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Virginia Apple Pecan Election Cake

11/3/2020

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Here we are, five days later, and we finally have an election result. I made this cake on election day because I didn't have yeast for "real" election cake (more on that below), I had a bunch of homegrown Liberty apples to use up, and felt like making a layer cake with my new cake pans (somehow I lost one of my old pair of cake pans?). 

I had made this Virginian Apple Cake before, but it didn't turn out too great. So I tried again and did some tweaking and this time it turned out WONDERFULLY. It's now officially Virginia Apple Pecan Cake, in my book.

Virginia Apple Pecan Cake

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This recipe is from the community cookbook, Virginia Hospitality, first published in 1976  for the Bicentennial, but my copy is the ninth printing, from 1984. It's a fascinating little recipe - the only liquid comes from the eggs and softened butter and the apples themselves. The batter is VERY thick, but bakes up beautifully - a light and somewhat fragile texture - essentially just apples and nuts held loosely together by a light spiced batter. Here's the original recipe: 
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The original recipe reads:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups apples, peeled & finely diced
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup butter, softened 
2 eggs, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 325. Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan. Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Add remaining ingredients and beat until JUST combined. Batter will be thick. Spread evenly in pan. Cook for 1 hour or until done.
"Delicious when served warm topped with ice cream or whipped cream."

It certainly is perfectly lovely as a plain sheet cake, but I wanted something a little different, so I made some changes not only to the style but the recipe itself.
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The very thick batter, replete with chopped apples and pecans, in a my well-greased, brand new cake pans! Note the bag of pre-chopped pecan pieces. Cheaper and less work than chopping whole pecans.
​Here's my recipe:
2 cups flour (I used 1 cup all-purpose, 1 cup whole grain rye)
1 1/2 cups sugar 
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (or thereabouts)
1/2 teaspoon salt
at least 4 cups apples, finely diced
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup butter, softened 
2 eggs, slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 325 F and grease two 9 inch round cake pans. 

Add all dry ingredients to a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add chopped pecans and whisk to combine. 

Take 4-6 freshly washed Liberty apples (they will be small) - slice into thin slices and then cut crosswise to make fine dice. You can leave the skin on. Fill at least 4 cups of apples and add to dry ingredients, then cut up the rest of the apple you were slicing and add to the bowl.

In a small separate bowl, melt the stick of butter slightly in the microwave (10-20 seconds) and add to the big bowl. Add 2 eggs and with a wooden spoon combine all, stirring and folding until no loose flour is left. Divide into two pans and bake 45-60 minutes or until the cake springs back in the center to the touch. Cool on a rack.
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The baked cakes cooling on a rack (set on top of my electric griddle, lol). Try not to break yours like I did, but if you do, make that the bottom layer. :D The house smelled DIVINE at this point.

Salted Caramel (or Maple) Buttercream Frosting

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I happened to have some Monin Salted Caramel Syrup laying around the house, but if I make this again I'll probably use maple syrup and some salt. The salty-sweet frosting makes a nice (but rich) contrast to the not-as-sweet cake.

1 stick salted butter, softened
2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup syrup
powdered sugar
salt

With a fork, beat the syrup into the softened butter. Add enough powdered sugar to make a thick frosting. Taste and add salt a few grains at a time, tasting between each addition. When the cakes are cool, frost one layer, then top with the other, and frost the top. This won't be enough to frost the whole cake, just the layers. Sprinkle more chopped pecans on top for decoration.
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My crooked layers.
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The cake is fairly light, considering it's essentially a type of fruit cake, but the frosting makes it very rich. I recommend cutting a smaller slice, unless you are eating this as a meal unto itself.

A Brief History of Election Cake 

Election Cake is a democratic tradition that dates back to the earliest days of our Republic, even before we were officially our own country. Puritans in New England celebrated it in the 17th century, but was important throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Election Day was once held in the spring, but in 1845 Election Day was codified to be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Back when only propertied free white men were allowed to vote, election cake was nonetheless part of community celebrations around election day. and the similar Muster Day, a celebration from the Muster Act of 1792, which called every able-bodied man aged 18 to 45 to muster for the local militia. Generally held in September and largely in effect until after the Civil War, Muster Day often required the bribe of alcohol, and communities would often have county-fair type celebrations as well.

