Traditions

Chicken Cake

When one has a love of traditional cooking and vintage cookbooks, but is a committed vegetarian, what can one do? Adapt, of course? This blog is dedicated to traditional, vintage, and family recipes. I promise two things:

The only chicken recipe you’ll come across is for the chicken cake (picture above, recipe below).

The recipes will be based on cookbooks and family recipes that are at least 30 years old, changed to accommodate vegetarianism, ingredient availability, and my own personal taste.

The cake above is based on a family tradition. Every Easter, my family has a lamb cake, made with heirloom cast iron molds. I have been making these cakes with my father or on my own since I was in grade school. The chicken cake above is made with the batter that doesn’t fit in the lamb mold. The chicken cake mold was purchased by my grandmother from a local bakery on Chicago’s Southeast Side sometime in the 1940s or 50s. It has instructions on it: “Use One Recipe Poundcake.” More detailed instructions follow.

Spice Poundcake (adapted from McCall’s Book of Cakes and Pies, 1965)

3 c. all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 c. soft butter
2 c. sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350. Spray lamb and/or chicken cake molds with baking spray (preferably one with flour). Mix dry ingredients together and set aside. Using electric mixer at medium speed, beat butter with sugar until light. Add eggs and vanilla; beat until very light and fluffy. At low speed, beat in flour mixture (in fourths) alternately with buttermilk (in thirds), beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat only until combined.

Turn into prepared pans. Bake 45-60 minutes, or until cake tester comes out clean. (Time is very dependent upon the size and materials of your molds. Mine are cast aluminum, and the chicken cake always takes less time, as it is smaller.)

Cool in pan, on wire rack, 15 minutes. Use thin-bladed knife or spatula to loosen, then turn out on rack and cool completely. Frost with cream cheese frosting. Use raisins and/or jellybeans to add facial features. Cover with lamb cake with coconut to look like fleece. (You can also make add some tinted coconut around the bottom of the cake. Shake some coconut in a zipper bag with some green food dye.)

This recipe makes enough for one lamb cake and one chicken cake.

 

Cream Cheese Frosting (This might be a Betty Crocker recipe – I only know that it’s what my family has used on these cakes since the 70s.)

1 8-oz. package cream cheese, softened (use full-fat – it has to stick to the cake, unless you’re going for a end-of-Raiders of the Lost Ark melt-y face look)

1 Tbs. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

4 c. powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese, milk, and vanilla in medium bowl on low speed until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar, one cup at a time, until smooth and of spreading consistency. Use to frost lamb and chicken cakes. Refrigerate any remaining frosting.