Cream cake may be more Southern than Italian

Someone posted this on an online bulletin board :"I am pretty sure that it is about as Italian as I am, which is not at all." Ha!

She was talking about Italian cream cake, which has been described as the vanilla version of German chocolate cake, which isn't German either: It originated in the USA.

The consensus seems to be that Italian cream cake is more Southern American than anything else. Indeed, it is chock-full of ingredients that also are found in other cakes popular throughout Dixie: buttermilk, pecans and coconut.

Valerie Mango of Summerville recently asked if we could get the recipe for the version served at Red Sky restaurant on Seabrook Island.

I got a phone call last week from Lassie Locklair of Johns Island, the mother of the restaurant's former owner, Ann Paradise. Lassie made the cake for the restaurant before her daughter sold the business a couple of years ago.

"I used to bake a couple of those a day in the summer. Sometimes they would sell the whole cake," she says.

Lassie says the recipe is straight out of Southern Living, except that she tweaked the icing a bit. Alas, she won't reveal how, but it has to do with flavoring.

This cake isn't quick and easy but your effort is sure to make the people who eat it very, very happy.

Kathee Hering of Summerville e-mailed the recipe and this note:

"I found this recipe in 'Southern Living Annual Recipes Cookbook, 20th Anniversary Edition,' sent in by Donna Willcut of Pryor, Okla. It is delicious. Hope this is the one that Ms. Mango is looking for. You need to follow the directions to a T, but it's well worth it."

Italian Cream Cake

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/2 cup shortening

2 cups sugar

5 large eggs, separated

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup flaked coconut

Nutty Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe follows)

Garnishes: toasted pecan halves, chopped pecans

Beat butter and shortening in a large mixing bowl at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add sugar, beating well. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Add vanilla; beat until blended.

Combine flour and soda; add to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed until blended after each addition. Stir in coconut.

Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form; fold into batter. Pour batter into three greased and floured 9-inch round cake pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans, and let cool completely on wire racks.

Spread Nutty Cream Cheese Frosting between layers and on top and sides of cake.

Garnish, if desired, with chopped pecans on top and toasted pecan halves around the bottom of the cake.

Nutty Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes about 4 cups

1 cup chopped pecans

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 (16-ounce) package powdered sugar, sifted

Place pecans in a shallow pan; bake at 350 degrees for 5-10 minutes or until toasted, stirring occasionally. Cool.

Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Add powdered sugar, beating at low speed until blended. Beat at high speed until smooth; stir in pecans.

Also thanks to Sandra Salmon of Summerville, Carol Dotterer and Eliza- beth Wood of Charleston, and Harriette Dodd of Round O.

More cake

Another reader was looking for a recipe for Orange Sherbet Cake that may have run in this newspaper a good while ago.

Ashley Woody of Mount Pleasant was one of the readers who responded.

"I just happened upon the attached recipe in a Carolina Country Magazine. Maybe it is similar to the one that the reader remembers. It sounds good to me!"

Sharon Cook of Charleston shared a similar recipe, and vouches for it.

Sharon's recipe includes 1 tablespoon of orange zest mixed in with the cake, which would boost the flavor even more.

She also toasts the coconut before adding it to the filling and frosting mixture.

"It gave the coconut a nutty taste but did not overpower the other flavors," she says.

Orange Sherbet Cake

For cake:

1 box Duncan Hines orange cake mix

1 box (3-ounce) orange Jell-O

1 cup cold water

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs

Mix above ingredients and bake in two greased and floured layer pans at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until done. Cool layers completely. Split layers so you will have four layers.

For filling:

1 carton (16-ounce) sour cream

2 cups sugar

1 package (12-ounce) frozen coconut

1/3 cup orange juice, frozen

Mix and spread between layers, reserving 1 cup for frosting top and sides of cake.

For frosting:

1 cup filling mixture

1 large (16-ounce) container Cool Whip

Mix well and cover cake.