Like Muster Day, Election Day was a community affair, and that necessitated some publicly accessible food. Election Cake is in the tradition of Medieval English great cakes - expensive and enormous confections of fine flour, sugar, expensive imported dried fruits, spices, and nuts and soaked with wine or alcohol. The New England tradition was nearly identical, only the ingredients were much less expensive by that point. 

Like many old-fashioned cakes, Election cake is not leavened with baking soda or baking powder - it's leavened with yeast, generally homemade yeast like potato yeast. And because it is meant to serve a crowd, the proportions are enormous. The flour and sugar are measured in pounds, as many as a dozen. 

The generally accepted first published recipe of Hartford Election Cake comes from Amelia Simmons' American Cookery, first published in 1796 in Hartford, CT (another run was printed in Albany, NY also in 1796). Which makes me wonder if Hartford Election Cake wasn't an homage to the state in which it was published. 

Election Cake began to wane in popularity as the 19th century wore on, in part thanks to developments in cake baking technology, including the development of chemical leaveners like baking soda and baking powder. But in 1889, Ellen Wadsworth Johnson published a cookbook entitled, Hartford Election Cake and Other Recipes. Notable for its inclusion of ELEVEN separate recipes for Election Cake, the cookbook is nonetheless full of more conventional recipes. The title may have something to do with the fact that it was published in Hartford, Connecticut, despite the fact that it was written as a benefit for a church in New Hampshire. In her introduction, Ellen Wadsworth Johnson notes that most of the recipes come from "manuscript sources," indicating that even in 1889 it may have been a historical document. 

Maybe next year I'll have the time and energy to tackle a real election cake recipe, but for the meantime, Virginia Apple Pecan Cake will have to make a good substitute, and one you can eat any time of year. 

Did you make an election cake this year? 

Election Cake Resources

  • "Election Cake" from Foodtimeline.org
  • "How to Make an Election Cake" New England Historical Society
  • "From Great Cake to Curiosity: On the Trail of the Hartford Election Cake" by Stephen Schmidt, Culinary Historians of New York. 
  • "Election Cake - A Forgotten Democratic Tradition" by Maia Surdam, AHA Today, American Historical Association
  • "Election cake, a forgotten recipe, is trending again — here's how to make it" - by Terry Peters, from Today.com, including a much more reasonable, modern recipe from the 1965 Fannie Farmer Cookbook. 
  • "Election Cake, a Forgotten Recipe, Rises Online" by Becky Hughes, New York Times.

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Food History Happy Hour: Episode 22, Stone Fence Cocktail (19th century)

10/30/2020

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Snap-Apple Night, painted by Irish artist Daniel Maclise in 1833.
Thanks to everyone who joined us for Episode 22 of the Food History Happy Hour! This was a very special Halloween themed episode! We made the early 19th century Stone Fence cocktail, and talked about all sorts of historic Halloween traditions and foods, including the Celtic and Catholic origins of Halloween, Halloween games and divination, including Snap Apple (as illustrated above), donuts, party foods including gingerbread, grapes and grape juice, apples, pumpkins, color themed parties, decorations, including Dennison's Bogie Books, the history of trick-or-treating, and more! 

Stone Fence Cocktail (19th Century - 1946)

There's all kinds of versions of this - I was first introduced to the Stone Fence in the Roving Bartender (1946), and of course it's in Jerry Thomas' "How to Make Mixed Drinks" (1862) also has a version, which is largely how it gets popularized in bars across the country. But mixing hard cider with brown liquor dates to much earlier, and the type of brown liquor depends on the region. Both of these recipes call for Whiskey/Bourbon, but I decided to go with spiced rum. Other versions also call for Angostura bitters or cinnamon, which is unnecessary if you use spiced rum, like I did.
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Recipe for the Stone Fence, from "How to Mix Drinks" by Jerry Thomas, 1862.
You'll note that the Jerry Thomas recipe actually calls for the use of sweet cider, which is unusual. Here's the original recipe:

(209) Stone Fence.
(use a large bar glass)
1 wine glass of whickey (bourbon).
2 or 3 small lumps of ice.
Fill up the glass with sweet cider.
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Stone Fence recipe from "The Roving Bartender" by Bill Kelly (1946).
I like the Bill Kelly recipe from the Roving Bartender a bit better. Here's the original:

Stone Fence.
1 oz. whiskey in a high ball glass
Fill with hard cider.

And of course, there's my own version! 

