Family recipe Monday: boarding house specials

Women's History Month challenge for March 16 — If you could have lunch with any female family member (living or dead) or any famous female who would it be and why? Where would you go? What would you eat?
March 19 — Have you discovered a surprising fact about one of your female ancestors? What was it and how did you learn it? How did you feel when you found out?
March 20 — Is there a female ancestor who is your brick wall? Why? List possible sources for finding more information.
March 21 — Describe a tender moment one of your female ancestors shared with you or another family member.
(I'll get to March 17 and 18 later. These all fit together nicely.)

Victory Cemetery, Altus, Oklahoma

We're obviously, er, a bit behind on the Women's History Month Challenge and Family Recipe Monday posts, this being March 21, but this gives me a chance to catch up a bit. It's been an intense couple of weeks, both at work and on the international scene, and sometimes the gears don't shift into writing mode easily at the end of the day. Not when they've been in git-er-done and set-your-phaser-to-stun modes all day.

But spring is here. That does not necessarily mean that the blizzards are over and gone up here, but it does mean that the sun is moving back up the sky. On Friday, we leave for the annual Craniac trip to Nebraska. Much MUCH needed, I can assure you. Keep watching this space--or the skies, if you are lucky enought to live along the sandhill crane flyways.

In the meantime, howzabout that lunch with one of the older girls? That's easy. I'd like to go to my great-grandmother Mossie's boarding house in Altus, Oklahoma, and help her cook and serve, then do the clean-up for her while she told me what her recipes were and whence she got them. I don't have that information, since she wrote very little down, and I'd like to know what went into her decision to move back to Oklahoma after her husband's death and open this enterprise. I've hit that brick wall on the details. I want to know the whole story now, and we just don't have that.

Mossie's surprising story is that she homesteaded on her own in Oklahoma as a young single woman, giving up her claim only to marry the cute homesteader next door, Newt Brooks. She could do everything a man could do during the day, from building houses to raising crops, and after hours could do everything a woman was expected to do on top of that. She was a gifted seamstress, needleworker and cook, all with no electricity. I am awed and wonder just what it is I do during the day in comparison to her work day.

So no restaurant for us, thanks. We'll eat in at Widow Brooks's boarding house. I think I'll probably ask for chicken and dumplings, and watch exactly how she makes it. If Mossie was anything like her daughter Vada, she will most likely have a spectacular dessert hidden and ready to serve (but only after saying that she didn't have much in the house, but that we were welcome to share in what little there was. Yeah, right. That boarding house table would have been groaning under the weight of all that "little" food.).

If I could request dessert, I'd want to try her Gold Cake to see how that was made. Here is all that is written down about it. I think I can figure it out, but I'd like to know how she made it.

Gran Brooks’s gold cake

1 ½ cups sugar
1 ½ cups butter
1 cup sweet milk
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 cup jam (any kind)
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp nutmeg
3 cups flour
6 egg yolks
--Mary Marcella Walker Brooks

We might not get a choice, you understand. We might have to settle for the peach cobbler she had made. I think I could manage that.

Then, for the clean-up, I'd be able to see what her homemade soap was like. This is one of the few things that she did write down. The writing is too faint to scan well.

Soap

Cold soap: 1 can of lye, ½ gallon clear grease, ½ gallon water. Put lye and water into vessel and let cool. (The lye makes it hot) and dissolve. Then add the melted grease just barely warm and stir until thick.

Cooked soap: 1 gallon water, 1 can lye, 5 lb. grease cracklins (an 8 lb. lard bucket is about 5 lb.). Put ½ gallon water and cracklins and lye in pot and cook until cracklins are eaten up then remove from fire and add the other half gal. of water and stir until thick.
--Mary Marcella Walker Brooks

The girls on that side of the family all tend to be strong (that's the diplomatic word), but Mossie's granddaughter Shirley will always be my rock. And they all show tenderness through feeding people. Except for Shirley, who's sweetness itself, they may have been a bit gruff or snappish at times, but the Johnson-Brooks-Walker-Honnoll women never let anyone go hungry. Ever. That's where the tenderness shows.

