recipes passed down

My ancestry is chock full of great cooks... great cooks that lived across an ocean, seldom wrote down a recipe and if they did it was in another language! Oh my God, really? So what's a girl to do, I challenged myself to a throw down. It's my hope that I can muck around with the bits and pieces of the recipes I remember (and what my Mom remembers) and come up with something that will be melt-in-your-mouth-heavenly, if not have me howling at the moon. Rest assured there will be some kind of drama.

So, ding, ding, ding. My Mom remembers her Grandmother making this recipe, her Grandmother making this recipe, that means someone has been making this recipe in my family for at least the last 80 years! By the time it got to me, it was no more than a whisper. Written on paper so thin you could actually see through it, in some sort of code even NCIS could not decipher it. Okay, quelle the drama!

Buttermilk cake...sounds simple enough! with something crunchy baked on top hum, it was either nuts or coconut, okay, we'll try both. So I'm prepared to buckle down and mix, bake and eat cake until we all know the awesomeness of this cake.....And oh baby, it is awesome!

My Mom's Oma's  Great-Oma's Great-Great Oma's Buttermilk Cake

batter:

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

2 cups buttermilk

3 eggs

1 package Dr Oetker baking powder

topping:

1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup sliced almonds or coconut

2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 420*F.

In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients for the batter with a wooden spoon, until combined DO NOT OVER MIX. Pour into a greased jelly roll pan. Bake for 12 minutes.

While the cake is baking make the topping; in a saucepan, melt the butter along with the sugar, almonds (or coconut) and the milk. Do not boil, you only need to heat these ingredients together.

After the cake has baked for 12 minutes, gently spread the topping onto the hot cake and return it to the oven and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until golden brown DO NOT OVER BAKE or the topping will get too crunchy and fall off! [more drama]

enjoy!