BUSY-DAY CAKE OR SWEET BREAD

"Busy-day cake was never iced, it was always cut into squares and served warm, often with fruit or berries left over from canning. The delicious flavor of fresh-cooked fruit with the plain cake was just to our taste and it was also refreshing with newly churned, chilled buttermilk or cold morning's milk."

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter at room temperature
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
3 medium to large eggs
2 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup sweet milk, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder
1 light grating of nutmeg (about 25 grains)
1 (10x10x2-inch) cake pan

Blend the butter and sugar by hand until it is light and fluffy. Then, one by one, add the eggs, beating the batter with a wooden spoon after each egg. Add in 1/2 cup of flour and one part of the milk, alternating the milk in three parts and the flour in four parts, and ending with the flour. Add salt, vanilla, baking powder, and nutmeg, and mix well. Stir well after each addition, but always stir only once after you have added the milk then quickly add more flour so as to keep the batter from separating.

Butter and flour the bottom of the cake pan and spoon the batter into it.

Bake in a preheated 375 degree F oven for 40 minutes. Cut into squares and serve warm.

Serves 4 to 5
Excerpted from The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis
Copyright © 2006 by Edna Lewis. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.