It's not food. It's edible love. Go have some, and happy Monday.

Mack and Vada

Women's History Month challenge for March 4 — Do you have marriage records for your grandparents or great-grandparents? Write a post about where they were married and when. Any family stories about the wedding day? Post a photo too if you have one.

Mack and Vada, date uncertain, possibly after their move to Lubbock.

Do we have marriage record stories.....

These are my maternal grandparents, McKinley "Mack" Johnson and Vada Vivian Brooks Johnson, possibly in Lubbock, Texas, where they moved in 1937. They were married in 1923 in Montgomery County, Arkansas. Mack was the youngest child of the local doctor, Dr. John Johnson, and his second wife, Elmyra "Myra" Elizabeth Wacaster Johnson. Mack was a good-looking boy and the first in the area to have his own car. Vada's family had recently moved back to Arkansas following the death of her father Newt Brooks in Homestead, Florida. She set her cap for Mack and got him. 

At the time of their marriage in 1923, Mack was 21. According to the marriage certificate that Shirley has in the safe deposit box, Vada was 16.

Except that Vada was born in 1909.

You do the math.

That's right: Vada married at 14, even though her mother and younger sister tried to talk her out of it. Clearly she fudged the truth on the marriage certificate: the question is, did Mack know, or did she fudge the truth with him, too? Or were they all in it with the county registrar, since she was underage?

No one knows. We didn't find this out until long after the two of them were gone. They never fudged the truth with us. We knew that Grandmother married at 14 and didn't think too much about it. Times were different then, and harder. But we did not know that the marriage certificate told a very different story.

It was a very small, quiet wedding; that much we know. She wore her best dress, but not a wedding dress, which was common in that time and place. They moved to Altus, Oklahoma, with her mother, Mossie, who opened a boarding house. Mack became an architectural draftsman. Guinn was born in 1925, when Vada was 16. Shirley was born at home in Altus in 1933, and discovered, many years later, that she had no birth certificate, again not uncommon in those circumstances. Fortunately, that can be corrected now.

Whoever said "Truth is found, not in accounts, but in account books" should have a word with the registrar of marriages in Montgomery County, Arkansas, and births in Altus, Oklahoma.

Mossie and Newt

Women's History Month challenge for March 2 — Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?

Brooks family portrait, date ca. 1917

 
I cheated and posted a photo of three of my female ancestors at once. I know I've posted this one before, but it bears a little explanation.
 
I don't know everyone's name in this photo (Shirley needs to weigh in on this one), but on the far left are my great-grandfather Joseph Newton "Newt" Brooks and my great-grandmother Mary Marcella "Mossie" Walker Brooks. I believe that the tiny older lady three people down is Newt's mother, Grandma Wren. Behind her next to the post is my great-aunt Coy McLean Brooks, standing next to my great-uncle Ernest Brooks. The two little girls below them are my great-aunt Gladys Brooks Strickland (who obviously did not care for the picture-taking session), and my grandmother, Vada Vivian Brooks Johnson, Shirley's mother. Several of the rest of the women are undoubtedly Newt's sisters. Ernest, Gladys and Vada were siblings. I am not sure if their fourth sibling, Jesse, is in the picture; he died young, a victim of leukemia. If he is in there, this may be one of the very few pictures of him.
 
Judging by Vada's apparent age in the photo, and her birth year of 1909, I'm tentatively placing this photo's date at 1917, plus or minus a year or so. This was taken in either Oklahoma or Arkansas. Again, Shirley needs to provide her expertise.
 
This photo always intrigues me for its look into family dynamics. Mossie, known to us in later years as Gran Brooks, was no fragile lily. She homesteaded on her own and only gave up her homestead to get married.

Newt Brooks and his sisters. 

Mossie was a survivor. She may have been one of the last people who lived in a half-dugout in Texas, close to the present-day Muleshoe Wildlife Refuge, whose wintering sandhill cranes fly over us every fall and spring. I like to think that she loved their calls, too.

Mossie ran a boarding house in Altus, Oklahoma, after Newt's death, and many of the older recipes I've posted over the past year are hers, most notably the teacakes. Most of her recipes were never written down. More about her later in the month.

