Low cholesterol Walnut Cake, 1980s version

With all this cool weather in the air, I feel the carbs coming on! Nothing like cakes or cookies to satisfy.

Digging through my 1980s recipe box, I discovered a newspaper clipping with a recipe for Walnut Cake. The note on the card says, Low Cholesterol. Low fat and low cholesterol were new words in the recipe box collections and not clearly defined. In this recipe you can enjoy your low calorie cake without too much guilt at least in the 19080s mind set.

Walnut Cake, 1980s

• 1/3 cup shortening (butter)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups cake flour
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup milk
• ½ cup chopped nuts
• 3 egg whites

Cream shortening thoroughly. Add sugar gradually, creaming after each addition until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Mix the vanilla with the milk. Add alternately with the sifted dry ingredients and the nuts to the sugar mixture. Beat with a spoon after each addition until smooth. Beat the egg whites, stiff, but not dry, and fold them carefully in the cake batter. Turn into greased 8-by-8-by-2 inch pan at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

*Cake is dense, similar to a coffee cake.

Would you believe there’s a musical group called the Cracked Walnuts? They’re a husband and wife team, washboard and banjo duo, from the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania and specialize in old time music. Might be something in that name that’s worth investigating.

I would never get away with serving plain cake in my household, so I frosted one walnut cake recipe with a cream cheese frosting, adding chopped walnuts.

The other cake is served plain, without a frosting, but with apple butter on the side.

When in doubt, a side serving of apple butter usually wins the day.

Here’s a ninformal survey on favorite ways to eat apple butter:

• I make a sandwich out of two pieces of bread and apple butter in the middle.
• I spread it on biscuits, hot from the oven, instead of butter.
• Get a bowl of cottage cheese and top with a thick layer of apple butter. My favorite after school snack as a kid.
• Like it on muffins.
•  I don’t eat apple butter (from a native of Maryland).
• On gingerbread instead of whipped cream.
• Spread it on crackers or white bread. I always trim the crusts too.
• Best on plain yogurt.
• Mix it with peanut butter and bananas.
• Love it for breakfast on white toast.

To frost cake neatly, cover edge of cake plate with triangles of waxed paper. Place cake on these and frost. Then gently draw the papers away, leaving plate clean. For an expert frosting job, spread frosting first from top edge down over sides. Pile remaining frosting on top and spread lightly to edges.

After serving a cake, keep the unserved portion fresh by covering the cut surface with a strip of waxed paper. Use a few clean toothpicks to punch through the paper and into the cake, holding the paper securely. 1003 Household Hints and Work Savers, Johnstown Band & Trust Company, New York, 1948