My German Heritage Recipes - Cake

OK, first thing is to explain what the name, "Blitz Kuchen" is all about.  It is German, and I translate it as, "Lightening Cake".  Now, don't ask me why it's called that!  Maybe somebody thought you could make it "as quick as lightening!"  My family didn't have many cake recipes - not because they didn't have the time to make them, but because they felt that cakes were too extravagant for simple folks.  And this recipe is just a simple tea cake.

So, now on to the rest of the story - a few years back, when my mother died and her personal items were to be distributed among her descendents, I had the opportunity to collect her recipes.  She had a large collection, which included all kinds of hand-me-down recipes, going back at least three generations.  Many of them were written in German and then translated into English.   Others were written in "Broken English" by someone who was trying to learn English.  Now, just imagine my trying to sort all this out!  This recipe is just one of those in "Broken English".  Sometimes they didn't seem to speak their native language correctly either!  I guess they jumbled up their mind - but not enough to lose their good cooking and baking habits!

Along with the trouble of translation, one also has to contend with the need of interpretation.  By that I mean, you have to figure out the intention of the recipe when certain steps are left out.  And, on some of them, you are working with old-fashioned cooking, by way of wood ovens and ice boxes, instead of our modern appliances.  I believe these are time-tested recipes, made by very good cooks - but the challenge was for me to get beyond all the road blocks to bring these to you.

As I present this recipe, I'll try to let you in on some of those challenges with my comments in parenthesis. Here goes:

Farmer Boy Blitz Kuchen

Ingredients:

• 1/2 die Tasse (cup) - Sweet Butter (That means it should be unsalted butter)
• 1/2 Tasse - Milch (Milk)
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• das Eigelb - 2 (That's 2 egg yolks) (and save the whites!)
• 1/2 Tasse - Puder Zucher (powdered sugar)
• das Zitronol (This is lemon oil.  No telling how much they used! I put in 1 teaspoon)

Directions: (as hand written, dated 1875!) (Here is where most of my difficulty comes!)

"Make sure you get fresh milch when it is no storm - or sour it will be. Cream the butter und der Zucker." (sugar) "You can use milch auf die Ziege if you have in ice box." (That's goat's milk.) "Oder, use die Milch auf die Kuh." (or use cow's milk) "Mit large spoon, cream butter and sugar. Mix mit sifted flour and powder.  Mix mit die Milch und das Eigelb." (That's mix the milk with the egg yolks.)  "Mix mit das Zitronol.  Put in pan.  Whip das Eien." (That's whip the eggs - but in this case it's whip the egg whites, left over from separation of them from the yolks.) "Mit Puder Zucher on top.  On top die Walnussen gehen. (This is: put powdered sugar and walnuts on top of the meringue - sorry, there was no mention of those in the list of ingredients!)

"Put aus der Ofen - medium heiss, slow 25 minuten." (The best I can figure is to put it into a medium hot oven - 365 degrees F. for about 30 minutes - based on my experiments with this recipe.) (I also greased and floured an 8 inch square pan.  I let it cool a little in the pan before moving it to a rack to cool completely.  If you like meringue with dark peaks, you'll have to turn up the heat at the end or put it under the broiler.)

The end result, once you get past all these translations and interpretations, is pretty good!  Give it a try and let us all know by leaving a comment here. Thanks.  The Old Man in the Bib Overalls

Look for more of "My German Heritage Recipes" to come along the way - but for now, these should get you through Oktoberfest.

"The true way to live is to enjoy every moment as it passes, and surely it is in the everyday things around us that the beauty of life lies."  Laura Ingalls Wilder