Cold-Oven Black Walnut Cake

I don't remember a time when we didn't have my grandmother's Black Walnut Cake around the holidays. My grandmother, Mildred Cecilia Rainey McGee (Mom Gee to her grandkids) was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1913, but grew up in south Baltimore, long before it became the trendy Federal Hill of today. She was widowed at 40 when I was 15 months old and continued to live in her row house on Covington Street with my great-grandmother.  

My earliest memories center around the procuring of black walnuts. My grandmother had a friend down the street whose church sold bags of black walnuts from West Virginia by the pound in early November as a fundraiser. My grandmother would canvas the family for the number of pounds needed and the black walnuts were purchased. You had to buy enough to make at least three cakes, one for Thanksgiving, one for Christmas, and one to give away. 

My grandmother's rowhouse had a kitchen that you could separate into two parts by closing a door.  The smaller portion of the kitchen we called the "summer kitchen," just large enough for a washing machine, sink, and oven. You kept the door closed on summer days so the oven wouldn't heat up the rest of the rowhouse.  In the "summer kitchen," there was an outer door leading to a small porch and yard, and it had a glass storm door.  

I vividly remember being a small child during the holidays and quietly waiting in the kitchen while the cake baked, making no noise or it might fall—the worst thing imaginable to my grandmother. If you were quick and Mom Gee wasn't looking, you could clear the condensation on the glass storm door with your fist so you could get a glimpse of the brightly lit iconic orange Domino Sugar sign in the harbor a few blocks away. The holidays were coming!

I'm 67 this year and there hasn't been a holiday season in my life without a Black Walnut Cake. I get my black walnuts through mail order instead of a church, but the fragrant smell of those walnuts transports me right back to 1409 Covington Street. My four adult children and their families clamor for it every year, and it wouldn't be the holidays without Mom Gee's cake. There is a small part of a very special woman with us to this day, and the recipe in her handwriting makes me teary each and every time I use it. — Susan Sartory of Juno Beach, Florida