old hartford election cake
(from Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt-book, by Catharine Esther Beecher, 1846)
(100 years old)*
Ingredients:
(from Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt-book, by Catharine Esther Beecher, 1846)
(100 years old)*
Ingredients:
Five pounds of dried and sifted flour
Two pounds of butter
Two pounds of sugar
Three gills of distillery yeast or twice the quantity of home brewed
Four eggs
A gill of wine and a gill of brandy
Half an ounce of nutmegs and two pounds of fruit
A quart of milk
Instructions:
Rub the butter very fine into the flour, add half the sugar, then the yeast, then half the milk, hot in winter, and blood warm in summer, then the eggs well beaten, the wine, and the remainder of the milk. Beat it well, and let it stand to rise all night. Beat it well in the morning, adding the brandy, the sugar, and the spice. Let it rise three or four hours, till very light. When you put the wood into the oven, put the cake in buttered pans, and put in the fruit as directed previously. If you wish it richer, add a pound of citron.
* Recipe was "100 years old" when published in 1846
Today's newsletter from the New England Historical Society contains recipes for Election Cake--specifically Hartford Election Cake.
The earliest notation of the cake seems to have been 1771 when the Colony of Connecticut paid £3 for such a cake. In 1796, the
first recipe appeared in the first U.S. cookbook, Amelia Simmons' American Cookery (it called for 30 quarts of flour, 10 pounds of butter, 14 pounds of sugar, 12 pounds of raisins, three dozen eggs, a pint of wine and a quart of brandy and spices.
A Civil War era version appeared in a cookbook published by Catherine Beecher (older sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe).
Fannie Farmer published a recipe in 1896....
1/2 cup butter
1 cup bread dough
8 finely chopped figs
1 1/4 cups flour
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon soda
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sour milk
2/3 cup raisins seeded, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon each of clove, mace and nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
Work butter into dough, using the hand. Add egg well beaten, sugar, milk, fruit dredged with two tablespoons flour, and flour mixed and sifted with remaining ingredients. Put into a well-buttered bread pan, cover, and let rise one and one-fourth hours. Then bake one hour in a slow oven. Cover with Boiled Milk Frosting.
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