Witching season/ By Jody Stump
It’s the witching season, when nights grow long and the veil between the worlds becomes thinner-so thin, in fact, that restive souls travel forward and backward in time to visit people they knew in another dimension.
Although Halloween is a traditional Christian holiday, All Hallow’s Eve, in truth its practices are much older than that. The first of November was the Druidic New Year; a festive affair where bonfires lighted the spirits’ way for a two-day visit with loved ones.
Knowing they would be hungry after a year apart, favorite foods were left on an altar and those who failed to provide for their ancestors would be hounded from beyond the grave. Hence, “trick or treat.” Disguises prevented ghostly ill doers from recognizing foes on earth so dress your angels as tiny devils to protect them from harm.
Pirate’s bounty: Banana Butterfingers Cake
This suggestion from Bibi Mays is a way to use up some of the excess candy your children plundered from neighbors. It has the double virtues of adding nutrients while sharing the wealth. A word about bananas-originally thought to be the fruit of the sages, so the Greek philosopher Theophrastus wrote while sitting under a banana tree in their native India-conquistadores introduced them to the New World. Bananas rooted so quickly, they conquered the continent faster than the Spaniards, leading to the conviction that Spain had succeeded in circumnavigating the earth and arrived back in India.
12 slices – 9″ cake
Cake:
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 stick butter, soft
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tbs. dark rum
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tbs. baking soda
2 cups mashed bananas
1 1/4 cup chopped Butterfingers
Glaze:
2/3 cup heavy cream
7 tbs. butter
1 tbs. light corn syrup
14 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 tbs. dark rum
1 tbs. vanilla
1 3/4 cups chopped Butterfingers
1. Preheat oven to 350-degrees.
2. Butter two 9″ cake pans and dust with flour.
3. Sift together flour, powder and salt.
4. Beat butter until fluffy and pale yellow. Gradually add in sugar and beat on high speed two minutes.
5. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add rum and vanilla.
6. Combine sour cream and baking soda in a medium bowl and fold in bananas.
7. Add dry ingredients to butter alternately with bananas. Add Butterfingers.
8. Fill pans midway and bake about 30 minutes-just until a toothpick comes out dry. Do not over bake.
9. Cool on a wire rack.
10. For glaze, bring cream, butter and corn syrup to a simmer in a heavy pan, stirring until butter melts. Remove from heat. Add chocolate, stir until melted and pour into a bowl to chill until cool and thick.
11. Ice the tops and sides of the cake with the glaze and press in the chopped Buterfingers.