Mrs. Eunice Surle's Mardi Gras Party Cake

(Because I know Aunt Bert will want the recipe...)

Typed EXACTLY as it was in the cookbook!
Even with ingredients in bold type....

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Melt............2/3 cup Nestle's Butterscotch Morsels in
                   1/4 cup water, in saucepan.  Cool.

Sift
Together.....2 1/4 cups sifted Pillsbury's BEST All Purpose Flour
                    1 tsp Morton salt
                    1 tsp soda and
                    1/2 tsp double acting baking powder.  Set aside

Add...........1 1/4 cups sugar gradually to
                    1/2 cup shortening (part butter may be used), creaming well.

Blend in.....3 unbeaten eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.  Blend in melted butterscotch morsels;
                   mix well.

Add...........the dry ingredients alternately with
                  1 cup buttermilk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.  Blend thoroughly after each
                   addition. (With electric mixer, use a low speed.)

Turn............into two 9 inch round layer pans, well greased and lightly floured on the bottoms.

Bake...........at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes until cake springs back when touched lightly in center.
                   Cool; spread Filling between layers and on top to within 1/2 inch of edge.  Frost sides and
                    top edge with Sea Foam Frosting or whipped cream.

Butterscotch Filling

Combine 1/2 cup sugar and 1 T cornstarch in 2-quart saucepan.  Stir in 1/2 cup evaporated milk, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup Nestle's Butterscotch Morsels and 1 beaten egg yolk.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thick.  Remove from heat; add 2 T butter, 1 cup coconut, chopped, and 1 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped.  Cool.

Sea Foam Frosting

Combine in saucepan 1/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar, 1/3 cup water and 1 T corn syrup.  Cook until a little syrup dropped in cold water forms a soft ball (236 degrees F).  Meanwhile, beat 1 egg white with 1/4 tsp French's Cream of Tartar until stiff peaks form.  Add syrup to egg white in slow, steady stream, beating constantly until thick enough to spread.

Mrs. Eunice Surles

...of Lake Charles, Lousiana really couldn't believe it when her cake won the first grand prize.  She's baked many a cake in her life, often for her church suppers, but never with such a triumph as this.  The recipe is from the long-ago days of the South, high in glamour as well as the taste.

Isn't that EXCITING?!

I don't know about you, but with a billing like that on the back cover, I HAD to buy the little

Pillsbury's BEST 11th Grand National Bake-Off Cookbook

to get the high glamour, triumphant Southern cake recipe submitted by Mrs. Surles.

100 Prize-Winning Recipes for 25 cents!

I couldn't go wrong.

And I was not disappointed....

More on Mrs. Eunice Surles:

I think the dear lady also devotes much of her time to eating her very own wares, bless her heart!

Are you dying to see the $25,000 Mardi Gras cake?

(And doesn't it make you chuckle to think of Mrs. Surles baking something so daring and festive? Mercy!)

I know you can't read the text in the top corner, telling you yet MORE about Mrs. Surles, but this is what it says:

Eunice G. Surles of Lake Charles, Louisiana, is a widow who lives alone in a three-bedroom apartment.  She's a cooking hobbyist and has won a number of contests with her fancy baking.  Mrs. Surles plans to use her $25,000 Grand Prize money to improve her property.

I don't know how she intended to improve her three bedroom apartment, but I'm wildly guessing it wasn't by purchasing something so frivolous as a canopy bed....

Here's the spread on the actual contest.

Please note that everyone is polished and smiling, even as they measure their Pillsbury's BEST flour...

In the bottom right-hand corner you'll see a group of women sitting around a table.

The caption there reads:

Behind closed and well guarded doors, top food editors from newspapers and magazines judged each of the 100 best recipes of the year before selecting prize winners.

I shudder to think what sort of bribery and strong-arming would've gone on, had the doors not been well guarded.

The little cookbook really does have some good recipes, with the exception of Sheila Pittman's Cookie Cakes which not only contain small pieces of diced prunes, but also are coated in a prune glaze.

And Donna Jean Izzo's Pizza Pancakes.

And Senora Yolanda de Lizardo's Chicken Rico Ring.

(I swear, I'm not making Sra de Lizardo's name up! Isn't it the bomb?!)

There WERE a couple pie recipes in there, but I think I'll stick with my original plan.

Pie Wars

It all starts out so innocently....
with a harvest dinner to raise money for an interactive white board for the school. 
And then, in a flash of brilliance, it is decided to have a silent auction for pies!  Yes!  Who doesn't love pies?  With Thanksgiving just around the corner, folks can buy a pie at the auction, stick in their freezer, whip it out on Wednesday before to thaw and voila! baking done!

