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Alabama Lane Cake

in Guest Recipe Book

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(total ratings: 41)
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Servings: 8-10
 
Comments:
Particularly popular throughout the South, this white or yellow cake is layered with a mixture of coconut, nuts and dried fruits and often covered with a fluffy white frosting (this version does not use the cooked frosting, but uses the cake filling for the top and sides). Lane cake is said to have originated in Clayton, Alabama, when its creator, Emma Rylander Lane, won a prize for it in the state fair.

Ingredients:
For the Cake:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/4 cups cake flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
8 egg whites

For the Filling and Topping:
8 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
Grated rind of 1 orange
1/3 cup bourbon (apple, grape or cherry juice may be substituted for the bourbon)
1/2 teaspoon mace
1 1/4 cups pecans, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup raisins
1 cup glace cherries, quartered


Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees f (190 C). Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans.

2. Cream butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Beat in vanilla.

3. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt twice. Stir flour mixture into batter alternately with milk.

4. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Stir 1/4 of whites into batter. Fold in remaining whites until just mixed.

5. Spoon batter into the 3 prepared cake pans and bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pans for 10 minutes; turn onto cake racks.

6. To prepare filling, mix together yolks, sugar and orange rind in a heavy pan or in top of a double boiler.

7. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves and mixture thickens enough to coat back of spoon. Do not allow to boil or eggs will scramble.

8. Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients. Let filling cool. Fill the cake layers and spread on top and sides of cake.

NOTE:
Lane cake improves in flavor as it ages and mellows. Covered and uncut, this cake can be made 1 week before serving. It's not necessary to refrigerate.

Makes 8-10 servings.

Date: April 25, 2003

Reviews

Reviewer: Michael
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I have never had the cake but am eager to try the recipe. I happen to live in Emma Rylander Lane's house in Americus, Georgia. It was built in the spring of 1890. The house is a Craftsman style bungalow on a half acre of land and was the first building erected in this section of town.

 
Reviewer: Jennifer Clarke
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Reviewer: Stephanie
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My mom made this cake when I was growing up. Now I make it every Christmas for my friends and family, and they love it.

 
Reviewer: Eleanor Lamb Cook
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I grew up in Augusta, Georgia and my mother would make this cake every Christmas, as it was my father's favorite. I remember helping to chop the pecans and grate the fresh coconut. This recipe comes pretty close to my mother's. She didn't use cherries, but it could be we couldn't afford them or maybe my father didn't like them. Being members of the Baptist church, having a cake which included whiskey was considered a bit "naughty" for us, but it sure tasted good.

 
Reviewer: sammy slamma jamma
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this cake is sooooooo amazing.I actually had a heart attack from eatting it!!!! wonderful job!!!Love the web site!!

 
Reviewer: Andrew Reeves
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My Grandmother would make Lane cakes on holidays. You could hardly wait until the next one.

 
Reviewer: Beverly
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My family would always cook this cake at Christmas and the grandkids would just lurk around the kitchen just waiting! A wonderful treat and a wonderful Alabama memory.

 
Reviewer: L
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Hard to make but delicious.

 
Reviewer: Tom
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My late grandmother made this every Christmas, and my wife has taken up the cause. What a wonderful recipe! Great recipe site as well!

 
Reviewer: Danessa
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I just want to that just by seeing it it really looks really good. I read the list of what it has and I was like wow. I just can taste that. I see there is the sweetnest and also the fruit on it that's what makes it more healthier I believe

 
Reviewer: Angie
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This cake IS Christmas to me. My Grandmother would make it Thanksgiving weekend, wrap it up and not let us look at it until Chrismas Eve. I cannot wait to eat it again! Glad I found your site.

 
Reviewer: Betty Ray
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Excellent!

 
Reviewer: Fred Kaullen
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I made the cake to see just what Harper Lee was talking about in To Kill a Mockingbird. "...a Lane cake so loaded with shinny it made me tight...". I used 1/2 cup of Jack Daniels though.

