Customer Reviews

Southern Cakes: Sweet and Irresistible Recipes for Everyday Celebrations

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The receipes in this book are the cakes that my grandmother made when I was a child. I can remember her in the kitchen baking all day and then placing a towel on the counter and displaying all her baked cakes for our family. The photography in this book is awesome. From the coconut cake on the cover to the buttermilk cake is a replicate of the real thing. The receipes are easy to follow and well written. If you love the southern heritage of cakes made by your grandmother or your mom, you'll find them all in this wonderful book. I found the ingredients to be readily available in my pantry and the stories about each recipe add to the interesting reading. A nice addition to my collection.

This is the first southern cookbook that has cake recipes that taste like the cakes I grew up with. Those cakes were made by the amazing cooks in the Black Baptist church I grew up in. I haven't tasted cakes like those for years. The White Chocolate cake and the Caramel cake are amazing! The recipes are easy to follow and produce a wonderful taste and texture.I HIGHLY recommend this book if you want authentic southern cake recipes because this is the real deal!

Wow! Nancie McDermott has done it again with her new book, Southern Cakes. My great grandmother is originally from Louisiana, and many long visits to her house were enlivened by a special coconut cake, glazed chocolate cake or other old-fashioned Southern treat. The recipes in this new book remind me very much of those anticipated childhood desserts. As much as I love the recipes in Nancie's new book--like every single coconut cake (rightly given their very own chapter!)her Ocrakoke Fig Cake and the quirky Tomato Soup Cake, it's Nancie's delicious writing and her unique ability to illustrate the intense love affair Southerners have with their cooking--and their place in the world--that I truly love. I can't wait to see what Nancie will pull out of her (very talented) hat next!

Nancie McDermott's Southern Cakes gathers some of the South's most well-known delights: pristine fluffy coconut cakes, deliciously oozy jelly cakes, red velvet cake, pineapple upside-down cake, Mississippi mud, all the way to that towering confection, Lady Baltimore cake, rich with raisins, figs, pecans and brandy. Along the way, she shares plenty of stories of the origins of the various recipes, many from family and friends or from various regional cookbooks.

There are numerous variations on pound cakes (classic, chocolate, marble molasses, brown sugar, cream cheese, blue ribbon, bourbon, sweet potato) that are easy to whip together; these are perfect for impromptu afternoon teas or to give as gifts. There are light and fluffy coffee cakes, oatmeal cake, and date-nut cake. I also loved the addition of "ethnic" baking recipes such as a Russian Jewish babka (yeast bread), a tres leches cake (a traditional Hispanic favorite that blends milk, sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk), a Rosh Hashanah honey cake and a Passover torte that are perhaps not as quickly associated with Southern desserts.

Also included are heirloom and antique recipes such as a tomato soup cake, Ozark pudding, and a cake recipe dating from 1898. I loved some of the more offbeat creations such as chocolate mayonnaise cake, pumpkin-raisin cake, a "Japanese" fruitcake, and the divine fig cake and pear bread.

Finally, a chapter on icings rounds out the cakes, with recipes for seven-minute frosting, cream cheese, browned butter, chocolate fudge, classic boiled, and never-fail chocolate icings, a caramel glaze, and an easy lemon curd (which is super-expensive if you buy it at a specialty store).

The ingredients are ones that you probably already have in your pantry (except for the Southern staple of self-rising flour, perhaps), and the instructions are very easy to follow (they're broken down by paragraph, with the first line of each printed in an easy-to-read red and a less-easy to read light blue). The text runs on the small side, which might be harder to read for older readers. In the back are a bibliography, a selection of sources online, and a conversion chart.

This is a nice addition to your baking library if you love to whip up frosted layer cakes or you're looking for some lighter ideas perfect for brunch or tea (the pound cakes and coffee cakes). It's easy to use, and Nancie lists many intriguing Southern cookbooks if you're interested in learning more about the cuisine of a particular region.

