Food History

I’m in the mood for doh-re-mi. Or should that be dough-re-mi? I want to sing “Let’s start at the very beginning.” It’s a very fine place to start, you see.

Actually, I don’t have a beginning for election cakes. My research wasn’t quite serious enough to provide me with one. What it did, however, was give me the perfect place to start. The beginning place of most people who look into US food history. Yes, I’m talking about Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches by Miss Leslie (not for the first time, either).

Miss Leslie’s book is of undoubted importance, so hers is the first election cake recipe I’ll give you. I used the 1840 edition, for those who care about such things (I can’t be the only one who always notes down edition details, can I?)

Election cake

Make a sponge (as it is called) in the following manner: − Sift into a pan two pounds and a half of flour; and into a deep plate another pound. Take a second pan, and stir a large table - spoonful of the best West India molasses into five jills or two tumblers and a half of strong fresh yeast; adding a Jill of water, warm, but not hot. Then stir gradually into the yeast, &c. the pound of flour that you have sifted separately. Cover it, and let it set by the fire three hours to rise. While it is rising, prepare the other ingredients, by stirring in a deep pan two pounds of fresh butter and two pounds of powdered sugar, till they are quite light and creamy; adding to them a table - spoonful of powdered cinnamon; a tea - spoonful of powdered mace; and two powdered nutmegs. Stir in also half a pint of rich milk. Beat fourteen eggs till very smooth and thick, and stir them gradually into the mixture, alternately with the two pounds and a half of flour which you sifted first. When the sponge is quite light, mix the whole together, and bake it in buttered tin pans in a moderate oven. It should be eaten fresh, as no sweet cake made with yeast is so good after the first day. If it is not probable that the whole will come into use on the day it is baked, mix but half the above quantity.