Grandma's Recipes: Smack Cake

Over the last four weeks I've been getting tested and diagnosed. It sounds more harrowing than it is, although there are many other ways I would rather spend my time. Basically there's a big thing in me that shouldn't be there, but it looks harmless. Maybe it's even friendly and charming.  And so soon they'll take it out. Unfortunately it's quite a heifer, so it's going to be some pretty invasive surgery and a number of weeks of lying around on my couch. That always sounds like a better way to spend your days than it really is. If you have any book recommendations, I'm profoundly interested.

My coping mechanism has been the old trick of keeping real busy. My boss loves it! When I'm not doing that, I'm having a wobble. Generally at night, mostly around J. The lucky guy. As I have two modes at the moment (efficient and weepy), blogging is difficult. It involves sitting still and thinking in complete sentences and not crying. So while I'm here today with a story and a picture and a recipe, I can't make any promises about the next month or so.  Eventually I'll have tales of hospital food in Glasgow. Focus on that. Grim guaranteed. 

As I've been getting prodded and assessed and scanned my interest in new foods and recipes and ingredients has waned. but there has been proportional waxing in my interest in the familiar and comforting and in cake, so a little while ago I called my mom and got her recipe for Smack Cake. While we were chatting, she pulled out the clear plastic bag that holds her mother's recipe book and cards and folded magazine pages. The recipe is faded and written in my grandmother's delicate handwriting. Since she died months before I was born, we've never met. The recipe cards were some of the most concrete and tangible connections to her. Her words becoming treats made by my mom and making their way to me and my brother, the greedy pair. We loved smack cake, a simple cake bar with a shortbread bottom topped with a gooey, sticky coconut mixture that gets crispy and toasted on top, and almost like caramel in the middle. I probably haven't had it for 10 years, but it was in heavy rotation growing up and just the taste I want now.

Plus, it's called SMACK CAKE. That's reason enough to eat it. It probably has other names in other parts of North America, but this is what grandma used to call it. J now wants to open a cafe just so he can start dealing it. We would probably attract a large clientele - people coming in looking for a little bit of easy comfort and sweetness, an addictive taste of toasted coconut tenderness. It's just the thing to get you through.

Smack Cake

Makes one 9x9 tray

Ingredients

Base

• 1.5 c flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 c butter (I say use salted, but it's your choice)
• 2 large egg yolks*
• vanilla

Topping

• 2 large egg whites*
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup brown sugar (lightly packed)
• 1 cup coconut
• chopped walnuts (optional)

Method

1. Preheat that oven of your to 350/180.

2. Separate the 2 eggs into two bowls.

3. Cream the butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla. Add the flour and baking powder. It will be a pretty stiff and pretty delicious very yellow dough.

4. Press the dough into the tray and leave it for a sec. I never butter the tray and I can't remember my mom taking that extra step either, but if you really want to, do it.

5. Add a pinch of salt to your egg whites.

6. Beat them until they are stiff!

7. Carefully fold in the brown sugar and the coconut trying to preserve as much volume as possible. 

8. Sprinkle the walnuts on the cookie base if you care to use them.

9. Spoon the coconut topping over everything.

10. Bake for 25 minutes.

****EAT*THE*WHOLE*TRAY****

* I don't normally pay much attention to egg size, but I routinely buy medium eggs here, while back in North America, they always seem to be extra big. When I made this batch, the ratio of egg white to sugar/coconut seemed a bit off and I think this is why. If you normally buy medium eggs, use three instead of two. The extra yolk in the base is probably not that crucial, but you really need the extra volume in the top part.

Comments

[blog]

Keep this going please, great job!

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[Blue Jadeite]

I have been meaning to write about something like this on my blog and this has given me an idea. Thanks

[MBT Shoes]

It's so nice to have you do all of the research for us. It makes our decision making so much easier!! Thanks.

[Robyn T]

Forgot to add- the fam is also from Scotland, too! Maybe that's why I've never heard of smack cake in the US?

[Robyn T]

My grandmother and great-grandmother made this recipe (minus the cocomut) since as long as I can remember! Nobody I know has ever has heard of this cake, but here you are, making your grandma's cake! Isn't it a delicious piece of memory! And fun to make too!

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[adel]

what is the measurement of sugar in the base??

[Jacqueline Small]

I'd like to try making ginger tablet. Can you share your recipe or at least tell me how much crystalized ginger to add and do you add ginger flavoring as well or vanilla?
Thank you!

[JM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki

[JM]

dude that sucks to hear, hope its not too serious.

I had something cut out of me last year, and the process wasn't the most enjoyable. Hopefully it goes as smoothly as mine did.

BOOKS-

I just finished The Kon Tiki Expedition by Thor Heyerdalh, it was written in the 40s and is quasi un politically correct, but if you get over that its a pretty good easy read about sailing to the Polynesian Islands on a raft from Peru.