1 oz. spiced rum
Fill with hard cider (I used Strongbow Artisanal Blend)

I did not use ice, because I was lazy, but if you don't make sure your hard cider is chilled for the best version. You could also turn this into a sort of flip by heating the hard cider (don't boil unless you want to lose the fizz and the alcohol content) and adding the spiced rum at the last minute. 
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A great 1950s image of trick or treaters in a very suburban area. Note the mix of store-bought masks and homemade costumes.

Episode Links

I love Halloween and had a bunch of fun putting this together.
  • If you want to learn more about Halloween history, including great links to historic Halloween publications, check out my downloadable Halloween packet, available for Patreon Patrons of all levels!
  • Dennison's Bogie Book (1920)
  • Apparently the Stone Fence was the drink of choice for Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys? I also forgot to talk about stone fences (actual fences, not the cocktail) and their role in New England! Maybe next time.
  • Gangsters, Pranksters, and the Invention of Trick-or-Treating, 1930–1960 - yes, a real academic journal article about Trick-or-Treating and juvenile delinquency. :D
  • Check out my recent article about Mary Janes candy.
  • How To Make an Election Cake - from the New England Historical Society
  • There's a whole cookbook from 1889 called "Hartford Election Cake and Other Receipts" by Ellen Terry Johnson that has a TON of election cake recipes, all of them enormous.

That's all for tonight! I hope everyone has a very Happy Halloween tomorrow and we'll see you in November for the next episode of Food History Happy Hour!
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Historic Recipe Fail: Dutch Apple Cake (1897)

10/10/2020

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Image of a woman cooking, from the frontspiece of "Hood's Practical Cook's Book" (1897).
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Hood's Practical Cook's Book from 1897 is one of my favorite 19th century cookbooks in my collection. It's really quite small and could easily fit in an apron pocket. My copy has the original dust jacket, which is nice. 

Published by C.I. Hood & Co., a Victorian patent medicine company, the cookbook is interspersed with advertisements for Hood's products, especially their famous sarsaparilla extract. 

I made the very successful Buttermilk Cake from this cookbook previously, and I'd been wanting to make Dutch Apple Cake for a while. Touted as a "tea cake," it was essentially a biscuit with sliced apples stuck in the dough. 

We've been trying to cut back on sweets, and this recipe has absolutely no sugar in it - neither for the biscuit nor on the apples, so it seemed like a perfect dessert. I also made it for our 3 year wedding anniversary. Normally we go away someplace fun, but obviously not this year, so I made my favorite roasted vegetable French lentil bowls and we had this for dessert. 

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The quick snap of the recipe I took with my phone, and cooked the recipe from. I never take historic cookbooks into the kitchen! Don't want to get them dirty.

Dutch Apple Cake Recipe (1897)

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The original recipe reads:
"One pint of flour, two teaspoons of baking powder, one-half teaspoon of salt, and a generous tablespoon of butter rubbed in with the flour and powder. Beat one egg lightly, add it to three-fourths of a cup of milk, and mix with the flour; pour into shallow pans and spread one-half an inch thick. Stick into the touch three rows of one-eighth sections of apples and bake one-half hour. Serve as a tea cake, or as dessert, with sugar and cream, or sauce."
Here's how I translated the recipe:

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 large egg
3/4 cup whole milk
3 smallish apples (I used Gingergold - a sweet, slightly mealy, early apple)

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt and whisk to combine. Cut butter into small cubes and smush with fingers, mixing into the flour, but leaving largely intact. Whisk the egg into the milk, and pour into the flour mixture. Toss with a fork until a dough forms, kneading/folding lightly to get the rest of the flour and spread the butter, then pat into a greased quarter sheet pan. Quarter apples, core, and cut each quarter in half (to make the eighth!). I did not peel mine, and pressed into the dough as best I could on their sides. I had a few slices left over. Bake at 350 F for about 30-40 minutes until the biscuit is lightly browned and the apples are tender. Serve with sweetened whipped cream (and liquid cream, and maybe some maple syrup). 
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Before baking - sorry for the fuzziness, I took this in a hurry with my phone.
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After baking - not noticeably different, just slightly browner!
If you read the recipe, it seems pretty straightforwardly biscuit-y. But when you get to the middle, it says, "pour into shallow pans and spread one-half an inch thick." Sadly, my dough did NOT pour, and in fact, I had to knead it a bit to get the flour mixed in. If I had been paying closer attention, I would have added a little more milk, but I didn't! So I followed the recipe exactly.

