Inching into Wild Edibles

This cake is so simple to make! Literally 20 minutes work time–and that includes the glaze! Everyday ingredients I keep on hand—made from scratch!

I have been wanting to learn to cook with wild edibles for quite some time now. Bella is definitely interested, but hesitant to try anything that doesn’t come from the grocery store shelf.

I think the key may be starting with really pretty wild edibles as garnishes. So far, we have baked a redbud cake, and today, this chocolate cake with crystalized wild violets.

The effect was absolutely stunning! And hey, what kid can resist chocolate! Or adult, for that matter.

If you are like me and want to try wild edibles, I strongly encourage you to make absolutely sure that you can identify the plant that you are going to try. There are thousands of on-line articles, lists, videos and pictures.

Many of the wild edibles are easy to identify, and have no poisonous lookalikes. That is usually the first thing I check for. If a plant has a poisonous lookalike, I usually shy away from it.

Being able to positively identify any wild plant that you plan to eat or even handle, is crucial. Wild violets are very easy to recognize. There is only one toxic plant that has lookalike leaves, but its flowers are yellow. So I only pick wild violets when they are blooming!

Wild violets are an entirely DIFFERENT plant from the houseplant known as African violets. African violets are NOT edible at all!

Before we started the cake, Bella and I picked our wild violets. They grow all over our front yard, and a huge patch grows under the pecan tree.

My grandmother showed them to me when I was a small child. Back then, they only grew in a small area around the old farm house. Now, it seems the entire front yard of the new farmhouse is carpeted with them!

I was so afraid my husband had killed the patch under the pecan tree. Last fall, I saw him down there with the Weedeater! He had taken the entire patch down to bare dirt! It seems that they have come back with a vengeance. Saved his life!

Both the flowers and leaves of wild violets are edible. They can be eaten either raw or cooked. This plant is very high in vitamin C. Here is a list of several ways to use them:

FLOWERS:

• violet jelley
• violet syrup
• violet infused vinegar
• wild violet muffins
• wild violet cookies
• raw in salads
• wild violet tea (dry some for later!)

LEAVES: (raw or cooked)

• incorporate into salads
• add to soups
• cooked greens

Crystalized Violets for Garnish–(Make these first so they will have time to dry.)

INGREDIENTS

• freshly picked wild violet flowers
• 1 egg white
• caster sugar

TIP: We had no caster sugar on hand, but it is easy to make! Bella put 1/4 C. plain granulated sugar into our mortar and used the pestle to grind it into a finer grain. Powdered sugar is too fine.

METHOD:

With a small paintbrush or q-tip swab, paint the violets with the egg white. We did NOT beat the egg white. Sprinkle the caster sugar on, making sure to get on both sides of the petals and most of the stem. Lay the violets on waxed paper to dry.

Vintage Chocolate Cake Recipe

This has been my go-to recipe for chocolate cake for years! So far, I have not found a recipe to match its flavor and texture.

INGREDIENTS:

• ¹/₂ cup cocoa powder
• ¹/₂ cup boiling water
• ²/₃ cup shortening (Crisco)
• 1 ³/₄ cups sugar
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2 ¹/₄ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ¹/₂ t. baking soda
• ¹/₂ t. salt
• 1 ¹/₃ cups buttermilk 

TIP: Many people do not keep buttermilk on hand, so here is an easy substitute. To make 1 C. buttermilk, add 1 T. vinegar OR lemon juice to measuring cup and fill to the 1 C. line with whole white milk. Another easy substitute is 3/4 C. sour cream + 1/4 C. water to equal 1 C. buttermilk.

METHOD:

1. PREHEAT oven to 350°.
2. GREASE and flour a bundt pan.
3. STIR 1/2 C. boiling water into 1/2 C. cocoa until creamy.

4. BEAT 2/3 C. shortening, 1 3/4 C. sugar, and 1 t. vanilla until light and fluffy.

5. ADD 2 eggs and beat.

6. WISK together 2 1/4 C. all purpose flour, 1 1/2 t. soda, and 1/2 t. salt.

7. ADD the flour mixture alternately with 1 1/3 C. buttermilk.

8. ADD cocoa mixture and beat well.

9. POUR into greased and floured bundt pan and bake at 350°

10. BAKE for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

11. COOL in the pan for 10 minutes.

12. REMOVE to a wire rack and cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Glaze (recipe yields 3/4 C.–Bella and I doubled this recipe.)

