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Rose DeShazer White: Home Cook
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Interviews and photographs by Amy Evans.
Home Cook
Chicago, IL
[My mother] used to do it by hand…All of her cakes, she mixed by hand…Actually, when she came to Chicago to live with me, she was still doing that. I said, ‘No, mother, we can't do that anymore.’ – Rose DeShazer White
Rose DeShazer White, a native in Hollandale, Mississippi, grew up eating caramel cake. Her mother baked caramel cakes on a wood stove from a recipe that was passed down from her mother. When Rose was fourteen years old, she followed her brothers to Chicago, leaving her mother and the family recipe behind. She didn’t think about the family caramel cake again until she was married—and until her mother was in Chicago to teach her the recipe. Today, Rose makes old-fashioned, three-layer cakes with homemade caramel icing. And she always makes them using the tools that were handed down from her mother: three cake pans, an icing pot, and a spoon. She’s grown fond of particular ingredients as well: she swears by Swans Down cake flour, Calumet baking powder, and real vanilla. But while Rose loves to bake (she calls it her therapy), she doesn’t actually like to eat her own cakes. She makes them for friends and relatives, for special occasions or just to have around the house. In fact, she probably has a few slices in her freezer right now.
What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
SUBJECT: Rose DeShazer White
DATE: March 26, 2008
LOCATION: Home/office of Elizabeth Karmel
INTERVIEWER & PHOTOGRAPHER: Amy Evans
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Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans on Thursday, March 27, 2008, for the Southern Foodways Alliance. I’m in Chicago, Illinois, at the home of Elizabeth Karmel, and I’m here with Rose White. Rose, if you would say your name and your birth date for the record, please?
Rose DeShazer White: Rose DeShazer White. Birth date, eleven, twenty, forty-four [November 20, 1944].
All right. And we’re here today because of your caramel cake…But I wonder if we could start, first, by talking about your family and your mother, who is from Mississippi—well your mother’s name and where she is from in Mississippi?
Oh, my mother’s name is Willie Mae Johnson DeShazer, and she was born in Hollandale, Mississippi; and my dad is—was Ivy Lee DeShazer and he was also born in Hollandale, Mississippi.
And then what year did they come to Chicago?
My father passed away in [nineteen] ’46 in Mississippi, and my mother passed away in Chicago in [nineteen] ’96…I came to Chicago to live with my brothers…in 1958.
Tell me about when you brothers came up here and what they were doing when you got here.
Two of them were in school and the others were working jobs and they were married. And they had families.
And so what did you do when you got here?
I went to school. I lived with one of them, and I went to school. And I got married at eighteen [to Arthur White]. And I have one son [Reginald White] and two grandchildren.
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Did you make a lot of trips back to Hollandale over the years?
Not that often. Uh-um, not that often because I’ve been here since I was twelve.
What did she think about her children coming up to the big city?
Well, due to the circumstances of my father passed away, so a lot of us—because there was ten of us—there was ten of us and so—and I am the second one from the bottom and [Laughs] so—and nine of us are still living and so it was—my mom couldn’t take care of us, so we just kind of like came and lived with our older, you know—the younger ones came and lived with the older ones, if they were married or whatever.
You came here so young, and there are so many other Mississippians who came to Chicago during the Great Migration and—over the years and we were talking about James Lemons over there at Lem’s Bar-B-Q earlier from Mississippi and—did you make connections with people from Mississippi when you were up here?
No, not necessarily. Uh-um, no. We—I had a lot of family here, so it was—basically, you know, you went from one family’s house to another family’s house and they was living in—living in different parts of the city, so you would go all over the city just visiting relatives, yeah.
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All right. So now to the cake. You learned to bake this caramel cake from your mother…Tell me how she learned to make it.
From her mother. And she came to live with me, and my husband wanted something sweet; and she decided to make him a cake, and he liked the cake. And he asked her if she would show me how to make the cake…You know it came from my mom’s mom, from a generation back.
And so that would have been your grandmother. What was her name?
Anna Mae Liza.
And so before your husband wanted your mother to teach you how to make the cake, had you tried to make the caramel cake before?
I tried but I couldn’t do it, so I just kind of like threw it on the side, and so I wasn’t going to bother with it anymore.
You were saying earlier that your mother really only made the cake for special occasions. Can you remember some of those occasions when you were growing up?
Like on Christmas, Thanksgiving, and any holidays, you know, when the family would get together or someone would like—birthdays or we had a family gathering, that’s when she would make that cake.
And you and your mother just worked from memory? There’s no written down recipe for the cake?
No, there was no recipe at all. None. [Laughs]
And you said earlier that you messed up a few times and you didn’t get the icing right?
I messed up a lot of times. [Laughs] Until I actually got it right, yeah. And now I can just almost do it with my eyes closed, you know, without a recipe.
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You cook with a lot of your mom’s utensils. Can you talk about those?
