Hootenholler Whiskey Quick Bread (RECIPE)

The late Peg Bracken was almost the anti-Julia Child.  Her "I Hate to Cook Book" was a big hit back in 1960.  “Some women, it is said, like to cook,” she wrote in the foreward. “This book is not for them." 

This is her recipe for "Skid Row Stroganoff" started with:   "Start cooking those noodles, first dropping a bouillon cube into the noodle water. Brown the garlic, onion and crumbled beef in the oil. Add the flour, salt, paprika and mushrooms, stir, and let it cook five minutes while you light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sink." Thomas Keller she most definitely was not!

Here is her recipe for an amazing whiskey-infused cake-bread, called "Hootenholler". Don't skip on that bourbon....


     

(from Peg Bracken's "The I Hate to Cook Book")

Hootenholler Whiskey Quick Bread

Ingredients
1/4 cup bourbon, plus more for you
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan
1 cup flour, plus more for dusting
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preparation
1. First, take the bourbon out of the cupboard and have a small snort for medicinal purposes. Now, preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Butter and flour an 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch loaf pan. Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add the beaten eggs, a little at a time.

2. Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg, and add to the batter. Then beat in the milk. Combine the molasses and baking soda and mix into the batter. To help prevent the raisins and pecans from sinking, dust them with flour, shaking off excess. Mix them, along with the bourbon, into the batter until combined. Transfer to the loaf pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes up clean, 1 3/4 to 2 hours.

YIELD: Makes 1 loaf

NOTE: Whiskey cake keeps practically forever, wrapped in aluminum foil, in your refrigerator. It gets better and better too, if you buck it up once in a while by using an eyedropper to add a little more whiskey.