Easter Sunday, Great Grandma's Sour Cream Cupcakes
A 100-year-old family treasure: Helen Carnes' sour cream cupcakes with tangy frosting, fresh berries, and memories from Holy Family church dinners
Happy Easter
In celebration of the holiday, I’m featuring my great-grandmother, Helen Wissel Carnes, this week. Known to her family as Mom Carnes, she was a very spiritual woman. She lived across the street from Holy Family church and attended mass every day. If you visited on Sunday, you could join her for church. Once home, she’d fill the dining table with roasted or pressed chicken, green beans with ham, mashed potatoes, noodles, spaghetti salad, etc. If you visited on your own, she’d make your favorite dish, just for you.
Helen was born in Fayette, Indiana, in May 1896. She married Harry Jeremiah Carnes in 1916 and had four children: Mary Jane (my grandma), Fred, Richard, and Donald. They lived in Muncie, then Richmond, Indiana. In 1944, she was widowed while her eldest son was in a German POW Camp and her youngest was still in school. She carried on, became a salesperson at a department store, survived breast cancer, and hosted her family for visits and dinners until she died in 1979.
She was a very strong woman with many talents. She made her own coats with hand-covered fabric buttons, and they never looked handmade! She embroidered hand towels with the names of all 16 of her grandchildren. She made sure her cookie jars and candy jars were always filled when the grandkids came to visit. She made homemade orange sherbet to keep us cool when it was hot and humid outside.
My favorite memory involves her very large attic. It was filled with a row of beds, just for the grandkids, an old fan to push the hot air around, and a shelf of books. My sister and I would pick the bed that was just right for us, grab a book, bounce down onto it, and read, read, read. We also played games and told stories. At night, when we opened the windows to let in the cool breeze, we could see the stars and the glowing moon. It was our little hideaway, or so we thought. It was every one of Mom Carnes’s grandkids’ hideaway!
This recipe is 100 years old.
My mom remembers this cake fondly but has never made it. So when I considered making this, I chose to make a few adjustments to modernize the recipe itself and adjust it for modern ovens and tools.
On my first bake, I followed the directions as written. I wanted to understand and test the original recipe. I cracked the eggs into a cup, which I decided was a measuring cup, and then filled it to the top with sour cream. The recipe calls for adding all the other ingredients (to the cup?), so I took a leap of faith and decided she must have meant to add all the ingredients into a bowl. I tossed everything into my KitchenAid stand mixer and, with no instructions, mixed for 15 seconds on low, then 30 seconds on medium. The sugar wasn’t quite integrated, but I didn’t want to overblend, so I stopped there. The recipe for baking the cake says to use a sheet pan. I thought about what size sheet pan I should use and thought, well, ovens and pans were much smaller back then, so let’s go small. I decided to use a 10x15-inch sheet pan. Since the recipe doesn’t list a baking degree or time, I chose to bake the cake at 350F for 20 minutes. When the alarm went off, I used a toothpick to confirm if it was fully cooked. The toothpick came out a little wet, and the cake was pale, so I baked it for another 10 minutes, then removed it from the oven and placed it on a rack to cool. When it was cool, I tasted it. It was moist but neutral in taste. It would make a perfect base for shortbread with strawberries and whipped cream, or a wedding cake. But it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, so I made a few adjustments.
I switched to cupcakes. It would be easier to manage each individually.
I chose not to use my KitchenAid mixer but just a large bowl.
I decided to sift my dry ingredients. I also decided to fold in the ingredients to make the cake feel airier and lighter.
I added more sour cream than the recipe called for to elevate the tangy flavor and balance the sugar.
I decided to cook the cupcakes at a lower temperature, 300F.
I added a sour cream frosting, berries, and mint leaves to complete the presentation.
Now it’s your turn.
Give this recipe a try and let me know if you made any adjustments while baking it. We’ll recipe-develop this old goodie together.
Fair warning: I’m not a recipe developer, but I am a foodie and have a talent for smell, taste, and determining whether something tastes good. I could be a supertaster or just have a strong sense of smell. Either way, it comes in handy.
I also inherited cooking and baking genes and traditions from generations of cooks and bakers in my family (possibly winemakers, still working on that research!).
Before you start baking: If you have a fairly old oven, as I do, I highly recommend you pick up a monitoring thermometer. It’s very inexpensive. Just hang it inside your oven, and you’re good to go. I highly recommend it for your baking sanity.
Helen’s Sour Cream Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes
Kitchen Tools
Ingredients
2 eggs
1/2 cup of sour cream
1 cup of granulated sugar, plus a couple of sprinkles for your pan
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
Butter to grease the pan
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 300F.
Run a stick of butter around the bottom and sides of each muffin cup. Sprinkle sugar in each cup, then shake out any excess.
Sift the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda into a small bowl. Set aside.
Crack 2 eggs into the large bowl, then fold in the sugar and vanilla. Stop when all ingredients feel integrated, don’t over-mix.
Fold in the sour cream. Same, don’t over-mix.
Fold in the sifted flour/tartar/soda combination, 1/3 cup at a time, until mixed. That’s right, don’t over-mix.
Using a 1/4 cup or a large spoon, fill only half the muffin cups.
Bake for 20-30 minutes. Spin the pan halfway through baking to ensure the cupcakes cook evenly. In 20 minutes, check the cakes with a toothpick. If the cakes are wet and look pale, cook for another 5 to 10 minutes.
Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.
Sour Cream Frosting
Makes enough for 18 cupcakes
Kitchen Tools
Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
Add butter, sour cream, and vanilla to a bowl or stand mixer and mix until smooth.
Add half the powdered sugar, mix until blended, then add the rest.
Use a knife or icing spatula to spread the frosting on top of the cupcakes.
Pair your cupcakes with strawberries, blackberries, or raspberries; toss a few mint leaves on there for color.
Since it’s Easter, you could also color the frosting in pastel and top your cupcakes with jelly beans and Peeps!
What’s Up Next?
I share more recipes from Mom Carnes. We take a stroll down memory lane to peek into my other great-grandmother’s recipes (Mom Baker) and my grandmother May Jane’s. In May, I shared my mother’s Mexican-themed recipes. Then, summer grilling recipes from the men in our tribe. Not to worry, we women are quite adept at the grill thanks to our grilling men showing us the ropes. Don’t miss a post, subscribe today.
Oh, the pictures of your great grandmother and the accompanying story are amazing! And, the cupcakes are beautiful! Well done!