Oh, yeah. When my mother passed, she passed along her cake pans, the pan that she used to cook the icing in and also the spoon, so I still have it so it’s from—actually, from her mother.
And let’s talk about those pans because there’s a little different size from new cake pans.
Yes, they are. I have three that I use because I make a three-layer cake, and I think they’re probably nine and a quarter or nine and three-quarters or something. They’re not the average size that they use now.
And then the saucepan you use for the icing is an aluminum pan?
Yes, it is. It’s an aluminum pan, and it’s old. [Laughs] You look at it and you can tell it’s an old pan. [Laughs] It’s an old pan and it still cooks, though; it still makes that icing.
And the magic spoon from your mother is a metal spoon.
The magic spoon, yes. I still have that spoon, yes I do. Yeah and it works—works, too. It still works, yeah.
And she left those things for you because she knew you wanted them?
Yes. Yes, because I guess I was the only one that really tried to make the cake so—and kept doing it until I got it right and that’s how I got it, yeah.
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You brought all of this special equipment to make your cake [today]. Have you ever not used all of those things to make a cake?
I’ve tried not to use them, but it seems like that every time I try to not use them, it doesn’t work out for me. And that’s me, personally; it just doesn’t work out for me.
And you’re using here also Elizabeth’s Kitchen Aid mixer, but you said you have one of those at home.
Yes, I do. I have a newer one that I—my husband got for me, yeah.
And it makes a difference?
It makes a difference, yes it does. It makes a difference because before, I was using a hand-mixer, so it really makes a difference, yeah. [Laughs]
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Now do you think that you could talk us through the ingredients and the general recipe without looking at the recipe, because we’re also here because, Elizabeth—you have your caramel cake in Saveur magazine—“the best caramel cake in the world”—and so that’s why I’m here today. But we were—there was some discussion about the different recipes and you’ve never written it down. And so it was hard to kind of transcribe what you were doing and—and because you kind of mix it up every time that you do it? So can you just from memory kind of try and say what the recipe is?
The cake, itself, is basically a basic cake that you use, you know, three cups of flour and two cups of sugar and the baking powder and the vanilla flavor and the eggs and the milk. The onliest thing different is with the icing. With the icing is two sticks of butter and sugar and evaporated milk. So that’s basically, as far as the icing is concerned—. I never really have written it down, so it’s kind of like I have to kind of think about, okay, how much do I put here and how much do I put there, and so it’s a little hard.
Yeah, because you just do it automatically, and I imagine more by feel than anything.
Yeah, I do. I really do. And looking at it. I can just about tell how much of this and how much of that that I need, yeah.
Well let’s talk about some of the stuff that you put in the cake, because I know that the baking powder is a real specific brand that you use.
Calumet, uh-hmm. Because, to me, that’s the only one that works for me. I tried other—another brand but it just wouldn’t work for some reason—just for the—just for the cakes—just for the cake itself.
And what—when you say it doesn’t work, what were the other ones doing or not doing that this one does?
It—to me it wouldn’t rise and be fluffy like—like the other one would so that—that’s what the problem was to me.
And you use Swans Down cake flour.
Swans Down cake flour. That’s the only cake flour I use because, to me, it’s lighter and I always sift it no matter what; I always sift it and, to me, it’s the only light cake flour.
Do you just sift it once?
Twice. Uh-hmm, twice.
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And then your vanilla, what’s your opinion on vanilla?
Vanilla is the—the pure extract vanilla extract. Oh, I went to Mexico, and I purchased like a three—three pound jar or gallon of pure vanilla extract, so that’s what I use, and it has to be pure. I don’t use imitation any—any kind of extract—no imitation, no.
And speaking of extracts you—sometimes you add a little extra extract of something else to your cake.
Sometimes I put a little lemon extract in it sometimes, yeah. It gives it a little bit of different—little different flavor.
So you chose not to do that today. Can you say why?
I chose not to do it today because it really wasn’t in the recipe, so I decided not to add it.
And that decision just comes with your mood or whatever you—if you have it handy?
Yeah, if I have it handy, or if I feel like I want to add it, I add it; and if I’m home, I add it and if not, I will just, you know, leave it out, yeah.
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And so when you put the cakes in the over earlier, you went straight to starting the icing because it takes a long while. Can you talk about that process?
Yes, it does take a while for the sugar and the butter to get brown and to—and for once you—once the sugar and the butter browns, you put the evaporated milk in it, and it takes a while for it to get fixed. So it takes a while, probably a couple hours or more, yeah.
So tell me about what you were saying about that ratio of sugar to butter and how you can mess that up.
If you don’t put the right amount of sugar, the right amount of butter and the right amount of milk, it will not come out smooth. The icing will not come out smooth; it will come out lumpy. And it will also come out clabbered like buttermilk, so it has to be the right amount of each one of them; otherwise, it will not turn out right.
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And so you’re mixing the butter and sugar together on high heat [on the stovetop] and then it—can you describe at what point you decide to add the [evaporated] milk—what it looks like and what the consistency is?
