Sock-It-to-Me cake for your summer celebrations

Sock-It-to-Me cake for your summer celebrations

What comes to your mind when you hear “Sock it to me”? Aretha Franklin”I respect?” by Richard Nixon”laugh-incameo? Or a tender yellow Bundt cake with a brown sugar pecan filling and a sparkling vanilla frosting?

For me, it has to be the cake, a retro classic that’s just as good today as it was when the recipe first appeared in the 1970s on the back of a box of cake mix. Millie Peartree brings us her landlord sock pie for me like the delicious end of his june party. Keep this recipe bookmarked because people will be asking you to tell them about this all summer long.

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Sock–He–to–my cake

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Also on Millie’s lovely menu, fit for any summer celebration, is a gooey, flavorful and caramelized Baked Chicken with Hibiscus BBQ Sauce that chars around the edges in the oven. The reddish sauce is a nod to the red hibiscus drinks It is traditionally served on June 19. The vivid hue of the drinks is a symbol of resilience and a reminder of the hard-won path to freedom.

Millie combines the chicken with quiet puppies made from a cornmeal dough with buttermilk and a sweet and sour taste chow chow that changes into watermelon for the usual summer vegetables.

But that’s not the only good thing about Millie’s chow chow. She seasons it with jalapeno and a quick hibiscus simple syrup, giving it a deep, almost spicy acidity. The recipe makes more syrup than she needs, so she saves the extra for stirring into cocktails and seltzer, or drizzling over strawberries and raspberries. She makes everything pinker.

In the spirit of Juneteenth bounty, here’s an extra dessert recipe suggestion for you: Nicole Taylor’s excellent recipe strawberry slab cake. Sporting a filling enhanced with fresh ginger and a crust spiked with cracked pepper, this summer classic walks the line between savory and sweet. Personally I would push it to the sweet side with a scoop of ice cream. Or serve it alongside Bundt cake for a double whammy!

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A hibiscus itch

You can find dried hibiscus flowers (sometimes called sorrel or hibiscus) in Caribbean, Mexican, and African markets, as well as grocery stores and spice shops, and they’re great to have in the kitchen. I toss one into a mug, splash some boiling water over it, and let it steep in heady scarlet tea.

Don’t have any on hand? In most recipes, you can substitute Red Zinger tea, which is mostly hibiscus. It’s not as red or as strong as dried flowers alone, but it works well in a pinch.