Can She Bake A Cherry Pie? | Columnists | lancasterfarming.com - Lancaster Farming

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Do you recall the old song, “Billy Boy”? We sang it in elementary school music class and, surprisingly, at least some of the lyrics have stuck with me through the years. Those lyrics came to mind recently, as I’ll soon explain. However, my search for the composer of the song turned up some interesting information I’d like to share first.

Actually, the composer and/or lyricist of “Billy Boy” is unknown. According to contemplator.com, it’s a folk song that originated in 19th-century England, when it went by the name “Willie Lad” or “Charming Willie,” and was a variation of an earlier tune known as “Lord Randall.”

While it appears the song’s original version only had four verses, over the years, it accumulated quite a few more. Genius.com and lyrics.com both show versions with 16 verses, though their verses are not identical. It seems that, through the past two centuries, various singers apparently took quite a few liberties with this song. When I listened online to several very different versions sung by the Andrews Sisters in big band style, the Candy Mountain Girls’ 1953 country music version and Jerry Lee Lewis’ rock-a-billy-styled song, I found they had used even greater creativity in adding their own verses.

The one verse everyone included in this song about a man trying to find a suitable wife happens to be the only one I had recalled. It goes something like this, depending on who’s singing it. “Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Can she bake a cherry pie, Charming Billy? She can bake a cherry pie, quick as a cat can wink her eye, She’s a young thing and cannot leave her mother.”

It’s not a serious song, but it has a catchy tune.

Not Quite a Cherry Pie, But a Cherry Dessert

February is a good time for cherry pies, because of their connection to our first president. Back in grade school, we learned about young George Washington chopping down a cherry tree. When confronted about this by his parents, he willingly confessed, saying, “I cannot tell a lie.” It’s a memorable story and a great quote — except that, we’ve since learned the incident apparently never happened. Nevertheless, February remains a month when bakeries put cherry pies on sale and kids enjoy cherry-shaped candies on green plastic “stems” in honor of Washington’s birthday.

Fortunately, one thing Dennis never asked me when we were dating was whether I could bake a cherry pie. He was such a good baker himself that he didn’t need anyone else to bake his pies. In truth, I had little luck with pies in general, and pie crusts specifically, until Dennis gave me his mother’s no-roll pie crust recipe. Now I probably could bake a cherry pie, but usually I’m more inclined to bake rhubarb custards in the spring and leave the cherry crumb pies to Dennis.

Last month, one of my relatives had recently returned home from the hospital and wasn’t yet fully up and about, so Dennis and I arranged to take dinner to her and her husband one evening. Dennis made chicken pot pie and we bought some salad greens and a container of hot bacon dressing to go with it. But what to make for dessert remained the question.

As I considered which ingredients we had on hand and tried to think of a recipe to use with them, I hit upon “Quick Cherry Dessert,” which was an old recipe I hadn’t made in years. In fact, Dennis said I’d never made it for him in the almost 15 years we’ve known each other. It’s not a pie, but more of a cake with cherry pie filling baked into it and it goes great with whipped topping or vanilla ice cream.

Unfortunately, as I set about making it, I forgot rule number one learned back in 4-H: gather all your ingredients first. I creamed together the butter and sugar, then added eggs, almond flavoring and flour. It was when I went in search of the baking powder that I made an unpleasant discovery. There was plenty of baking soda on hand, but the only baking powder to be found was in the back corner of a cupboard shelf.

The good news was that the container wasn’t empty. The bad news was that it’s use-by date was old, really old. Surely we’d had a newer container (or two or 10) since the out-of-date baking powder came to rest in that corner, but somehow, we’d neglected to restock recently.

To make a long story short, I did what any frantic housewife would — I made an internet search for baking powder substitutes. There are actually several, but the one that worked for me was two parts cream of tartar to one part baking soda. I was relieved that the cake looked and tasted just as I remembered, in spite of my last-minute glitch.

So, I leave you with this further Billy Boy verse: “Can she milk a heifer calf, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Can she milk a heifer calf, Charming Billy? Yes, she can, and not miss the bucket more than half. But she’s a young thing and cannot leave her mother.”

The Link Lonk


March 04, 2021 at 03:42PM
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Can She Bake A Cherry Pie? | Columnists | lancasterfarming.com - Lancaster Farming

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