The other day, while frosting an old-fashioned carrot cake, I got to thinking about cake-cake, my term for no-nonsense Canadian cakes, like those baked by our Presbyterian mothers and Grannies. Simple confections, devoid of European-style creamy goop and toppings with the taste of lard. I thought about my mother’s boiled icing that looked like meringue and tasted like melted marshmallows, and also her brown sugar frosting, a facsimile of maple fudge. I thought of Kate Aitken (1891-1971) who supplied Canadian housewives with cake and frosting (icing and frosting appear to be interchangeable) tips and recipes, from the 1930s, until she retired in 1957.
While I iced, the radio was on and CBC news was centered on the tragic fire in L’Isle Verte, where at least 30 Quebecois seniors were incinerated, due to lack of ceiling sprinklers. This also brought to mind Madame Jehane Benoit, the French-Canadian version of Mrs A, as Aitken was known across Canada.
Aitken started her broadcasting career, on CKCK, in Regina. BY 1940, she was English Canada’s Queen of the Muffin Pans. Later she had a daily show, on CFRB, sponsored by Ogilvy Flour. By the time Mrs A retired, she had made more than 9,500 radio broadcasts, featuring recipes and a plethora of domestic information.
Mrs. A made Martha Stewart look like a slacker. She wrote 50 books on cooking, travel and etiquette, employed 12 secretaries and wrote weekly columns for the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Telegram and the Montreal Standard. She also convinced Mussolini to buy Canadian wheat, raised prize-winning white Wyandottes (hens) and ran cooking schools in Montreal, the Maritimes and at the Canadian National Exhibition.
Madame Benoit (1904-1987) was no slouch either. Born in Quebec, Benoit travelled to Paris to study Cordon Blue cookery, in the 1920s. She opened Canada’s first vegetarian restaurant, in 1935, in Montreal. While Mrs A was broadcasting to “English” house and farm wives, by 1941 Mme. Benoit was her counterpart on Radio-Canada, the CBC’s francophone service. She also wrote 30 books, about cookery and entertaining, and when her Encyclopedia of Canadian Cuisine was published, in 1963, it sold 1.5 million copies, a stellar number in sparsely populated Canada. Mme. Benoit was also the first chef to cook on Canadian TV and she fanatically embraced the microwave before it became a kitchen standard. Arguably, Mme. Benoit was first to introduce the average Canadian housewife to the concept of using wine, spirits and olive oil as ingredients in dishes such as Tapenade de Nice, Coq au Vin and Melon Consomme, thus catapulting meat-and-potatoes mothers into soigné hostesses.
Interestingly, although Canada was long a country separated by two languages, there was ecumenical crossovers in the nation’s kitchens. While Protestant homemakers, in Anglo Canada, thumbed through tattered cookbooks, by Mrs A, their Catholic sisters were consulting Mme. Benoit. And when it came to baked goods, in those early days, Kate and Jehane purveyed similar recipes. As a result the same tarts, cakes, casseroles and aspics were turning up, at socials, in the churches ruled by the Vatican, and at the reformed churches of Martin Luther. Both ladies pushed 1960s favourites like sweet and sour meatballs and Mme. Benoit jazzed up Mrs. A’s standard Anglo Lemon Meringue Pie by adding grated lemon peel.
Circling back to the appalling demise of the elderly folks in rural L’Isle Verte, one suspects, their families and neighbours will, surely, retain fond memories of those Grand-Meres, working at the stove, while the Grand-Peres, on kitchen chairs, nodded off. And I’ll bet in most of their kitchens, there’s a sticky 50-year-old copy of Mme. Benoit’s Encyclopedia.
A story about Jehane Benoit’s death, in 1987. At the time, I was working at the Toronto Star as a features’ writer and columnist. The Star’s food section always appeared on Thursday, but was pre-printed a few days ahead. One Thursday after the first edition hit the street, news came in that Mme. Benoit had passed away. In that day’s food section, there was a feature story about Benoit along with a selection of meat recipes – one being a fancy hamburger concoction. The headline above the piece read: Madame Benoit in Hamburger Heaven. This was a true stop-the-presses moment at the Star. Quickly, changes were made, for the later edition, after much mirth in the newsroom.
Fast forward to January 2014. I’ve never successfully make Mrs A’s and my mother’s boiled icing, (often called Seven Minute Frosting)and my fudgie frosting never sets, but I do concoct a simple fool-proof chocolate topping that takes minutes to make and is truffle-good. Not only does this icing knock the socks off chocolate lovers, but it sets so well your cake-cake could be transferred over rocks, in an army tank, and arrive on a dessert table in top condition. A cake, so iced, is also perfect after a month, or so, in the freezer. So here it is.
CHOCOLATE FROSTING
In a small sauce pan put any combination of Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate (necessary ingredient) along with any dribs of left-over chocolate Easter bunnies and Santas, squares of commercial chocolate bars and/or chocolate chips. Alternatively use 4 to 6 squares of Baker’s chocolate, depending on size of cake. Heat chocolate, on low, until all is melted. Remove from stove and stir in 2 to 4 tablespoons of sour cream. Cool cake to room temperature and frost.