Mossie's grave in Victory Cemetery, Altus. Newt died in Homestead, Florida, and is buried there half a continent away.

P.S. Happy 175th Texas Independence Day!

Family recipe Monday: a Simple Gifts Thanksgiving

This is the dream-team Thanksgiving dinner from the Simple Gifts project. Collectively, these recipes span over a hundred years and a goodly part of the country. I wish I could bring all these cooks together--some of them never even met each other. Family cooking keeps us together across the generations--be sure to give your loved ones an extra hug from us.

Start out with these perfect nibbles.

The Shelton-Sommers family. Ralph is on the left.

I may now be disowned for publishing this, but I think it is a great picture.

Ralph’s East Texas parched pecans

Pecans

Worcestershire sauce

Butter

Melt butter in skillet. Add Worcestershire sauce and pecans. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until golden. Best paired with a single-malt Scotch.

--Ralph Shelton

Use the next two recipes to put together a world-class version of Texas Cornbread Dressing.

Corn kernel cornbread

1 cup flour

1 cup cornmeal

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

¼ cup sugar

2 eggs, well beaten

1 cup milk

3 T melted margarine

1 cup yellow cream-style corn

Preheat oven to 450* F. Brush 9” square baking pan or skillet with melted shortening. Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl, stirring to blend well. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, milk, margarine and corn. Add all at once to dry ingredients, mixing quickly and thoroughly. Pour batter into pan and bake about 30 minutes, or until bread tests done. Can also be baked as sticks or muffins. Serve hot.

Dipping biscuits

Whisk in bowl to blend:

2 ½ cups whole wheat flour
½ cup unbleached flour
2 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
¾ tsp onion powder
½ tsp ground thyme
½ tsp ground sage (or substitute ¾ tsp Bell’s seasoning)

Add ½ stick butter cut in ½” cubes; blend in with pastry blender until coarse meal consistency. Blend in 1 cup buttermilk, 1 large egg, mix until moist. Turn onto floured surface, knead briefly until dough comes together. Gather into ball, roll out to ¾“, cut into rounds or squares. Bake in 400o preheated oven 20-22 minutes, or until biscuit tester* comes out clean! Dip in gravy and enjoy.
--Pat Monaco

*This is an in-joke. Our friend Pat actually found a snooty gourmet magazine recipe for biscuits that required the use of a biscuit tester to determine doneness. If you can’t tell when biscuits are done, a tester will not help you much. These are great crumbled into a cornbread-sage dressing.

For a soup course, try this Pennsylvania classic.

Shaffner-Hess wedding reception, 1954.

Potato soup

Sauté gently in 2 T butter:

1 T grated carrot
1 T scraped onions

Stir in:

1 tsp salt
¼ tsp celery salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 cups hot milk
1 cup mashed or boiled potatoes, put through a coarse sieve

Cook 20 minutes
--Dolly Shaffner Hess

For a variation on the standard cranberry jelly, try this.

Cranberry salad

1 lb. cranberries
1 whole apple

Grind in food chopper. Cover with 1 cup sugar. Add:

1 small can crushed pineapple
Pinch salt
1/2 cup nuts

Mix into 2 pkg. Jell-O (cherry or raspberry) in 3 cups water. Chill.
--Vada Brooks Johnson, Shirley Johnson Shelton

And here is a quartet of great side dishes:

Vada’s marinated carrots

2 lb. carrots, cut in 1” pieces

Cook until tender; drain and set aside. Bring to boil:

1 cup sugar
1 8-oz. can tomato sauce
1/3 cup oil
½ cup vinegar

When boiling, add 1 onion (sliced) and 1 green pepper (sliced). Bring back to good hard boil and pour over carrots.
--Vada Brooks Johnson

Rice-broccoli casserole

1 package chopped broccoli

½ cup chopped onion

½ cup chopped celery

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 small jar Cheddar cheese spread

1 cup cooked rice

Cook broccoli according to package directions. Sauté onion and celery in small amount of oil. Mix with broccoli. Add soups and cheese spread. Line a casserole dish with rice. Pour broccoli mixture over rice and bake at 375* F for 10 minutes.

