January 12, 2010

Emily remembers:

The cook stove (range) was always one of the main features of the kitchen. It served the Van Sant family faithfully for all the years I was growing up and beyond. The stove provided three meals a day every day.

My first memory of the 'stove' was when we lived at West Liberty, a small county seat town in northeastern KY.  The stove was very large; black enamel with silver trim and equipped to use either natural gas or wood. Mother cooked with gas at West Liberty. At all the other places we lived, she used wood. Coal was never used for cooking! When using wood, the whole top of the stove got hot,so you could place cooking vessels all over the top.

I learned to cook on the wood burning stove. One of the first foods I cooked was a cake. The critical thing in baking a cake was to regulate the oven temperature which was done by the amount of wood to be placed in the firebox. The temperature gauge said 'moderate' for a cake.

A fascinating feature of the stove was a big unusual word placed prominently on the oven door. It was KALAMAZOO. I later learned that there is a place by that name in Michigan!

From Mother's cookbook.

  Plain Cake
  Milk 11/8 cups
  Flour (soft wheat) 3 cups
  Fat 1/3 cup
  Eggs 1
  Baking powder 5 teaspoons
  Sugar 11/4 cups
  Salt 1/4 teaspoon
  Flavoring 1/2 teaspoon

Cake Method:
Cream fat well. (I used lard) Add sugar gradually. Beat yolks until thick and add to creamed sugar and butter. Sift together dry ingredients. (Flour should always be sifted before it is measured.) Add dry ingredients and milk alternately. Beat or stir batter only enough to make it smooth. Add flavoring. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.

This recipe gives ingredients for A Foundation cake or a Rich cake by increasing the amounts fat, eggs and sugar.

Equipment :
Tablespoon for creaming and mixing egg beater, teaspoon, teacup