Marguerites Cookbook

A cooking blog all about making vintage recipes from a cookbook we inherited from our grandmother

Southern Lane Cake

Southern Lane Cake Header

I hope everyone out there is having a good start to their new year. Some of you may be working on a resolution to eat healthier. While we are also attempting that goal, there is an important milestone that requires this week’s recipe to be a cake. It’s Marguerite’s Cookbook’s birthday! That’s right, we launched Marguerite’s Cookbook a whole year ago, and knew that we wanted to do one of Marguerite’s many cake recipes as a birthday treat to ourselves. This Southern Lane Cake turned out to be an excellent choice that was fun to make and delicious to eat.

Southern Lane Cake

Here’s what Marguerite had to say:

Southern Lane Cake Recipe

As usual, the planning for this recipe required a little more work than just reading Marguerite’s notes. I had to research how long to bake the layers for, what a cooked white frosting was (more on that later), and a little more about just what a Southern Lane Cake was. That’s where I discovered that some fillings or icings included things like nuts, which is why I decided to put some almonds on top of the cake.

Southern Lane Cake up close

As you may or may not be able to tell, there are only three layers in the final product here. I’d like to say that is on purpose, but of course I made a little mistake and was forced into the decision. We have a tiny oven in our current kitchen, and it was a struggle fitting two 8″ and two 9″ pans into it. On top of that, the two sets of pans are not the same ages and not the same shade of aluminum. In the end, one of the four layers burned while the others turned out great, so the height of our cake was decided for me. I do think a three layer cake looks great though!

Southern Lane Cake with piece

I also had some trouble in attempting to make a homemade icing, so instead I just used some plain store bought white icing. That is why there is no accompanying icing recipe to go along with the cake. As great as it can be to make something by hand, Marguerite knew the value of making it easier when she needed to, too! In my opinion, the lack of homemade icing did not take away from this cake at all!

Southern Lane Cake piece

This “blogiversary” cake was delicious. I used to not like cakes with fillings, or filling that wasn’t more icing. Now that I am older and wiser I have seen the error of my ways and am less narrow-minded towards filled cakes. The actual cake parts cooked great, and were light and moist. The combination of the cake, cherry pie filling, and icing worked very well together to make this a very enjoyable dessert. Shannon agreed that this cake was tasty, but was happy to see it go to work with me so we didn’t eat it all.

Southern Lane Cake

My favorite part of this Southern Lane Cake was putting it together and decorating it with Shannon. She took a Wilton cake decorating class before so she is the resident cake expert. Making icing walls to hold the cherry pie filling and stacking the layers on top of each other together was a lot of fun. I also love spreading icing, so I got to do that over the whole cake, too. Here’s to the first year of Marguerite’s Cookbook. Thanks for spending some time with us and with Marguerite. We had a great first year, and hope to have many more to come!

Southern Lane Cake

Southern Lane Cake
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
1 cake 25 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
20-25 minutes 1 hour
Servings Prep Time
1 cake 25 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
20-25 minutes 1 hour
Southern Lane Cake
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
1 cake 25 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
20-25 minutes 1 hour
Servings Prep Time
1 cake 25 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
20-25 minutes 1 hour
Ingredients
Servings: cake
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour 4 nine inch round layer pans.
  2. Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla.
  3. Combine dry ingredients (flour, powder, salt). Alternately add dry ingredients and milk to creamed butter and sugar.
  4. Fold in egg whites.
  5. Bake 20-25 minutes.
  6. Let layers cool before constructing cake using cherry pie filling and icing. Add nuts like almonds to the top if desired.
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Peanut Butter Meringue Pie

peanutbuttermeringuepie

We are very excited to bring you another unique pie as we continue pie month! Aaron and I were looking forward to this peanut butter meringue pie until we looked at the length of both the ingredient list and directions. This is probably the most difficult and most involved recipe we have attempted in our first year of Marguerite’s Cookbook. However difficult, this pie cannot be considered anything less than a delicious success!

Here’s what Marguerite had to say:

peanutbutterpierecipe

When reading over the recipe, Aaron realized we had to ask a more experienced baker quite a few questions to even be able to attempt this pie. So we called Mercedes and got some direction on everything from scalded milk to meringue. Recently, Aaron has been doing most of the cooking while I observe due to our tiny kitchen, but not this time. It took both of us, most of our mixing bowls and saucepans, and a long time to put this peanut butter meringue pie together.

peanut butter meringue pie

This definitely wasn’t the most stress-free recipe, and it didn’t turn out perfectly, but we’ll consider it a success. The custard was difficult and important, since it was the majority of the pie. The meringue was also very challenging. On top of all that, it is not the most attractive pie. But you know what they say, “don’t judge a peanut butter meringue pie by its cover.”

peanut butter pie

I was expecting this pie to basically look like a pumpkin pie, but like with just peanut butter. Well, I was surprised. The flavor was to die for though. Aaron really liked this pie, and not just because he would live on peanut butter if I let him. He made sure to try every bit of the pie individually, so he could really decipher the flavors that made up our peanut butter meringue pie. The custard and meringue taste as they should, and can be considered successful first attempts at both of those components. Of course the peanut butter/powdered sugar component was the highlight of the pie, and made it incredibly sweet. Overall, another success!

Peanut Butter Meringue Pie
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
1 pie 45 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Servings Prep Time
1 pie 45 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Peanut Butter Meringue Pie
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
1 pie 45 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Servings Prep Time
1 pie 45 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Ingredients
Servings: pie
Instructions
  1. Combine the powdered sugar and peanut butter together.
  2. Sprinkle 3/4 of this mixture on the bottom of a baked pie crust. Keep the other 1/4 for topping.
  3. Scald 2 cups of whole milk and set aside to cool.
  4. Combine the cornstarch, sugar, and salt together. Add the slightly cooled milk and mix well.
  5. Beat egg yolks well, add a small amount of the milk mixture over yolks and mix well.
  6. Add eggs to rest of milk mixture. Cook in double boiler until mixture thickens. Remove from heat.
  7. Add the butter and vanilla.
  8. Pour into shell.
  9. Beat the 3 egg whites, cream of tartar, and a pinch of salt until stiff and dry. Slowly add the sugar. Continue beating until stiff. Spread over pie and seal edges.
  10. Place in 325 degree oven on second rack and bake 15-20 minutes (until meringue is browned.)
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