Amish Onion Cake — The Week Was Good, and the Table Was Full

Patrick turned sixty-nine Monday. Not a number anyone makes a fuss about. Mom made a lemon cake — his favorite, the one with the powdered sugar glaze that he has been eating for fifty-three Octobers since they were married — and we had a small dinner: Cole and Tara drove down, Tom Whelan came over, Mom's cake, my elk roast, mashed potatoes, green beans Mom had put up in August. Patrick wore the wool shirt I gave him last Christmas and his good boots and he sat at the head of the table where he has sat for forty-six years and he ate slow and he laughed three times — a real number, not a metaphor, three actual laughs, which is a lot for Patrick on a regular Monday and an extraordinary number for a birthday Monday — and he had two pieces of cake and a small cup of decaf coffee and at eight-thirty he said he was tired and wanted to go to bed, and Mom helped him to the bedroom, and Cole and Tara and Tom and I sat at the kitchen table for another hour and talked low, and the three laughs were enough, and the day was enough, and Patrick was sixty-nine, and the count of birthdays going forward was a thing nobody at the table mentioned but everybody at the table was aware of.

I gave Patrick a knife I had made myself for his birthday. A four-inch fixed blade in a Sheffield-style pattern, hand-forged from O-1 tool steel by a guy out of Bozeman whose forge I had paid for the use of, with a stabilized walnut handle and a leather sheath I had stitched myself in the shop. It is a small kitchen knife or a small skinning knife depending on which Patrick needs. He held it for a long minute. He turned it in his hand. He said, You made this. I said, Yeah, Dad. He said, Thank you. He put it on the table next to his plate and looked at it through the dinner. He took it with him to the bedroom. Mom said later that he had put it on his nightstand. She said he ran his thumb along the edge twice before he fell asleep. I had cried in the truck on the way back from the forge two weekends ago when I had finished it. I cried again Monday after everyone left. I have cried more in 2024 than I cried in the previous five years combined, and I do not know what to make of that except that it might be a kind of progress.

Cole and Tara drove home Tuesday morning. Tara had a cold and I made her a pot of soup to take with her — a brothy chicken soup with miso and ginger and scallions, lighter than Mom's soup, designed for a pregnant woman with a stuffy head. She thanked me. She said, You take care of all of us. I said, That is the job. She said, It does not have to be the job. I said, Yeah, it does. She said, Okay. She kissed me on the cheek and they left. The kissing on the cheek is a thing Tara does that nobody in our family had done before her, and it is taking some getting used to, but I have decided to like it. She is good for Cole. She is good for all of us.

The new calf is doing well. Six weeks old now. He is small for his age — born out of season, it shows — but he is healthy and gaining and his mother has milk and he will make winter. I have decided not to wean him early after all. The mother is a good mother and there is no point separating them when she is producing and he is doing well. I am going to bring them into the calf shed with the November weaners and they will winter together and he will grow. The plan adjusts when the animal tells you to adjust it. This is something Patrick taught me in the second week of summer 1998 and I have not forgotten.

Cooked chicken pot pie Sunday. From scratch, top to bottom, including the crust. A whole roast chicken Saturday, the meat picked, the broth made overnight, the pie filling assembled Sunday morning with carrots and peas and pearl onions and herbs and butter and flour and broth, the crust mixed in the food processor with cold butter and ice water and rolled out on the kitchen counter where Mom rolls hers and where her mother rolled hers, the pie baked in the cast iron at four hundred for an hour until the crust was deep gold and the filling was bubbling at the slits I had cut in the top. Patrick had two slices. Mom had a slice and a half. I had two. There were no leftovers. Pie pan empty by Monday breakfast. The fire helps. The pie helps. Patrick three laughs helps. The week was good.

The chicken pot pie was Sunday’s work, and it was good work — the kind that fills a kitchen and fills a house and makes the fire feel like it was always supposed to be there. What I keep coming back to, after the week settled, is the pleasure of making something entirely from scratch, by hand, in a kitchen that has seen fifty years of the same hands working the same counter. This Amish Onion Cake carries that same spirit: a savory, humble, from-scratch bake built from simple things — butter, flour, onions, sour cream — the kind of recipe that would have been at home on that Monday table, next to Patrick’s good boots and Mom’s lemon cake and the three laughs that were enough.

Amish Onion Cake

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 3 cups yellow onions, thinly sliced (about 3 medium onions)
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (for cooking onions)
• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 egg yolk, beaten (for egg wash)

Instructions

1. Cook the onions. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a wide skillet over medium-low heat. Add the sliced onions and a pinch of salt. Cook slowly, stirring occasionally, for 20–25 minutes until deeply softened and beginning to turn golden. Do not rush this. Set aside to cool slightly.
2. Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan or a 10-inch cast iron skillet.
3. Make the dough. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and black pepper in a large bowl. Cut in the cold butter with a pastry cutter or your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, sour cream, and milk together. Add to the flour mixture and stir just until a shaggy, slightly sticky dough forms. Do not overwork it.
4. Assemble the cake. Press about two-thirds of the dough into the bottom of the prepared pan, building it up slightly around the edges. Spread the cooked onions evenly over the top. Scatter caraway seeds over the onions if using. Drop spoonfuls of the remaining dough over the onion layer — it does not need to cover completely; a patchwork top is exactly right.
5. Egg wash and season. Brush the exposed dough with beaten egg yolk. Dust lightly with paprika.
6. Bake. Bake at 375°F for 30–35 minutes, until the top is deep golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the dough comes out clean. The edges should be set and the onion filling should smell sweet and caramelized.
7. Rest and serve. Let the cake cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes before cutting into squares. Serve warm. Good beside roast meat, good beside soup, good on its own at a kitchen table at eight o’clock with the fire low.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 265 | Protein: 6g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 31g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 310mg