--Vada Brooks Johnson

Pennsylvania red cabbage

2 tbsp bacon drippings heated in skillet (oil may be substituted)

Stir into drippings or oil:

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup cider vinegar

½ tsp caraway seed

¼ cup water

1 ¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

Stir in to coat:

4 cups shredded red cabbage

2 cups cubed unpeeled red apple

Cover and cook on low heat about 15 min until cooked but still crisp. Stir occasionally.

--Dolly Shaffner Hess

Perfect baked sweet potatoes

4 medium to large sweet potatoes

Safflower oil

Preheat oven to 400* F. Wash and scrub potatoes. Dry thoroughly. Coat potatoes lightly with oil. Prick surface with fork. Bake until tender (40-60 minutes, depending on size).

The best rolls of all time for the dinner are Bran Rolls and Potato Rolls. I'd serve these with Honey Jelly.

Honey jelly

3 cups honey

1 cup water

½ bottle liquid fruit pectin (Certo)

Measure honey and water into large saucepan and mix well. Place over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. At once stir in pectin. Then bring to a full rolling boil and boil hard 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, skim off foam with metal spoon, and pour quickly into glasses. Cover jelly at once with 1/8” hot paraffin wax. This will make five glasses.

Here are a couple of options for the main course, in addition to the Shrimp Creole we love for holidays. Because we just do, that's why.

Basic roast turkey

18 to 22-lb. turkey

2 oranges or 4 lemons, halved

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

Salt, pepper, paprika

Cheesecloth

4 T corn oil

Clean turkey with damp paper towels. Dry well inside and out. Squeeze orange or lemon juice over the inside and outside of cavity. Fill neck cavity with one stuffing and body cavity with another, if desired. Don’t pack too tightly. Close cavities by sewing or skewering. Rub 1½ sticks of butter over outside of turkey. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and paprika. Drape cheesecloth over top of turkey. Place breast side up on rack in roasting pan. Bake 4½ to 5 ½ hours at 325* F or until turkey tests done. Baste every 30 minutes with corn oil which has been mixed with remaining butter (melted). Baste without lifting cheesecloth, but check periodically to make sure it is not stuck to skin. If it is, gently lift and baste under cheesecloth. If breast gets too dark, tent with a piece of foil.

The Brooks family. Vada is the taller of the two little girls.

For the poultry-averse:

Brisket

6 lb. brisket

3 T garlic salt

3 T onion salt

3 T celery salt

½ bottle dark smoke (liquid smoke), 3-oz bottle

Wrap in foil and marinate overnight. Cook 6 hours at 275* F.

--Vada Brooks Johnson

Finally, if you are still able to move, we recommend a nice selection of pies for dessert. You can never have too many of these. Some already-printed classics include Pumpkin-Chiffon Pie, Buttermilk Pie, Pecan Pie and Caramel Pie. Here are a few other dessert options:

Sour cream dried cherry pie

2 cups sour cream
3 egg yolks
½ cup brown sugar
3 T flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 ½--2 cups dried sour cherries
½ cup water

Put the cherries in a small saucepan with the water and plump them over low heat about 5 minutes. Cool and drain. Combine the flour and sugar. Add the beaten egg yolks, sour cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Cook the custard in a double boiler until it just starts to thicken, stirring continuously. Mix in the cherries and divide between two pre-baked piecrusts. Bake at 350* until just golden, 10-12 minutes.
--Pat Monaco and Sally Shelton

Chocolate chip cheesecake

1 ½ cup finely crushed Oreo cookies
¼ cup oleo or butter, melted
3 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened
1 14-oz can Eagle Brand condensed milk (not evaporated)
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup mini-chocolate chips
1 tsp flour

Preheat oven to 300* F (important). Combine crumbs and oleo; pat firmly on bottom of 9” springform pan. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add Eagle Brand milk and beat well. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well. In a small bowl, toss together ½ cup chocolate chips, 1 tsp flour to coat. Stir into cheese mixture. Pour into pan. Sprinkle ½ cup chocolate chips on top. Bake 1 hour or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool to room temperature. Chill and remove side of pan. Serves 10-12.
--Marcie Nelson

I'll post another pie recipe on Thanksgiving Day. Happy Monday.

