowl after each. Add the vanilla and mix
until combined.
Add the flour, baking powder, and salt into a separate bowl
and use a whisk to combine. With the mixer on a medium-low speed add a third of
the flour mixture. Once combined, add half of the milk. Add another third of
the flour, then the rest of the milk, and finally the last of the flour. Turn
to a medium speed to fully incorporate for about 15 seconds. Divide the batter
between the two cake pans and bake for 30-35 minutes until golden and a
toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the
pans until just warm then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling
completely before frosting.
For the Caramel Icing
"Mix together thoroughly in saucepan, 1½ cups brown sugar
(packed in cup), 3/8 cup milk (¼ cup plus 2 Tbsp.), 3/8 cup shortening, ¼ tsp.
salt. Bring slowly to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly, and boil for 1
minute. Remove from heat and beat until lukewarm. Add ¾ tsp. vanilla. Continue
beating until thick enough to spread. If icing becomes too thick to spread, add
about 1 tsp. cream. Icing for 2-layer cake."