Bouille Cake For Your Post-Party Dessert Cravings

Still have a post-July 4th sweet tooth? Try my mama's bouillie cake.

Bouillie (pronounced Boo-YEE), meaning custard in French, is an inexpensive southern Louisiana dessert topping for cakes, pies, wafers and sometimes rice.

My mama explained to me that bouillie and rice was the most common dessert my maw-maw cooked when she was younger since it was all they could afford.  

"In our time, we didn't have money to buy cookies and cakes. We made our own," she told me. "All your older people like bouillie cake because that's what we had in our time."

Growing up, my mama often brought yellow cake smothered in bouillie to social gatherings. She would rave about how easy her recipe was to make.

I can still remember her telling people "Listen honey, I don't cook—I cheat." She would then go on to explain that she doesn't make the bouillie from scratch, and that she only uses the cake mix from a box and evaporated milk. 

Little did her listeners know that she often only turned on the fire and added the milk, and that one of her five kids was in charge of stirring the pot. This is the most grueling step to complete—in 90+ degree heat and the oven at 350°—since you can't step away from the pot.

My mamma recently told me that she learned to make this recipe from my Nanny, another fantastic Cajun cook and my godmother.

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Bouillie Cake Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 box of cake mix - any flavor (and its ingredients) 
1 can of evaporated milk
1 c. water
1 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)

Instructions:

Step 1: Make the cake.
Follow the boxed cake mix recipe. Add the eggs, oil, and/or water the recipe called for, but mix the batter in a pot instead of a bowl. After mixing, pour 3/4 of the mixture into a baking pan and bake the cake for slightly less time than instructed from the recipe. One fourth of the cake mix should be left in the pot. This should be equivalent to the amount of mixture left around the pot if you didn't scrape the sides when pouring the cake mix into the pan.

Step 2: Add milk, water, extract. 
While the cake is baking, cook down the cake mix on a medium fire. Add evaporated milk, refill the can with water, and add. Add vanilla extract, if you are making a yellow cake. 

Step 3: Stir.
Stir this mixture constantly for 10-15 minutes with a whisk or cooking spoon to prevent burning. The mixture will slowly thicken. 

Step 4: Cool and cover.
After 10-15 minutes, turn off the fire and allow the custard to cool. As it cools, it thickens more. After the cake is finished, allow it to cool. Cut the cake into serving sizes and then cover with the bouillie.