 
Reviewer: Middy
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This cake was difficult for a first timer but it sure was good. I substituted the bourbon for juice though. The overall effect is no different.

 
Reviewer: Virginia Britt Wroble
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I am from Alabama and the Lane Cake is soooo delicious. My mother, Mamie Lee Phillips used to bake them for our family and friends every Christmas. It was nothing for her to make at least a dozen cakes every holiday. She is gone now but these good memories live on.

 
Reviewer: Jeannie
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I live in South Carolina and I can remember my great grandmother making a Lane Cake every Thanksgiving and Christmas. My father also made a Lane Cake many times for the holidays! My oldest niece made her first Lane Cake last week for Thanksgiving!

 
Reviewer: Maxine Hendley
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My Mother use to make this cake every Christmas but this year 2008 I am going to make it for my quest of 30 people . Please pray that it comes out as good as my Mom's. I am from Headland Alabama.

 
Reviewer: Jane Guerin
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I am 58 years old, originally from Montgomery, Al and have never celebrated Christmas without a Lane Cake. I'm sure my grandmother made one every Christmas when my mother was growing up. It's the best cake in the world. However, your recipe is not like the recipe that I have, which is supposed to be the original. No orange rind, more bourbon (certainly no juice), more egg yolks in the filling, more coconut, more raisins, more pecans, no cherries, no mace, and lTbs. of homemade baking powder. Your cake must be good according to the reviewers, but I could never veer from the recipe I've been handed down! Aren't Southern food traditions a treasure?!!!!

 
Reviewer: Linda
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My mama, Bessie Lee Lowery, used to bake this cake each year after Thanksgiving. She would wrap it with wax paper and a towel, then put it in her big canner and sit it on the back steps until Christmas Eve. It was one of the many wonderful smells in our home for the season. It is still a treasured cake in our family.

 
Reviewer: Kelsey
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For my english class we are reading To Kill A Mockingbird, and me and my partner were incharge of making a food item from the book. well we found this one on the internet and tried it and our whole class liked it alot! Although we didnt add all the ingrediants to the topping but it still was really good!

 
Reviewer: Chris
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I had to make this cake for a project. We read "To kill a mocking bird" and I had to make The lane cake that scout ate. It turned out amazing, Thank you so much.

 
Reviewer: Coral
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The recipe my grandmother used was found in an old cookbook put out in the 1930s, I think, by the United Daughters of the confederacy. The white cake is basically the same, but the filling is simpler. I use a tablespoon of cornstarch in the custard just to help it set up, and I make the custard in the microwave..... keep watching and stirring it and it makes well. .. the only "fruits" are raisins, coconut, and pecans.. but do not forget the "lane" ... the 1/4 to 1/2 cup of burbon or rye. I may not make many more of these in my lifetime, so this year I was joined by my granddaughters as I made the cake, to pass the recipe down to them.... delicious!! It is very rich, And, I have had the last bits of cake keep until well after New Year's Day!! It just gets better and better!!

 
Reviewer: H PROVITT
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This has been a tradition in our family for years. My Grandma always made this for Christmas and when the family came to Ohio from Alabama (Crenshaw County) in 1949 this was one of the recipes she brought with her and passed it on to all her daughter in laws and grand daughters. My grandma has since passed in 1996 at the age of 96 and the tradition still go's on in our family at Christmas time.

 
Reviewer: Connor and Kendra
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You gain like ten pounds just by looking at the thing. Although it sounds delicious. Can't wait to make it.

 
Reviewer: Sam
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Tastes just like I imagined.....We have to make this for a project in English 11...Cant wait to try all the different kinds...

 
Reviewer: Tim Croley
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I am from Greenville, AL and I grew up eating Lane cakes at Christmas time. I haven't tried this recipe, but I am sure it is good. My mother's recipe was a little different than this, but the pic looks kinda like her's. She always used Mogan David wine. Very good cake!