INGREDIENTS:

• 5 T. butter
• 6 T. cocoa powder
• 1 C. confectioners sugar
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 2 T. hot water

METHOD:

MELT 5 T. butter together with 6 T. cocoa powder.

REMOVE from heat and and stir in 1 C. Confectioners sugar.

STIR in 1 t. Vanilla extract. 

STIR in 1 T. Hot water.  

STIR until smooth and then add another T. Hot water.

TRANSFER the chocolate glaze to a 2 C. Measuring cup and pour over cake.  (Make sure your cake is completely COOL before adding glaze.)

Here is a pic of the top.

Bella must be a magician, because this cake disappeared before I could get a second slice!

Weekly Timeless Treasure

This oil lamp is well over 100 years old. My grandmother ran a little country grocery store in Water Valley, Mississippi back in the 1950s. An old man came by with no money, and he needed a gallon of gas to get home.

Nanny told me that she spied this old oil lamp in the back of his pickup truck and offered to trade him a gallon of gas for it. So the deal was struck. As a matter of fact, Nanny struck so many deals like this that Dado almost went broke, and packed her back to the family farm!

I have almost as many precious childhood memories made at this old store as I do from the farm. Nanny and Dado lived in a little white house next to the store. And until I was about 4 years old, we lived with them.

Nanny would walk across the yard every day to run the store. When I was 5, Nanny and Dado moved back to the farm, and my other set of grandparents took over the running of East End Grocery. They lived on a high hill on the opposite side of the little cinder block building. So until I was 5 years old, my entire world revolved around “the store.”

Some of my most treasured memories were made out back. There was a circle dirt drive that went around the building, and standing just off the drive was a huge oak tree. My grandfather hung a swing with a wooden plank seat there for me, and many a summer afternoon he pushed me, “Higher, Pepaw! Higher!”

No grass at all grew under this tree. The red clay dirt was bare. And my friend and I would scratch around, making mud pies. I had a little toy muffin tin and several other little toy cooking items. Not many. Not like kids do today. Today, children have so many toys, they don’t know which one to play with!

At lunch, back then in the 1950s, farmers would bring their field hands in at lunch. The bed of the pickup trucks would be loaded down with them and their hoes!

Memaw would make bologna sandwiches back at the meat counter. Most ate bologna, but a few would order liver cheese. Some would buy a can of sardines or a can of Vienna sausages and crackers. And ohhhhh…the bottled Cokes! Pepaw kept the old Frigidaire refrigerator run down as low as it would go, and when you popped the top, they would frost up, all icy, almost all the way to the bottom of the green glass bottle!

People here in the South called all bottled soft drinks Cokes. What kind of Coke do you want? I’ll take a Dr. Pepper please! I’ll never forget the first time my mother’s brother visited from Chicago. He called the soft drinks Pops.

The field hands would take their Cokes and sandwiches out back to eat under my oak tree. Yes, it was MY oak tree. They would turn old wooden Coke crates on end for seats.

I remember one old black man in particular. His hair was snow white, an I loved him to death. I would climb up in his lap every day and beg him to sing me a song. I wanted the same song every day. It was about a little lamb that had gotten separated from its mother, died, and the butterflies were eating out its eyes. Morbid. Yes. And I would cry and cry every time he sang it. But every day, I asked for that same song.

Several years ago, I ran across the lyrics and learned that it was an old slave song:

Go to sleep little baby.
The wind's from the west
and the turkey's on its nest
and I can't get my rest for the baby.
The old sheep lost its lamb
way over in the meadow.
The buzzards and butterflies
Pecked out its eyes
And the poor little thing cried mammy.

What I would give to spend one more day under that old oak tree! It is gone now, like all of the friends and family who used to gather round it. Make memories every chance you get!