After reading my good friend Julie’s post on this topic, I felt compelled to release one of my own.
For most of my mother’s life in which I was involved, she was a consummate Southern cook. She was a devout believer in the school of Three Meals a Day No Matter What to the point that when I left for college, I lost the Freshman 10/15 instead of gaining it. She was without equal among her peers, specifically when it came to baked goods. Church functions could not go on without at least a couple dozen of her amazing yeast rolls. Church bake sale organizers would beg shamelessly for the same rolls, loaves of bread, cookies or a cake. Ah. The cakes. This is where we get down to it.
It used to be that back in the day if you wanted to see the best a brown woman could turn out from her kitchen, all you had to do was wait until the family reunion picnic. Women who had married into that family had the worst of it, as they were under serious pressure to prove that they could hold their own against the matriarchs. And it was touchy work, because you had to find out exactly what their claims to fame were. And if they were the same as yours, you had to decide if you wanted to compete with the same item, a decision again fraught with pressure. If you tried and beat her out, you might be considered rude and never recover from the perceived slight against her. If you failed, you might never be able to shake the reputation of an unworthy cook who thought herself better than the matriarch.
Hopefully your mother taught you this chess game of Southern women and you were able to tread carefully. I know my mother’s mother must have. An example for you. My father loved, loved, loved his mother’s lemon meringue pie made with sweetened condensed milk. My mother made a lemon meringue pie sans said milk and instead made the lemon curd from scratch (Paula Deen wishes she could make a pie like this). Once my father tried hers, there was no going back, but everyone involved knew the rules. So when my folks would visit my dad’s mom, she would inevitably make his “favorite” pie, which he would consume like it was his last meal. His mother died shortly after I was born, secure in the knowledge that her son loved her pie above all others.
On to the family reunion picnic test. I don’t know how it started, but as long as I can remember, year after year, my mother turned out a strawberry Bundt cake that made people cry and clamor for more year round, but she would a) never make it except for the reunion or by special request at home from one of us and b) never make more than one for the reunion picnic. Never. No amount of begging, groveling or implied threats could move her. People wouldn’t even wait until they’d finished loading their plates before they were queuing up at our section of a picnic table to obtain a nearly paper thin slice of strawberry goodness, always made with berries fresh from the pick ‘em yourself farm we’d been to right before. And so it went, even up until her very last year.
So not only did she pass the test with this cake, it vaulted her instantly into matriarch status. How do I know this? At her memorial service, at least 2, maybe 3 different people mentioned it from the pulpit accompanied with sidelong glances at me that communicated clearly that it was up to me to FIND THAT RECIPE, DO NOT LET THAT STRAWBERRY CAKE DIE. The Man Unit, having also experienced said cake, was in agreement. At this point, I didn’t even know if there was a recipe, as I couldn’t remember in enough detail if I’d ever seen her use one.
I had to lie in wait. My mother’s house wasn’t vacated until nearly a year after her death, so I couldn’t get in there to dig around unfettered until that time. And dig, I did. I loaded up everything I found in her cookbook drawers in the kitchen, brought them to my own home and prepared to do the archeological dig through stacks of books, cards, clipped newspaper articles and recipes cut/ripped from boxes.

First, I went at mom’s tried and true Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, 7th ed., 1965. Look at this thing. It came apart at the seams years ago and mom taped it up. Which of course makes the archivist in me want to pass out, but hey, it worked; the damned thing’s still all together. It has gems like Wiener Doubles in the Sandwiches category: Slit frankfurters lengthwise, not quite through. Spread cut surfaces with prepared mustard, and insert a strip of sharp process American cheese in each. For each serving, place 2 franks side by side. Wrap 2 strips of bacon around each bundle in spiral fashion; fasten ends with toothpicks. Place franks cheese-side down on broiler rack, 3-4 inches from the heat. Broil about 5 minutes or till bacon top side is done. Turn and broil 3-5 minutes longer. Serve in halved coney buns, toasted and buttered. Pass catsup and mustard.
Don’t you just love it? But alas, no strawberry cake recipe that looked like what I remembered.
Next I tried
the Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, 1st ed., 9th printing 1950. I’m guessing this may have been her first cookbook, but it’s in better condition than the BH&G book. It describes their in-house Kitchen of Tomorrow as “Two kitchens in one. Light walls with amusing Swedish figures and mottos give gay (yes. yes, it does.) atmosphere. One is for important experimental baking, to develop new methods and new products for the future. The other is for daily products test.” The Polka Dot Kitchen is their “Gayest, most colorful of all…with stainless steel counters and a laundry unit for experimental work with appliances.” And last, they even have handy tips delivered in couplets. Who knew Betty Crocker could spit rhymes?
Do keep a ruler handy,
To measure pans it’s dandy,
Place the rule across the top,
Right size pan prevents a flop!
Struck out. No strawberry cake.

Southern Living’s Our Best Recipes, by Lena E. Sturges, 1970, 9th printing 1980. I got all excited when I saw this recipe from the Nancy Welch Show tucked in, but alas, it wasn’t, nor did I ever recall my mother actually ever making it.
Still, nothing.

Finally, I turned with dread to the large box of effluvia: small books and piles of clippings and such. But look. A book in well used condition from Southern Living simply called Cakes Cookbook. I flipped slowly through it and my god. There it was, not even a part of the book, but on a sheet of paper written in my mother’s hand.

Now, if you look very closely, you can see the 1st ingredient. Go ahead, squint, I’ll wait. It’s a box of white cake mix. MIX. I am peeing my pants laughing that my mother pulled this one off. Even I had no idea, it is that damned good. And it turns out that it takes just over an hour including baking time to prepare. The most time consuming thing to do is the grease and flour of the pan. Turns out all it takes is the right ingredients-even prepared ones-thrown together the right way to make a truly memorable dish.
The first time I tried it, I followed mom’s recipe to the letter, including the instruction to spray the pan with cooking spray instead of greasing and flouring. She was very specific about this and I even used her extremely heavy Bundt pan to boot. It came out like this: 
But tasted exactly the same. Eureka! I’d done it. I made it again this weekend for friends of ours, a couple who’d come down from Michigan to celebrate her 30th birthday. It wasn’t on the table long enough to get a picture of, but I used not only my non-stick Bundt pan but greased and floured it to boot. The thing slid out of the pan with nary a whisper.
Damn fine cake, ma.