Okay, once it started getting brown, it depends on whether you want dark caramel or light caramel. If you want light caramel, you don’t let it get too brown—the sugar and the butter, you don’t let it get too brown before you pour the evaporated milk in there. If you want a darker caramel—because the more—the longer that you let it get brown, once you put the milk in there, it’s going to get even darker when it gets thicker. So it depends on the individual how—what color they want, as far as the caramel is concerned.
And that’s the commitment that is made pretty early on, as far as the color?
Yes, yes.
And you don’t seem to really have an opinion on color. You change it up a little bit?
I do, I do. Sometimes I do light, and sometimes I do dark. It just depends on how I feel at the time because this is really my—I call it my therapy [Laughs]—making caramel cakes, you know, it’s kind of like my therapy. So it’s kind of like I sometimes may experiment on it, and sometimes I don’t, you know.
And when you decide to do a different color for the caramel icing, is it something that’s as much about taste as it is looks, or does one outweigh the other?
I kind of go with a little of both. I kind of go with a little of both. Taste—taste is important, yeah.
Is it a considerably different taste, if it’s a lot darker?
I don’t think so. I don’t really think so, but I guess I’ve—I’ve seen at different restaurants or stores that sometimes they have darker caramel than they do, and then sometimes they have lighter caramel, so I guess I kind of like experiment on my own. But I—I really don’t think that there is a real big difference; I really don’t.
Now are the people that you make cakes for who like it a certain color?
No, uh-um. They just want caramel cake.
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And so if you had to describe the color today when you stopped cooking the icing, what would you call that color of caramel?
Maybe a reddish brownish-type color, yeah. Uh-hmm. Because it can get darker than that, and it can get lighter than that because I’ve did some that, once I first start putting the sugar and the butter in there and I just go around for a little—let it brown for a little bit and then I put the—the evaporated milk in there that’s a really light color. But once it’s cooked, it’s going to get darker, so sometimes I do that.
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You’re talking about how baking is your therapy and making these cakes and standing at the stove. Sometimes you’ve made three cakes right in a row.
Oh yeah, I’ve did that a lot of times, you know. I’ll take one and one batter and put it in the stove and then start a new one and then, in the meantime, I will start with the—the icing, so I can do that, you know. I can be in the kitchen all day with just making cakes so—.
And you don’t like to eat them?
I don’t particularly like to eat them. [Laughs]
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You told me earlier you’ve got a thing of icing in your refrigerator at home right now.
Yes, I probably have a couple of little plastic cups with some in there [Laughs] that sometimes I—what I do is I use it when I’m baking another cake, and I just add that to the one that I already have.
And you have some cakes in your freezer, too.
Yes, I do. I do. I have cakes—put cakes in my freezer. Sometimes I’ve put them in there whole, and sometimes I’ve put them in there sliced up. And I what I do is I take aluminum foil and once the cake gets cold, I take aluminum foil and wrap it around it and put it in a—a baggie and put it in the freezer. And if I slice it up, I slice it up with—with cellophane and put cellophane on each slice and then I put them in the baggie and put them in the freezer.
And so you always keep some cake at the house for when people come over?
Yeah, most of the time I have some. Most of the time they come and ask me, “You got cake in the freezer?” Yeah, so yeah most of the time I have it.
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Did your mom make hers on a wood stove?
Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh yeah, in Mississippi—yeah.
Do you remember her commenting over the years about how ingredients changed and technology changed and hand-mixers and all that kind of stuff that makes baking different?
Oh, yeah. She used to do it by hand. I mean she mixed the cake by hand. Yeah, my mother did—all of her cakes, she mixed by hand because actually, when she came to Chicago to live with me, she was still doing that. I said, “No, mother, we can't do that anymore.” [Laughs].
Did she like your mixer?
I had a hand mixer at the time, yeah. So, yeah, it was a little different, but she finally got used to it, yeah.
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And what about serving it? When you slice into a cake, tell me about what you like seeing on the inside.
I like to see how much icing I’ve put in between each layer and how it looks on the inside. Yeah. If it’s still soft. And I’m stickly about softness. Softness, fluffiness—that’s what I’m about.
Now do you like to have, when you slice the cake, the same kind of thickness of icing in the middle as you have on the sides? Is that important to you?
Not necessarily, no. I think it’s more on the outside than the inside because, usually, that’s what I do more outside than I do—unless someone specifically says, “I want more icing.” And then I will just like layer the—I mean really put a lot of icing in between each layer.
So tell me what the people say about your cakes.
They love them. That’s all I can say. They say they like them.
Can you describe what it tastes like? I mean people who have had caramel cake can describe caramel cake but what you think is special about how yours tastes?
What I think is special about it. I think it’s special because I learned it from my mom. That’s what’s special about it. Um-hmm. And she’s not here to do it anymore, so I’m just carrying on the legacy until maybe my granddaughter—since I don’t have a daughter, maybe my granddaughter will do this someday.
To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
