Old Timey Christmas Baking

My mother was not the best cook in the world — partly because she didn’t get married until she was 34 years old and had worked and boarded away from home.  She had been a telephone operator in Tuscon, Chattanooga and Albertville.  Oh, how I wished I had asked more questions about her life.

Again I digress — way back when Christmas baking at our house consisted of two cakes — one chocolate and the other coconut.  Remember we had no electricity and the fire had to be kept at the same level to bake the cake layers correctly.  Baking day was a big affair. I never remember Mother doing the baking by herself — she always had a neighbor lady come in to help.

Mother had one cookbook and that was what she called “The Auburn Cookbook” and for the layers she always used a recipe called “1,2,3,4”.  The layers were baked in iron skillets and as I remember it the cakes were three layers and the oven in the old wood stove only held two skillets.  That meant baking day was an all day to do — after all three bakings had to be done.

They did a cooked chocolate icing — at that time I doubt they knew about confectioners sugar and cream cheese.  We had to grate the coconut by hand and have it ready — usually that had been done the night before — we knew nothing of already grated coconut.  The coconut cake always had the middle layer pink.

When I was a little older, one Christmas my sister, who was pregnant with twins, was spending a few days here and she wanted to make Divinity candy.  Well, without electricity all that beating had to be done by hand and we had all beat ”til we were worn out.  A neighbor man came in and we put him to doing the beating.  LOL

It was definitely a different kind of country living.