RECIPE
1 cup sugar
shortening the size of a walnut
1 well-beaten egg
1 tsp. salt
4 tsp. baking powder
3 cups flour
1 cup sweet milk
1 cup chopped nut meats
Pour into buttered pan. Let stand 20 minutes before baking.
Bake slowly 40-60 minutes, at 350F.
Baking is not my thing.
A lurking fear always grips me that one tiny error in measurements will destroy everything. The mismeasured ingredients will collapse upon themselves, destroying the cake or tart. The overburdened baking dish will break the rack and slam to the bottom of the oven with a thud, destroying the oven. The tiles under the oven will crack and open a hole in the floor, destroying the floor. The floor will crumble and implode the entire building, destroying the building. Who knows where the destruction might end.
Haunted by fantasy cataclysms, I approach recipes like this one with some trepidation.
Prepping to make Paula Ellis' Nut Bread recipe, my nerves were set on edge almost immediately by the inclusion of "sweet milk" in the list of ingredients. Gripping my phone and staggering to the fainting couch, I flopped down and did some Googling. Turns out, sweet milk is just plain whole milk. Back in the day, it was sometimes referred to as sweet milk to differentiate it from buttermilk or skim milk. Confusion sorted, I forged ahead.
It appears that Paula Ellis expected people to know exactly what to do once the ingredients were assembled. I made the effort to set everything out in advance, within arms reach. I also creamed the first two ingredients because that seems like a thing one does. The rest of the items fell into the bowl without problem, and soon enough the loaf of sweet dough went into the oven.
I may have overmixed everything. After almost an hour of baking, the bread that emerged was more like a bread-shaped cake. Dense and weighty but also sweet and nutty.
Kept in a bag in the fridge, it lasted days and each morning I sawed off a slab for breakfast. As bread-shaped cakes go, it turned out great so I'll take the W thank you.
As for the man on the card, Dock Ellis is usually remembered as the man who pitched a no-hitter during an acid trip. It's a wild story and has been retold in a variety of media, but after his career ended, Dock acknowledged that he had a substance abuse problem. He cleaned up his life and spent his final years as a substance abuse counselor. He died, way too soon, in 2008.
