Holy Cow Cake

Chris Scruggs

The Holy Cow Cake is a dish that has been in my family for quite a few years now. My mother's mom, Ruby Haggard, who I call my Granny, had it long before she started making it for our family. She lived in Nashville, Tennessee, and worked in a small country restaurant known as Becky's Country Cafe.

Every so often, an elderly woman appeared and ate at the restaurant. She eventually became a frequent visitor and customer, so much that the restaurant staff began to know her. One day, she brought in a cake to give to the staff of the restaurant, saying that she would only "give it to her special people." The entire staff quickly fell in love with the cake, making sure that every last piece was gone within a few minutes of her bringing it to them.

My Granny loved the cake so much, that she asked for the recipe. To her surprise, the old woman happily obliged, and provided her with the recipe for the cake. Ever since then, she kept the recipe inside one of her many recipe books.

One day about five years back, she found it and remembered how good it was. Following the recipe exactly, she made it as a surprise dessert for Thanksgiving. Within about ten minutes, the cake was gone. With that, my Granny found a new recipe that she cooks annually at Thanksgiving, and upon request whenever I visit her.

The cake by itself the first time you see it doesn't look all that inviting. Normally, at least when I eat a cake, I base it upon whether or not I enjoy the topping and how it tastes with the cake. This was the very first cake that I had ever tasted when I preferred the actual cake part itself over the topping. I remember at one point, I even scraped it off to eat after I had finished the best part of the cake. The cake is the grandchildren's favorite, and it has become one of the staple things our family thinks of when we all think of Thanksgiving.