 
Reviewer: Estelle Taylor Morgan
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I grew up eating this moist cake in Wetumpka, Alabama. A beautiful cake for Christmas if you use the filling between four white layers instead of three and put white seven-minute frosting on top and side. Keep it as long as you can before eating then cry when the last crumb is gone.

 
Reviewer: jean
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My Mother-in-Law from Dothan, AL always made this for Christmas! She passed away & I have been looking for the recipe! TNX

 
Reviewer: mari
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I've never had this cake but just like the rest of you, my grandmother made it for christmas. We never got to taste it because it had alcohol. I remember her adding more bourbon to it every day so after a week it was really potent. I am going to make this cake because I'm over 50 now and am allowed to indulge.

 
Reviewer: Pamela Mayo
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I haven't made this particular cake, however I would help my mom which never put cherries in her cake. I loved the icing, really could eat it without the cake. My mom died when I was 26 and I never got her recipe. This looks close to hers. I miss mom and her Lane Cake, especially at Christmas-precious memories.

 
Reviewer: vicky
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My mother too made this cake every Christmas when I was a child. It is told that, when I was four, I named it "Jesus' Birthday Cake". I remember always going into the pantry to sneak pieces of it for days after Christmas. Maybe my mom doubled the recipe. It was a huge cake, but then, I was little...

 
Reviewer: Rachel
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My husbands grandmother taught me how to bake this lane cake when I was a teen and now I bake it for friends every Christmas.

 
Reviewer: Gwen
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My grandmother made this cake with Jim Beam, raisins, coconut and pecans, with a sugar syrup she cooked on the stove for the icing. She did not use cherries, mace or juice. She would drizzle the bourbon on every other day until Christmas Eve. It is the cake that means Christmas to me. I have made her version a few times and love love love this cake. Can't wait for Christmas, My granny passed on this year but I am hoping to make this cake in her honor for years to come. I am from Bertha, Alabama.

 
Reviewer: Gwen
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My grandmother made this cake with Jim Beam, raisins, coocnut and pecans, with a sugar syrup she cooked on the stove for the icing. She did not use cherries, mace or juice. She would drizzle the bourbon on every other day until Christmas Eve. It is the cake that means Christmas to me. I have made her version a few times and love love love this cake. Can't wait for Christmas, My granny passed on this year but I am hoping to make this cake in her honor for years to come.

 
Reviewer: E Johnson
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This cake is the best, my mother makes this cake for Thanksgiving and Christmas. My grandmother, Millie made this cake, she use to wrap it up in wax paper and cover it with a white cloth, and place the cake in a trunk.

 
Reviewer: seleta flournoy stinson
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My mother Onnie, made this cake for all holidays. Along with an apple roll. She used everything in the recipe but mace. We were from Opelika, AL. and people from miles around came to sample the good cooking of my mom.

 
Reviewer: Alayne
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As everyone else believes this cake is an Alabama tradition and based on a hand me down. Every year my mom made this famous but my favorite memory

 
Reviewer: Alayne
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As everyone else tbelieves this cake is an Alabama tradition and based on a hand me down .Every year my mom made this famous cake, one year when we arrived the smell of the bourbon hit us in the face a we came in the back door. she laughed and said I stumped my toe pouring the booze.. My mom was a God fearing lady

 
Reviewer: Lisa
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My Mother made this cake every Christmas. I would help her make it. I lost her last year and in remembrance of her I made it this year. I have wanted to find the original recipe because ours is just ingredients and temperature for the oven. It is not hard to make, just takes a little time to make.

 
Reviewer: Dr. William A. Barks-Dale
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It has been a tradition in our family since I was a lad that a Lane Cake be made. I was responsible as a young adult to pour the spirits over the cake to keep it moist. I shared this cake with friends during the holidays and it was the hit!

 
Reviewer: helen knight
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I know a lady who made lane cake, but it didnt have the fruit, then she wrapped a thin cloth around it and put in sealed cake tub, she "doctored" the cake with some kind of booze a little each day and allowed the cake to cure,, oh wow it was great but idk what she used to cure the cake it was awesome I wish I knew

 

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