Mallo Fudge Cake with Butter Icing by Belle Serbin Fields: From Her Kitchen to Your Heart
By Robin Waites
When Lyssa Harvey and I walked into Belle Serbin Fields’ home for our first interview in April 2017, it was as if we took a step back in time; however, this was not the kind of time travel you might expect when entering the home of a 104-year-old woman. What we encountered was a mid-century modern jewel – the open floor plan, sunken living room, paneled den, and kitchen with vibrant yellow and orange floral wallpaper harkened back to 1962 when Belle and her husband Ed moved to Columbia so that he could pursue property development opportunities in SC’s burgeoning capital city.
Belle’s Kitchen
As Belle walked us through her home on Chateau Drive, she explained that the open floor plan was a design concept they brought from Phoenix, AZ, that enabled her to entertain lots of people in a space “without walls.” Over the course of two interviews and conversations with her family and community members, I learned that Belle Serbin Fields’ home mirrors the way that she approached life and cooking – with warmth, creativity, and unabashed openness.
Robin Waites and Belle Serbin Fields.
Belle Serbin was born on December 17, 1912 in Tarentun, Pennsylvania. One of four children, her parents died when she was a teenager, and her paternal grandmother, a strict, Orthodox Jew, raised Belle and her siblings.
Although she wasn’t the oldest of the siblings, Belle was the first among them to marry. At the time her grandmother said she expected Belle to keep a kosher kitchen. According to Belle, when she said “no,” her grandmother, the family matriarch, was taken aback.
And she said, "No?" And I said, "Grandma, you have three daughters. You go to their house for dinner, you bring an apple [because they are not kosher enough for you] …. I will not have anyone come to my house to bring an apple.” She pursed her lips and she said, in Yiddish, "Well, when you go to heaven, and they ask you if you kept kosher," that's how important it was to her, "What are you going to say?" "I'm going to say that you taught me what kosher was and how to live a kosher, married life, but that I was not going to keep kosher."
She says, "Okay, on your head is the problem. Not on mine. I already did my job."
While Belle did not keep kosher after her marriage, the kitchen was central to her life. Her cooking was not fancy, nor was it solely focused on Jewish dishes. Instead she collected recipes representing all ethnicities and types. As her nephew Stephen Serbin, M.D. noted, “She was very wedded to the Eastern European traditions and recipes of her immigrant European grandparents, but she had way too much ‘chutzpah’ to leave the recipes alone and made some of them a la Belle! The 20th century contemporary culinary world interested her, and she experimented with new recipes from the 50s, 60s and 70s.”
In my hallway, I had a piece of furniture with drawers, and when I would get a new maid, I would say to her, "Now honey, I must tell you one thing. If there's a fire in the house, forget everything. Take the three kids, push them out, and then take this drawer." So, she'd open up the drawer, and she'd say, "But Belle! It's just paper, pieces of paper, recipes!"
I said, "Honey, that's 40 years of recipes."
A 1973 article in The State newspaper referenced Belle’s plans to publish a cookbook entitled “Recipes for the Jewish Princess and Her Mother.” Ten years later, her family supported the publication of the book now titled “Gefilte Fish in Lobster Sauce: The Contemporary American Jewish Cook’s Book” (1984).
In the book’s dedication, a letter signed “Happy birthday Mimi, Mom, Aunt Belle! – The Family” outlines the impact of Belle’s cooking on their lives and others:
Her love for, and dedication to the family often manifests itself in food, which is not unusual in Judaism. Belle has cooked for the Serbin family reunions in Pittsburgh; she was for years Morgantown, West Virginia’s “hostess-with-the-mostest”; she provided the proverbial home away from home for countless college kids at West Virginia University and made sure that no son, daughter, niece or nephew went through school without a steady supply of “goodie boxes” filled with that super-rich chocolate cake (the one with the butter icing) and congo squares. She has been the driving force behind those family Christmas Day picnics at North Mountain Park in Phoenix and has always maintained an “open refrigerator door policy” for whomever happened to be in the neighborhood. Belle has always expressed love through food.
According to her son Fred Fields (OBM), “The main assets of this cookbook are, that all the recipes have ingredients that, most women have in a normal kitchen. Not like, Julia Child, where you have to go out and buy all kinds of weird, once-in-a-lifetime ingredients. And she goes into detail about, how to cook them so, you don't have to be a board-certified chef in order to be able to cook. And, a lot of her things, not only taste good, they look good!”
Belle and Fred in the den in October of 2017.
My favorite recipes are a rich chocolate cake. And I used to ... when my sons went to military school, every three weeks I would send them something, you know. The first cake came, and the upper echelon of soldiers took it and then they gave Fred the empty box, and they said, "Your mother is a very good baker." Fred said, "Thanks," but he said that the chocolate cake must have been at the top, because it was all greasy. The icing! Fred liked a thick icing.
In 2013, Belle’s original cookbook was updated and republished under a new title: “The Melting Pot Cookbook: A Jewish Grandmother’s Stories and Good Old Recipes from the Good Old Days.” In reviews from that year, the accolades followed:
The best recipes collected over the years by a 100-year-old Jewish Grandmother who considers entertaining a competitive sport. Her recipes not only taste good, but they have to look good, too. Belle's recipes are practical and unusual, and her ingredients are everyday item found in every kitchen. Although the book is written by a Jewish grandmother, this is not a kosher or even strictly Jewish cookbook. There are Chinese, Italian, German, Danish, and other nationalities represented among the recipes. Another lure to the book are the interesting tales of where and how she found many of the recipes, and events where she has used them. Finally, there are ideas of recipes that can be combined to present and unusual visual effect, like her 7-layer Jello mold table centerpiece, or her combination salad mold appetizer. Belle is a kitchen artist as well as a great cook and baker!
Belle’s son Michael Fields, who was instrumental in the publication and marketing for his mother’s cookbooks noted, “Cooking was her way of expressing love.”
Belle Serbin Fields
Belle died in February 2018 at the age of 105. December 17, 2020 would have been her 108th birthday. It seems only appropriate to celebrate her extraordinary life by sharing the chocolate cake recipe that she loved to bake and share!
MALLO-FUDGE CAKE WITH BUTTER ICING
By Belle Serbin Fields
This cake packs and ships beautifully and is a favorite with both my sons. When they were away at school it was their first request – and that of their friends.
3 squares bitter chocolate
¾ cup boiling water
1 ¾ cups flour
¾ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups sugar
½ teaspoon baking power
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup shortening
1/3 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 whole eggs
15-16 large marshmallows, cut up
Place cut-up bitter chocolate in large mixing bowl with the boing water and stir until chocolate melts. Add the 5 dry ingredients and the shortening and beat for two minutes at low speed. Add sour cream, vanilla and eggs and beat another two minutes. Pour into greased and floured 9x13 inch pan and bake about 25 minutes in 350-degree oven. Remove from oven and quickly sprinkle the marshmallows on top and return to over for another 5-15 minutes baking. Test with toothpick for doneness. Do not overbake or this wonderful cake becomes dry. Cool and spread thickly with Butter Icing. Cuts into about 48 squares.