more election cake (I wonder why)
I’m torn. I promised more on ice cream history and I promised I would blog recipes alongside the US elections. I don’t have time to do two posts. I could flip a coin, but it’s a wet and tired day here, so I’ve opted for an election cake recipe, albeit with less commentary than usual. A wet and tired election post, hopefully things will pep up as we get closer to November. This means I can get on with preparing for tomorrow, which is first day teaching this year. This election cake recipe is from the second edition of The Frugal Housewife (1830).
I love it that by 1830 the writer was already claiming the election cake recipe was from an old-fashioned recipe. This means that there are earlier ones. W00t!! The trouble is that there just aren’t that many early US cookbooks. To take election cakes earlier, I would have to delve into manuscripts, which is unsurprisingly just a little hard to do from Australia. I rather suspect 1830 is as far back as we can go with this topic. This means that from now on we’re venturing into more recent cookbooks (though still old – let me race in with that reassurance.)
Election Cake
Old fashion election cake is made of four pounds of flour; three quarters of a pound of butter; four eggs; one pound of sugar; one pound of currants, or raisins, if you choose; half a pint of good yeast; wet it with milk as soft as it can be and be moulded on a board. Set to rise over night in winter; in warm weather three hours is usually enough for it to rise. A loaf, the size of common flour bread, should bake three quarters of an hour.
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