Family recipe Monday: more classic cakes

The oatmeal cake recipe

Yes, it is written on the back of a blank check, just as you suspected.

We are still adding to the Simple Gifts files of recipes and stories from the extended families in all directions. That would be a lot of directions, as we now have to factor in the stories from Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Mexico, in addition to the Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma files. Many of the best ones were never written down, as previously noted. We're finding that to be a truism on many of the fronts.

Cakes always seem to take up a disproportionate amount of space in the written files, though. They seem to have been viewed as the true tests of baking skill. Here are three arranged in order, from simplest to fanciest.

Oatmeal cake

Pour 1 ½ cups boiling water over 1 cup oatmeal and I stick butter or margarine. Do not stir. Let stand covered for 20 minutes. Mix

1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp nutmeg
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix oatmeal and above. Mix together and bake in greased biscuit pan for 30 minutes at 350* F.

Top with mixture of
¾ stick butter or margarine
¼ cup Pet (evaporated) milk
½ cup sugar
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup coconut
1 tsp vanilla

Spread on cake while hot and brown under broiler.
--Lela Lawson, Vada Brooks Johnson

Note: The biscuit pan referred to above is not a pan with individual biscuit/muffin cups; it is simply a 9" diameter round metal pan, like a cake layer pan but a bit shallower. You can use a pie pan or plate to get the same results. That broiler time should be extremely short, maybe a minute.

I don't remember when carrot cakes started popping up in the family cooking options, but here is a bit of history from Candis Reade: "Carrot cake is a confectionery conundrum: it seems you either love it, or you hate it. But either way, theres no denying the appeal of this rich dessert throughout history. Food historians tell us that the origins of carrot cake were likely a type of carrot pudding enjoyed during medieval times. Later, during the Middle Ages, sweetening agents were hard to come by in Britain and quite expensive, so as a result, carrots were often used in place of sweeteners. Interestingly, despite being such a longstanding mainstay in Europe, American cookbooks didnt start listing carrot cake recipes until the early 1900s. And, it was actually in the 1960s before carrot cake began becoming a more common cake in the United States, soon becoming the dessert of choice at summer family reunions picnics and Mothers Day celebrations." Add a few commas and apostrophes there, and you're all set.

This is Carol's Carrot Cake. I am not sure who Carol is (I assume that she is the "she" referred to), but apparently someone in our line disagreed with her on the amount of cream cheese in the frosting, enough to mention it twice. Note on the other side of the recipe: “The original cook used only a 3-oz. package of cream cheese, but we prefer more cheese.” Sorry, Carol. We're nothing if not self-indulgent. So there.

Carol's carrot cake

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
2 tsp soda
1 tsp baking powder
3 cups grated carrot
1 ½ cups corn oil
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all dry ingredients together. Add oil, eggs and vanilla and blend well. Bake in three 9” pans at 350* F for 30 minutes or until done.

Frosting
1 8-oz. package cream cheese
1 stick butter or margarine
1 box powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans

Cream the cheese and butter. Add sugar, vanilla and pecans. Blend well. Add milk if necessary and spread.

P. S. Grate carrots real fine and pack in cup--usually takes a whole bunch. Also she uses 3 oz. cream cheese instead of the 8 oz.
--via Shirley Johnson Shelton

Finally, here is one of the recipes that won a blue ribbon for my grandmother at the South Plains Fair. This one is a real test of skill. Warning: Any recipe with parts listed in Roman numerals is going to take up most of your baking day. I don't know what the name of it was before the Fair, but it was never going to have any other name afterward.

Prize chocolate cake

Part I
¾ cup sugar
1 ½ cups sweet milk
¾ cup cocoa
Cook these ingredients to a medium thick syrup and allow to cool. Add 1 tsp vanilla.

Part II
¾ cup butter
3 eggs
1 ½ cups sugar
1 ½ tsp baking soda
4 T cold water
¾ cup sour milk
3 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar until light and puffy, and add eggs not separated. Next the water with soda dissolved in it. Mix well. Add flour and milk alternately and beat well. Now add part I and beat again. Pour into lined cake pan and bake at 350* F 40 minutes.

