Today we have our first text-in recipe! My Aunt Missy blessed me with a picture message of a newspaper clipping out of the Buna Beacon for Ms. Joan’s Famous Pork and Bean Cake that’s made with – you guessed it – pork and beans. I’m so excited that people have started sending me the most unhinged recipes that they find. Send them in through the website here if you find a recipe that’s begging to be made!
Anyway, Ms. Joan makes her “famous” cake as follows:
1 cup raisins
1 cup boiling water
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
1 (15 oz.) can of pork and beans
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
We start this recipe off by soaking the raisins in the boiling water. But just take my word for it, don’t do that. In fact, just leave the raisins out entirely. The texture of “plumped raisins” is a nightmare and is surprisingly the worst thing about this recipe.
In a mixing bowl, combine the eggs, oil, sugar and pork and beans. Beat until the beans are broken up. I used an electric mixer to absolutely obliterate the beans because if I bite into anything recognizable as a bean in a cake, I’m throwing all of it out. Including the pan. Stir in 1 cup of walnuts that are mysteriously not in the ingredients list? And just now as I’m writing this, I realized I did not include. Oh well, I can’t imagine it helps this cake’s case very much.
At this point, you’re supposed to drain the raisins and put them in the batter, but I forgot that and had to stir them in once I put the batter in the pan - it didn't matter, they were still gross. The recipe recommends putting the batter in a 9x13 pan, but if I’m going to eat a Pork and Bean cake, it better at least look pretty. So, I put it in 2 9-inch round pans and baked them at 350 for 40 minutes. G and the dogs did some quality control sampling on the batter, and no one vomited.
Once the cakes came out of the oven and cooled a bit, I crumb coated them and then slathered them with cream cheese frosting to help improve the taste. My husband was not impressed that I had to open a second can of pork and beans “for garnish purposes”.
Once that was done, I cut the cake and served it to my very hesitant family. My mistake was telling my kid there were beans in the batter AFTER she had licked the beaters. So, I had to smash a few crumbs into her face before she’d try the real cake. But once she did, she asked for a second slice! That’s a Southern Hash first!! My husband was less enthusiastic about the cake. He said it tasted like a normal spice cake and just kept asking why someone would add beans to it. “Like, what purpose do they serve?” *shrugs* Ask Ms. Joan.
Final Rating: This was passable as an actual-for-real cake, but I still have some questions for Ms. Joan.
Send me your antique or wild and wacky recipes to recreate! I’ll happily subject my family to tasting just about anything at this point.
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