Friday Friend Recipe #175 - Mother-In-Law Mystery Cake

Come with me as I continue to countdown my Friday Friend Cookbook!

What is it, you may ask?

In a nutshell...
About 19 years ago, 50 of my closest friends and family, who had been on an e-mail forum with me, sent in recipes in different categories and we compiled a cookbook.
I decided to count those down!
Why?

Because  one night I was looking thru the cookbook and I said, "I should make every recipe in here for my blog"
The Handyman--who thinks he knows me better than I know myself, said,  "you'll never EVER do that."
Well,  maybe I will!  Maybe I'll show him!

Which brings me to recipes #175

 Traci's Mother-in-Law Mystery Cake!

My food photography wasn't at it's best during this cookbook countdown session.

This is a great patio cake.  That's my new name for any kind of dessert cake you might make for a backyard bbq or picnic.  It sounds good, right?  It should catch on I think.

Because this is a refrigerated cake, I always think of it a 'light' dessert.

But.... cake and pudding?  Maybe not 'light', but very good!

When I emailed her this morning and  said that  I needed another story about her, she wrote back:

Traci Marques:  married 40 years, 2 children and 'Noni' to 4 beautiful granddaughters.

There you go info about me.  :) 

SHE'S A SMART ALEC!!

 Above is Traci with her husband of 40 years, Larry.  And below is Traci with her kids, her mom and her four beautiful granddaughters. 

But this is her mother-in-law, Tillies' cake.

I do not have a picture of Tillie, but I do have a story.

Clotilde Marie Laurence Marques, known to all as Tillie.  Tillie hated the name ‘Clotilde’ .  Mary, Carmen, Joe and then Clotilde, what was her mother thinking! (that's from Traci, not me, but... what was her mother thinking?)

Full blooded Portuguese,  her parents where from Sao Jorge Azores Island. 

By the time we knew her, she was older and a bit, um,  a bit blunt in what she wanted. She said what she meant.

The Handyman was the manager of the JCPenney store in Los Banos, California and Tillie would often shop and try on clothes. Well, the mirrors were not exactly where Tillie wanted them to be.. and she kept telling the Handyman where they needed to be.  He would sigh inside and joke around with her, but she persisted (haha) and finally he decided to put a full length mirror where she had been suggesting  all those months.

And guess what?  It was the perfect spot (women kind of know what they need Handyman!) and all of the sudden he was getting complements from other customers on how they LOVED where he put the new mirror.

Tillie just looked at him and said 'told you'.

That's my story!

This is recipe #175--only 119 left to go!