Filling
2 cups brown sugar
½ cup rich milk
2 T butter

Cook to soft ball in cold water. Beat until creamy.
--Vada Brooks Johnson

Caveat I: If you're not familiar with the art of cooking sugar and candy, don't start this recipe just yet. Of all places, the Exploratorium in San Francisco has the best instructions on the science of candy here. This entire Science of Cooking section is terrific.

Caveat II: Sour milk is not the same as buttermilk. It was originally literally milk that had started to turn. You don't have to wait for milk to go bad, though. Add a bit of lemon juice or vinegar to fresh milk instead, as detailed here.

The note "add eggs not separated" is an interesting turn of phrase. I notice that this is the second recipe posted here with instructions for making "filling" rather than "frosting" or "icing." Wonder if this was an Oklahoma colloquialism that we've lost the use of today?

Happy Memorial Day, all.

Family recipe Monday: hummingbird cake

Anna's hummingbird image by Doug Sparks, from http://hummingbirdworld.com/h/17.htm

Our friend Pat called from the road on Saturday, on her way from Colorado to Florida. She was in El Reno, Oklahoma, just west of Oklahoma City. Pat is a tremendously gifted cook, among many other hats she wears, and she has started using the Roadfood.com resources as a way to liven up long drives. Today she was at an El Reno culinary shrine, the home of the onion burger. Apparently there is a lively debate over which restaurant in El Reno invented this, but word has it that it is not to be missed, especially if you are on a long drive across Oklahoma and you are cross-eyed with road fatigue as you drive through what she calls "frizzle" (=freezing drizzle). It propelled her all the way to Houston in one day; it must be good.

Pat was describing the menu to us and noted that there was a dessert called Hummingbird Cake, of which she had never heard. It's very, very, VERY hard to stump Pat when it comes to anything having to do with cooking and recipes. (This is the woman who has her own cook's trailer and puts together three-course dinners for paleontology field crews 60 miles from nowhere.) But I was able to tell her, gleefully, that the family recipe archives came through again: I do in fact have a recipe for Hummingbird Cake.

Not that I've ever made it.

Or that I know why it is named that, or where hummingbirds come into the picture. I'm relieved to report that they are not ingredients, so stop worrying about that. No hummingbirds have been harmed in the making of this cake.

http://www.joyofbaking.com/HummingbirdCake.html

There seem to be many weird explanations: that the "taste of each bite makes one hum with delight" (mmmm...), that it is as sweet as hummingbirds' sugar water...who knows? Myrecipes. com says that this is the most requested recipe in Southern Living's history, a favorite of covered-dish suppers. It is a very sweet cake with pecans, pineapple and bananas, graced by a rich cream-cheese icing, not unlike an Italian cream cake.

Here is my grandmother Johnson's recipe. The note in the top left corner reads: "From Maude." This is considerably older than the Southern Living recipe published in 1978. I notice that there are lighter versions, healthier versions, decorated versions of this online...but this is hers. I can't find any online resources that describe this as anything but a layer cake, so I'm curious how the tube cake would turn out. The oil makes it very moist, and the fruit and pecans are lavish. Extravagant, even.

Humming bird cake

For a tube pan or for 3 layers

3 cups flour
½ tsp salt
2 cups sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp soda
3 eggs, beaten
1 ½ cups salad oil
1 ½ tsp vanilla
1 8-oz can crushed pineapple, undrained
2 cups chopped pecans
2 cups chopped bananas

Combine dry ingredients in large mixing bowl. Add eggs and salad oil, stirring until dry ingredients are moistened. Do not beat. Stir in vanilla, pecans, pineapple and bananas. Bake at 350 F.

Cream cheese icing

2 8-oz pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 cup margarine
2 16-oz pkg. powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Use only half of this for a tube cake.

I don't know how this compares to the El Reno version. If I ever go through there, I will most certainly find out. It's a good excuse for a road trip to Oklahoma. Happy Monday!