I've finally found the cake recipe book that I've been searching for years for. I especially like the yellow cake recipe - with chocolate icing reminds me of my childhood birthday cakes from scratch. I was always intimated by scratch cakes. Now I feel like a bonafide cake baker with this book. I haven't used a boxed cake mix since I got this book. The cakes are so moist and delicious - you can't go wrong with this one.

Not only are the recipes yummy to think about making, but the book is really really interesting to read. I read the whole thing cover to cover when I got it the first day. It has a lot of great information about cakes, how to make them, tips for making them better, etcetera.

I have to admit that the main reason why I bought this book was the coconut cake on the front cover because I am a die-hard coconut fan and the reviewer that said that coconut cakes get their own chapter in this book. They do and rightfully so...they are really in their own genre. The classic coconut cake was the first and only thing that I have made from this book so far. I was QUITE impressed and it looked just like the picture. The cake came out fantastic and was not hard to make at all. The only thing I would recommend for that recipe is to double the frosting quantity as the amount recommended was not enough and the cake didn't stay together because the icing layer was too thin. But it came out great and the cake was such a hit at my dinner party on Christmas Eve. I can't wait to try the other recipes.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a great cake cookbook...I can tell just from reading the recipes that they are really good ones.

Like all of Nancie McDermott's books, this is well-written, providing clear step-by-step instructions for delectable cakes. Those I've tried have been wonderful.

My only criticism is that I read the book from cover to cover, but couldn't find any reference to such things as the type of flour the author used (bleached, unbleached, protein content, etc.), the size of the eggs, etc. -- which such authors as Rose Levy Berenbaum always mention, and which can make a real difference in the results. IMHO, all modern cookbooks should provide this information. Beginners wouldn't know these things, and it wouldn't have taken up much space to tell them.

Moreover, a book this wonderful should be available in harcover!

However, there is a wide range of recipes (from Tomato Soup Cake to Lady Baltimore Cake), and everything I've tried has been outstanding. (The basic One-Two-Three-Four cake, which most of our grandmothers made, and many of us grew up loving, is included, but not by name ... It is listed as Tres Leches Cake.)

I highly recomend this cookbook. My favorite "NEW" cake so far is the tomato soup cake. I took it to work today and had people requesting the recipe. And they were the people that made a face when I told them that there was a can of tomato soup in the cake. Also, what is nice are the hints at the front of the book on baking. I learned a couple of things and thought I knew them all. The book also has a great selection of common recipes that anyone can use. A very good value for the money.

I took this book to my mom's house and we chose two cakes to bake - the Red Velvet and the Thibodeaux Chocolate Doberge. My mom is a serious baker who rarely allows store-bought desserts or bread into the house, so I knew she would be a good one to test out this book with. The Red Velvet cake was not terribly impressive. Our cake had a soggy, fallen middle, yet managed to be over-baked around the edges. I could also taste the chemical flavor of the red food coloring, but that could just be the brand I used. The frosting was delicious.

The chocolate cake itself was delicious, but the recipe indicates a 300 degree oven. On our first try, baking the layers at 300 for 40 minutes in 8-inch rounds (instead of 9), resulted in raw cake. We purchased 9-inch rounds as the recipe called for and baked the next cake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. All of the other recipes in the book call for a 350 oven, so I'm not sure why this one was 300. 350 worked much better. The filling turned out to be delicious - essentially a chocolate pudding. The frosting did not turn out at all, and seems like a strange recipe for frosting. After following the instructions, chilling the frosting overnight then attempting to beat it into something that could be considered frosting, we ended up with a very runny (but tasty) concoction. We made my mom's recipe for a chocolate buttercream frosting that's not too sweet and it went perfectly with the cake.

I am looking forward to trying more recipes from this book. I think the caramel cake and the oatmeal cake will be next...

I absolutely love this cookbook. I have made a dozen or so of the cakes and they were all simply amazing. The homemade feel to these cakes reminds me of my childhood in the South! :D Each cake has brought back a ton of memories. If you like homemade cakes like mom or grandma used to make, then this is the cookbook for you! My favorite is the Banana Cake with Chocolate Frosting.