Mama's Sour Cream Cake

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Other than cooking one of Mama’s favorite things to do was to gamble. She enjoyed gambling so much that my father nicknamed her the ‘Mississippi Gambler, amongst other names that he had for her. Mama played Poker twice a week on Monday and Friday nights. Monday nights she went to the Italian Club later to be called the ‘Columbian Club’.  On Friday nights the ladies played at each other’s houses on a revolving basis. Later in life she developed an affection for Bingo but once the Casino’s opened up in Atlantic City it was goodbye bingo and hello slot machines. Oh and I must not forget how much she enjoyed the Momouth Race Track.   She was a woman with many interests.

When it was Mama’s turn to host the card party she would make Pizza for dinner because it was quick and easy. She would  have Papa drive her to Verrillis Bakery (Mama didn’t drive) in the Hollow of Morristown to buy the pizza dough, pizza  sauce and  grated mozzarella cheese (muzzadell Mama called it) and took it home and turned it into a delicious pizza pie. If she had any left over meatballs or sausage she would put that on top of the pizza.  I loved left over pizza for breakfast and if there was any of it left over the next morning it went into my mouth. There was no putting left over Pizza in the fridge; we didn’t worry about bacteria in those days. Mama just left it in the oven overnight and it stayed at room temperature until the morning.  I still love cold pizza and I never got sick from it then and I still don’t today

My sister and I loved when it was my mothers’ turn to have the ladies over to play poker. Not because we liked seeing her lady friends but because of all the food she served to them.  There was always plenty of snacks, potato chips with dip, peanuts, Fannies Fudge and a ‘Nice’ cake for their coffee break. My mother loved to make her Sour Cream Cake.  She experimented with it a lot, it was not always the same but no matter how she made it she got rave reviews.  It is great with coffee, rich and moist with cinnamon and sugar on top along with walnuts and chocolate chips. I don’t know where she got the recipe but once she had it she made it a thousand times. I still have the Tube pan she baked those cakes in.  It is probable 50 years old but I won’t part with it. I still make cakes in it today. Kitchen tools made back in the day seem to last forever.

The card game went on until 2 am so Mama slept in on those Saturday mornings.  That’s when my sister and I would strike.  Mama didn’t clean up from the poker game until the next morning. My sister and I would do that for her. We didn’t really literally clean; we cleaned up the yummy goodies. Eating as much of the leftover snacks and cake as we could before mama woke up.  Those were the mornings Linda and I would play what we called the “FOOD GAME”.  We would blind fold each other and then the one blind folded would have to taste a food and guess what it was. It could be anything in the Kitchen that was edible.  Linda was 5 years younger than me and I did take advantage of that.  Sometimes I would put a hot sauce in what I gave her to taste. What a bad girl I was.

Recipe for Mama’s Sour Cream Cake

½ stick of butter

1 ½ cups of granulated sugar

4 eggs

½ pint of sour cream

1 tsp. vanilla

3 cups sifted flour

½ tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

Topping

½ cup granulated sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Mix butter and sugar and cream until lemon yellow, mix in eggs and beat well until smooth.  Add sour cream, vanilla, salt, baking powder and soda and continue mixing until well incorporated.  Stir in flour.  Mixture will be thick.  Pour batter into a prepared tube or bunt pan.   Sprinkle with the topping and bake at 350 degree oven for 1 hour.  Insert a knife and if it comes out clean it is done.  Let sit in pan for 15 minutes and then remove it from pan

Here is Mama’s blueberry version.  Put half of the batter in the pan and then pour about 2/3 of a can of blueberry pie filling over it. If you prefer cherry, peach, apple or lemon will work to. Just go for it, use whatever filling floats your boat.  Smooth out the pie filling and then pour the remaining batter over it.  Put the same topping on cake but leave out the chocolate chips.  Unless you like chocolate with the fruit, I don’t.   Bake at the same temperature and length of time. It is a little tricky to get this out of the pan with the fruit in it so when you take it out of the oven run a knife along the inside of the cake pan.  Then let it cool for 15 minutes.  You can also put a glaze over the topping.  Mix one cup of powder sugar and 1 tablespoon of milk together until smooth and drizzle over the top of the cake while the cake is still warm.  Or you can dust it with powdered sugar when it is cool.  The options are all yours.