The biscuits were also a BIT flat tasting and dry - I would add a teaspoon or so of sugar and more milk (at least a cup), which I think would make something a little more batter-ish, which would presumably rise around the apples a little more. I would also space the apples closer together as they provide the only sweetness.

In summation, certainly not a terrible recipe, but not great either. Basically a plain biscuit with baked apples on top. Sadly, this one gets labeled a fail! But I am going to try it again - I might also add some sweet spices like cinnamon or cloves to the biscuit dough and see if that makes a difference. And maybe chop the apples into smaller chunks - not as pretty, but easier to eat.

Have you ever tried a recipe and had it fail in some way? Share your trials and tribulations in the comments!

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Food History Happy Hour: Jersey Cooler (1946)

9/18/2020

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An untitled woodcut, bold in design, apparently created for use on broadsides or banners during the Whigs' "log cabin" campaign of 1840. In front of a log cabin, a shirtsleeved William Henry Harrison welcomes a soldier, inviting him to rest and partake of a barrel of "Hard Cider." Nearby another soldier, already seated, drinks a glass of cider. On a staff at right is an American flag emblazoned with "Harrison & Tyler." Library of Congress.
Thanks to everyone who participated in this week's Food History Happy Hour! In this episode we made the Jersey Cooler from the Roving Bartenter (1946), but the cocktail itself appears to have been invented by the famous Jerry Thomas as it appears in his 1862 How to Mix Drinks. 

With the primary ingredient hard cider, I thought it a particularly apt cocktail for our discussion of apples in America! I chose apples as the topic for tonight's Food History Happy Hour because mid-September is when apple harvest in the Northeast usually really starts to get underway. Coincidentally (on my part, anyway), tonight is also the start Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year, which runs until Sunday. One of the components of Rosh Hashanah is the use of apples and honey, particularly in Ashkenazi Jewish households, who originate in Eastern Europe. Apples and honey are eaten to symbolize sweetness and prosperity for the coming year. 

On a more somber note, I learned that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away just minutes before the start of the show. In fact, I almost didn't do tonight's episode because I was so upset. But I figured that the notorious RBG would power through if it was her, and it was fitting to be talking about apples and hoping for peace and prosperity in the coming New Year. So we poured one out for Ruth and gave her a toast.

We talked about the origins of hard cider, with an aside ​about the 1840 presidential campaign of William Henry Harrison, why hard cider fell out of favor, the origins of apples in the mountains of Kazakhstan, Johnny Appleseed, the story of Red Delicious, heirloom apple varieties, and the not-so-American origins of apple pie. 
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Jersey Cooler (1946)

From the 1946 Roving Bartender by Bill Kelly:
  • 3 dashes angostura bitters, 2 cubes ice in 10 oz glass, fill with hard cider.
I forewent the ice because A) I was feeling lazy and B) my cider was already cold. It was delicious and basically tasted like fall. 

You can see other, slightly more complicated versions below:
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Jersey Cocktail (1862)

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As far as I can tell, this is the oldest version of the Jersey Cooler (called cocktail here), invented by the famous Jerry Thomas from his How to Mix Drinks from 1862. Because the earliest reference is from Mr. Thomas, who was a born and raised New Yorker, I think that the "Jersey" in this instance refers to New Jersey, not Jersey, England.

Here's his recipe:
​
(Use small bar glass.)
1 teaspoonful of sugar.
2 dashes of bitters.
Fill tumbler with cider, and mix well, with lemon peel on top.

Episode Links

  • The Last Wild Apple Forests (Gastro Obscura)
  • I Went to the Fatherland of All Modern Apples (Vice Munchies)
  • Apple Pie Is Not All That American (Smithsonian Magazine)
  • Why Apple Pie Isn’t So American After All (Food52)
  • Orangepippin.com - THE best resource for finding and learning about heirloom apples (and other orchard fruits) from around the world. 
  • And of course, my own History Bites: Apples in America podcast.

Our next episode will be on Friday, October 2, 2020 and since it will officially be October, we'll be talking about pumpkins and the origins of the much-maligned pumpkin spice! 

If you enjoyed this episode of Food History Happy Hour and would like to support more livestreams, please consider joining us on Patreon. Patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. ​
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    Sarah Wassberg Johnson has an MA in Public History from the University at Albany and studies early 20th century food history.

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