Yesterday, over coffee and amidst the clamor of tired kids, my friend Traci and I were sorting out the details of the dinner; assigning jobs, figuring out who cooks what, drawing up a floor plan (complete with little circles on the big rectangle to represent pies on a table).  We were visiting about the pie-lent auction and Traci unknowingly threw down the first challenge while I was planning the sign up sheets: "Yeah!  And we could see whose pie brings the most money!"

The Great Pie War of 2011

We both laughed and I patted her on the shoulder; in that chuckle, though,we both KNEW at THAT instant that we were destined to be fighting for the prize with our pastry.  We agreed to be friends, no matter how it turned out, but it's definitely on....

We have a little background in friendly competition.
One summer, we decided to see who could walk the most miles in a month, for fitness purposes.  It started out very nicely, each of us turning in our mileage every couple days and encouraging one another.  But then, about 7 days into the competition, the tone changed.  I HAD to win.  And, as it turns out, so did she.  We were killing ourselves to rack up the miles.  I mean to tell you...I went to Butte for a MASBO conference and worried like everything that while I was sitting in workshops on school finance that she'd be inching up in miles.  So I doubled mine up before I left, AND walked while I was there.  Just in case.  Traci developed plantar fasciitus in her quest to squash me.  It was not pretty. 

But bless her heart, she presented me with my winning trophy at one of her family functions, in front of everyone...a little tennis shoe charm that is one of my most cherished possesions.  And we laughed and hugged, realizing that perhaps we were both perhaps a little too competitive for our own good.

That was a few years ago.
I'm sure we've outgrown that silly sort of behavior...

I'd like to invite all the Chronicles readers to come to Cohagen Gym next Friday evening, November 18th, starting at 5:30 p.m. and bid on the bourbon pecan pie or the sour cream raisin pie with miracle meringue topping.  Remember...it's for a good cause!  (The interactive smart board is a pretty good reason, too, if you have to have another.)

*I was just told that my bum calves brought $800 dollars, total, at the sale barn on Tuesday.  I know my husband is going to be standing close to the pie-lent auction table, making sure I don't bid my own pies up with this funding....
**As if I'd do that....

(I'd like to note that this war is not between anyone but Traci and I.  If it was over ALL the pies, we'd just have to hand the ribbon over to Nancy Horn before it even began...)

HELP!

I need help with html.
(No, that does NOT mean "hot meal".  If that's what you thought, you are A.) obviously more into cooking than computers; call me.  or B.) not in touch with your inner nerd; really probably a good thing in the long run but of no service to me at this time, thanks anyway!)

I really want to get rid of the little "New Blog!" flag on the upper left hand corner of the Chronicles banner, but I can't find it in my html code!

Any ideas?
And it doesn't have to disappear, but I DO have to change the words.  It's not a new blog.  It's ancient. 
Any ideas on what to change the wording to?

AND...
I'm unable to comment on certain blogs!  Marina's simply hates me! I can't find ANYWHERE to comment on Christine's, but perhaps she doesn't want comments. There's THAT.  Traci's makes me use Anonymous and I'm always worried that crazy "Really-and-truly-the-original-and-ONLY-Anonymous" person is going to find me and discipline me for using that function. 

If you can,
HELP me!!!

A Veggie Tale

If you're a sensitive lover of vegetables, look away...this post is not for the weak of heart!

This is a photo of what remains of a romaine lettuce head.  Or maybe it's the heart. 
Either way, it was a disturbing find on the counter when I was doing dishes a few days ago.  Moved aside a plate and AAAAGGHGHGH!!!  Oh, the carnage...!

I have a child who requests the end of the lettuce head, who turns down cookies for carrots, who can't understand why other children don't eat red bell pepper slices like candy, who paws through the fridge for things like celery and sugar pea pods for a snack. 

In the sage words of Jeff Foxworthy: "That ain't RIGHT."

This child will take the lettuce off her hamburger and eat it first, before anything else on her plate.
She's the one who happily tells me at mealtime, "Thanks, Mom, for the salad; lettuce is SUCH a treat!!"
Other moms hide vegetables in the dishes they serve their families, hoping they'll accidentally ingest zucchini slivers in their spaghetti sauce before they realize what happened.  I just lay vegetables out on the counter and they're gone.  Handy, huh?  Sure saves a lot of scheming and fine mincing on my part! 

I can't even begin to comprehend veggie-love at this level.
I like vegetables, but I can tell you I've never been passionate about them. 
I'm more of a carrot cake sort of person. 
My kid would rather have just the carrots, thank you very much, and get rid of all that yucky sweet cake junk you have wrapped around it!

So when we come to your house for a visit, lock up your lettuce.  Hide the cucumbers in a cake mix box.  Put the pea pods under the soda pop cans.
I'm trying to save you from the horrors I encounter every day, the corpses of vegetables lying on the counter on their paper towel shrouds....