Fran Deane of Charleston clipped this recipe from this column five years ago. It's a sheet cake that she says is delicious.

Creamsicle Cake

1 (18.25-ounce) box Duncan Hines Orange Supreme cake mix

2 (3-ounce) packages orange gelatin, divided use

1 cup hot water

1 cup cold water

1 (3-ounce) package instant vanilla pudding

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 (8-ounce) container nondairy whipped topping, such as Cool Whip

1 can mandarin oranges, drained (or fresh orange slices)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 degrees if using glass or dark nonstick pan). Bake cake as directed in a 13x9-inch baking dish. Cool about 30 minutes.

Using a meat fork or small dowel, poke holes through the cake about 1 1/2 inches apart. In bowl, mix 1 box gelatin, 1 cup hot water, and 1 cup cold water. Cool to room temperature and pour over top of cake, directing in holes. Refrigerate for 2 hours.

Mix remaining box of gelatin with pudding mix, milk and vanilla. Beat well. Fold whipped topping into this mixture; add oranges; spread on top of cake or frost, reserving orange slices for garnish. Keep refrigerated.

Lastly, Harriette Dodd sent a recipe from 2007. "It is not titled Orange Sherbert Cake ... however, it contains a pint of orange sherbet, so it could be the one being sought."

Mandarin Orange Cake

1 (3-ounce) package orange Jell-O

1/2 cup hot water

2 (8-ounce) cans mandarin oranges

1 pint orange sherbet

1 prepared angel food cake

1 large container Cool Whip or other nondairy whipped topping

Shredded coconut

Dissolve gelatin in hot water; add juice from mandarin oranges. Spoon in sherbet and stir until dissolved. Let partially congeal, stirring occasionally. Cover 9x13-inch pan with half of sliced cake. Pour half of gelatin mixture over cake. Put half of whipped topping over that. Arrange the orange sections on whipped topping. Repeat cake, gelatin mixture and topping. Sprinkle with shredded coconut. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Bonus recipe

Judy Oken of Meggett was kind to send this unsolicited but welcome recipe.

"I got this recipe from a great little restaurant in North Carolina years ago. It is wonderful but very rich. Thought it would be good since shrimp are in season now."

Shrimp Bisque

1/2 pound shrimp (shelled)

1/2 lemon

3 cups half and half

3 tablespoons sherry

3 tablespoon butter

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons grated onion

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Pinch of salt

Boil shrimp in water with 1/2 lemon until shrimp are pink. Peel shrimp and devein, if desired, and chop into small pieces.

Over low heat, boil cream, sherry and butter until creamy.

Add cheddar cheese, stir until cheese is melted.

Add onion and parsley. Bring mixture to a slow boil for about 5 minutes.

Add the shrimp.

Who's got the recipe?

--Last fall we celebrated October as Vegetarian Awareness Month in this column, thanks to a suggestion by Jean Spencer of West Ashley. It was successful last year; why not do it again?

Please send one or two of your favorite vegetarian recipes and we'll do another column again. We have only a few weeks, so don't delay!

--"I am looking for a recipe for corn meal pones," writes Willette Smith, who works at MUSC. "My mother made them to go with her prize-winning barbecue. They were made from corn meal and water, I think, instead of milk. Not sure about the egg. Anyway, they were made by hand and patted into about 2 1/2-inch rounds and placed on cookie sheets to bake. She always pressed them down and left her fingerprints (3) on the top. When I try to replicate them, mine fall apart! Can anybody help me? I have a big barbecue birthday coming up."

--A Charleston reader would like a variety of recipes that include leeks.

--If anyone has a recipe for homemade liver pud- ding, please send it for Ann Singleton Beebe of Parma, Idaho.

Looking for a recipe or have one to share? Reach Teresa Taylor at 937-4886, e-mail food@postandcourier.com or write The Post and Courier, 134 Columbus St., Charleston, SC 29403.