Grandma’s Christmas Cake

Summer. The last summer with both Jasmine and Isaiah. In August, they both leave — Jasmine to Howard in DC, Isaiah to UNC Charlotte. The house will be four: me, Derek, Zoe, and Curtis. FOUR. Down from seven. The subtraction is not loss. The subtraction is launch. But the subtraction is real and the kitchen feels it and the table feels it and the woman at the stove who has cooked for seven people every night for five years will cook for four and the four will be enough because four is always enough when the four includes love and a gas stove and a Folgers can.

I am cooking everyone's favorites. Again. The farewell menu. The preemptive nostalgia. Marcus caught me last time and said "you're saying goodbye" and I said "I'm saying remember this." Jasmine caught me this time. She was standing in the kitchen doorway — the doorway where I stand — and she watched me make Mama's peach cobbler and she said, "You're doing the thing again." I said, "What thing?" She said, "The remember-this thing." She knows. She sees me the way I see her: completely. The mother and the daughter, mirrored in the doorway and the stove, the watcher and the cook, and both of them know that the cobbler is not just dessert. The cobbler is memory. The cobbler is the homework for the test that says: when you're in a dorm room in DC and you miss home, close your eyes and taste this. The peach. The crust. The nutmeg that Mama wrote in the margin. The home that lives in the bite.

Jasmine saw me doing the remember-this thing, and she was right — so I leaned all the way into it. I pulled out the cake alongside the cobbler, because Grandma’s Christmas Cake is what I make when I need a recipe to do more than feed people. The warm spices, the way the kitchen smells when it’s in the oven — that smell is going to live in Jasmine and Isaiah’s memory the way nutmeg lives in mine. If they’re homesick in December in a dorm room, I want them to close their eyes and come back to this kitchen, this stove, this smell. Here’s what I made.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 55 min | Total Time: 1 hr 20 min | Servings: 12

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Instructions

Preheat. Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9-inch round or bundt pan and set aside.
Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together with a hand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3–4 minutes.
Add eggs and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, making sure each is fully incorporated before adding the next. Mix in the vanilla extract.
Combine wet and dry. With the mixer on low, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix just until combined — do not overmix.
Fold in mix-ins. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the dried cranberries and chopped pecans until evenly distributed through the batter.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 50–55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the edges pull slightly from the pan.
Cool. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely, at least 30 minutes.
Finish and serve. Dust generously with powdered sugar just before serving. Slice and serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Grandma’s Christmas Cake — The Recipe That Teaches You Home Before You Leave It