making SundaySauce…

Robyn Hamaguchi packs a lot of punch into her five-foot frame.  She recently demanded a friend measure her after being doubted that her length equaled the five-foot mark.  She has boundless energy, fills the room with her dynamic presence, has a dazzling personal style, a voracious appetite for good food and wine and most strikingly, an expansive knowledge of all things hip-hop.  So, it’s not at all a stretch to draw a comparison between Robyn and another unlikely, diminutive powerhouse with a hip-hop sensibility, Marshall Mathers a.k.a. Eminem.

I was watching 8 Mile for the umpteenth time the other day when it hit me…”that’s how I can make the trailer park reference without sounding condescending”.  Odd thought, I know, but when Robyn enthusiastically gave me the recipe to what she calls, with her tongue firmly in cheek, “the trailer park version of Silver White Cake”, a personal favorite from childhood, and a plea to have it blogged…I was stumped as how I could conjure up the image she paints without sounding like an insensitive idiot.  Then came Marshall.

Robyn talks about her challenging upbringing with the same pride and growl B-Rabbit attacked the Leaders of the Free World with as he overcame and rap battled his way out of the Detroit streets.  Her ascent from the Ohio trailer park to 16 years of successful existence in the treacherous Manhattan fashion scene is no less inspiring.  I reckon she could rap a much better response than Papa Doc did in the final scene of the film too, if given the chance.  She certainly wouldn’t walk away from the challenge. Like B-Rabbit, she takes the sting out of growing up poor by wearing it proudly and standing at the edge of the stage, middle finger erect as if to say…let’s see what you’ve got, insert expletive of your choice here!

The Silver White cake brings back positive memories amid the struggles of growing up for Robyn. It represented an escape; a pure, sweet bit of luxury that she created for herself.  The cookbook she found the recipe in has long been misplaced but Robyn did some cyber-digging and with some comical asides, seen here in red, came up with this close approximation.

Robyn’s Trailer Park Silver White Cake

2 1/4 cups cake flour

I can *assure* you there was no cake flour to be had in the trailer park, so we used Gold Medal All-Purpose.
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg whites

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour baking pan; 9×13 inch, or 2 round 9-inch pans. In a large bowl, measure flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, shortening, milk and the vanilla into a large mixing bowl. Beat 2 minutes on high-speed, scraping bowl occasionally.

In a large glass or metal mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into the batter, and then quickly fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain.  I never mastered the egg white beating. I tried, but either beat too slow, or wasn’t patient enough to beat long enough. In the end, I am pretty sure I just threw in the egg whites at the end and hoped for the best. It could be because of this step that I over-beat the whole batter, in an effort to blend it all really well.

Pour batter into pan(s), Bake 9×13 inch cake for 35 to 40 minutes. If using 9-inch rounds, bake 30 to 35 minutes. A toothpick inserted into the cake will come out clean.