A Pillsbury contest baker makes her winning cake recipe for the first time in 70 years

Seventy years ago, when Arlene McCardle was a 19-year-old on the cusp of 20, she entered what later would be known as the Pillsbury Bake-Off, making the contest deadline just in time.

She became Wisconsin's sole junior finalist on the strength of her recipe. McCardle baked her Venetian Cocoanut Cake at the competition in December 1952 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York — a four-layer sponge cake with alternating layers of pudding-like vanilla and chocolate fillings, topped with toasted coconut. (Cocoanut was an old variation on coconut still in use into the midcentury.)

Pillsbury published the junior winner's recipe the next year in a booklet touting "100 Prize-Winning Recipes" from Pillsbury's fourth Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest (Bake-Off turned out to be a catchier contest name, Pillsbury later decided).

Pillsbury also decided that the cake would be called Venetian Cream-Filled Layers in the booklet.

The booklet cost consumers 25 cents; sold across the country, it assured McCardle a measure of national fame. Milwaukee-area newspapers had already written about her trip to New York; the yellowed clippings are framed and hang in her kitchen on Milwaukee's far north side, in the house where she's lived with her family since 1965.

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She never baked the cake again, she said.

That is, until recently. She baked the legendary cake for the first time with her daughters, visiting from California and Nevada to mark her 90th birthday. McCardle, a mother of six, turned 90 on July 24. Her husband, Michael McCardle, a Milwaukee police detective, was killed in a car accident when their youngest was just nine days old.

Daughters Kristine McCardle, the youngest, and Marybeth McCardle got to work while their mother chatted with a reporter. But soon she couldn't help herself, and Arlene McCardle was in the thick of it, instructing to add sugar to the egg whites — but not on the beaters.

When it came time to transfer the batter to the cake pans, Arlene McCardle said, "Let me scrape it; I'll do it fast." She cleaned the bowl of batter in a flash. "You don't waste a drop," she said.

"I came from a German family," Arlene McCardle said. "We always had dessert." She grew up on a farm in West Bend where she and her brother milked the cows.

And, she said, "We didn't throw anything away."

Kristine and Marybeth McCardle freely admit they're not bakers, never having learned to bake at home. "It was, 'Get out of my kitchen.' She likes to work alone," Marybeth said. The sisters took a practice stab at making the cake a day earlier and, well, let's say it was a learning experience.

"You taught me yesterday how to fold" when it came time to delicately add the flour to the egg mixture, Kristine told her mother. "I had no idea what fold meant."

After the practice cake's layers turned out flat, the sisters compared the booklet recipe with their mother's original recipe cards; Pillsbury had omitted the baking powder. American sponge cake uses baking powder, while European sponge cake does not. The company made some other tweaks to the recipe, as well.

Marybeth said she once tried baking cookies from a recipe of her mother's. She thought the abbreviations "b. soda" and "c. syrup" were simply soda, like the drink, and maple syrup, rather than baking soda and corn syrup. "They did not turn out well," she said.

Their mother handled the baking while they were growing up, and Marybeth said, "One of my fondest memories is coming home (from school) and smelling banana muffins. You could smell them halfway down the block." Her mother would make cream puffs and other treats, too.

Although the sisters didn't learn to bake from their mother, they and their siblings learned something even more valuable.

"It was such a wow factor for us growing up, knowing she did this," Marybeth said, and it gave the siblings confidence that they could do anything. "It gave us the courage to not be afraid."

Arlene McCardle was married to her high school sweetheart, a new mother and 19 for a few more weeks when she entered her recipe in the Pillsbury contest. Because she was a junior finalist, a guardian had to accompany her when she took her all-expenses-paid trip to New York for the competition. Her husband went along.

Besides the trip to New York, McCardle won a Mixmaster, an electric range that she didn't keep because her kitchen was outfitted for a gas stove, and a kitchen dining set. She still has the table and a chair from that set in her laundry room.

And she still bakes with Pillsbury flour.

Contact Carol at carol.deptolla@jrn.com or (414) 224-2841, or through the Journal Sentinel Food & Home page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter at @mkediner or Instagram at @mke_diner.

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Arlene McCardle's original recipe card calls the cake Venetian Cocoanut Cake (an alternate spelling for coconut used into the midcentury) as well as "My Pillsbury Winner." Pillsbury dubbed it Venetian Cream-Filled Layers. Like modern-day "naked" cakes, it's not frosted on the sides in the 1953 booklet photo. The recipe makes an especially tender sponge cake; the filling is like silky buttercream. 

Venetian Cocoanut Cake, aka Venetian Cream-Filled Layers

Makes one 8- or 9-inch cake

¾ cup flour

¼ cup cornstarch

2 teaspoons baking powder

5 eggs, separated

1 cup sugar, divided

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

Venetian filling (recipe follows)

½ cup shredded, sweetened coconut, toasted

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two cake pans, 8 or 9 inches, by lightly greasing the bottoms and lining with parchment or waxed paper. Do not grease the sides, to help the sponge climb to its full height and stay there.

Sift the flour into a small bowl, measure it again and then sift the flour again with the cornstarch and the baking powder. 

Beat egg whites until foamy in a large bowl; continue beating, at high speed, while gradually adding ½ cup of sugar, until the egg whites stand in stiff, glossy peaks.

In another large bowl, beat egg yolks until lightened. Gradually add in remaining ½ cup sugar while beating at high speed, until yolks are thickened and light yellow, at least 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla and salt. 

Stir a dollop of whites into the yolks to lighten them, then carefully but thoroughly fold the yolk mixture into the whites, taking care not to deflate them.

Sift flour mixture a third at a time over the egg mix and carefully fold it in after each addition.

Divide batter evenly between the two pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes, until a tester emerges clean from the center. Cool completely in pans on rack.

Meanwhile, prepare filling.

When cake is completely cool, run a thin knife blade between the cake and the pan to loosen, invert and remove paper. Split cooled layers horizontally.

Alternate spreading the vanilla and chocolate fillings between layers, starting with the vanilla for first layer and ending with chocolate on top. Garnish with toasted coconut.

Note: To toast coconut, place in medium skillet over medium-low heat. Stir frequently when it begins to toast, until the coconut is golden. Depending on skillet's thickness, it might take only a few minutes.

Venetian Filling:

⅓ cup granulated sugar

⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon sifted flour

2 cups milk

½ cup butter (1 stick), softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sifted powdered sugar

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

Combine granulated sugar, flour and milk in top of double boiler. Cook over but not touching simmering water, stirring the mixture constantly until thickened. Cover and let cook five minutes. Let cool off heat. Cream butter with vanilla in medium bowl and then cream with powdered sugar. Add cooled milk mixture gradually to butter mixture, combining well after each addition.

Place half of filling in small bowl; add melted chocolate and combine well.

Note: Using a stand mixer with paddle attachment, if available, at medium to high speed will smooth curdling from butter that's too cold, as the filling warms. If the filling is too warm and runny, chill it for a bit and whip filling again.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Pillsbury contest baker makes her cake recipe again, 70 years later