My grandmother had a fairly limited repertoire of dishes, or perhaps I have a limited memory of what she cooked. Nevertheless, this is only dessert I can recall her making, so it carries a lot of weight in the memory department. She never wrote down recipes, so this is a recipe that comes from internet searches and trial and error. This one will need some tweaks before it’s perfect, but so far it’s tickling those little grey cells.
Now then, no ads to wade through, but I am going to add a little story-time, because, well, it’s my website.
In the 1930s, my grandparents lived in what was essentially a government-built work camp in the middle of the Mojave desert. When the then-named Boulder Dam was being built, Boulder City was a tightly-regulated, purpose-built, and interestingly, dry town. My grandfather was an electrician and my grandmother a nurse, so despite the hard times of depression-era life, they likely had a fairly stable existence. Hot Milk Cake was pretty popular then because it was quite unforgiving – no fancy ingredients, no frothy egg whites or whipped cream – just basic ingredients in proportions that would be easy to reproduce.
Ours was always topped with a brown sugar icing. Again, nothing fancy and certainly nothing that would melt in the intense heat. So, here’s mine. It feels close to what I remember if a little more dependent on the right oven temperature than I’d hoped. I guess grandmas get to know the quirks of their ovens and compensate.
Ingredients:
Cake:
- 120g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 200g caster sugar
- 2 eggs (room temperature)
- 120ml milk
- 60g butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Icing:
- 120g light brown sugar
- 60g butter
- 60ml milk
- Pinch of salt
- ½ tsp vanilla
Instructions:
Heat the oven to 170 °C (suggest not using fan for this one), grease and flour (or line) a 20cm/8″ square metal cake tin.
Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together until thick and pale.
In a small saucepan, heat the butter and milk until it just starts to bubble around the edges. Remove from heat and add the vanilla.
Add the flour to the egg mixture in two goes and fold them gently together. Now pour the hot milk and butter mixture down the side of the bowl while folding it in. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking tin and put it in the oven – dead centre (this is surprisingly important). Bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
For the icing, melt the sugar, butter and milk in a small saucepan and bring it to the boil for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla and salt. Let it cool and thicken for about 5-10 minutes then beat well until it thickens and turn opaque. Make sure it’s not too hot when you pour it over the cake.
Done. Transport yourself back to 1932. Or in my case, 1972.
It’s been a minute, but I wanted to save this recipe because I LOVE it so much. You can also add this to a tart base or fill your desert pots with a biscuit crumb base. You can use lemon, orange or any citrus juice. Lemon is my favourite but I may try a grapefruit posset next time.
