Interesting Southern Heirloom Cake Recipes I

Mrs. A.D. Clements’ Alabama Fruit Cake (1949)

1 lb raisins

 ¼ t. cloves

½ lb butter

1 cup watermelon preserves

¾ cup brown sugar

4 eggs

¼ cup grape juice

2 cups flour

1 cup fig preserves

1 T. baking powder 1 cup or more pecan meats

1 t. mace

½ t. nutmeg

Cream butter, add sugar, add egg yolks, beaten, add beaten egg whites.  Sift flour with spices and baking powder.  Add fruits, then grape juice.  Beat well.  Bake 2 hours in a slow oven.

 =====

FYI: When recreating old chocolate recipes, be sure you use chocolate with 60% cacao.  The chocolate in America’s recent past was a uniform 60% cacao and the recipes were created with that in mind – don’t use 70% or 80% cacao thinking it will make it better and more chocolate-y, it doesn’t work like that.

Dixie Chocolate Cake (1949)

3 cups cake flour

3 eggs

4 squares chocolate (melted with boiling water)

3 t baking powder

½ t. baking soda

¾ cup lard

1 ½ cups milk

2 cups sugar

1 ½ t. vanilla

[3/4 t. salt? see note]

Sift flour once, measure and sift again with baking powder, soda and salt.  Cream lard. Add sugar gradually and continue creaming until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.  Add melted chocolate and blend.  Add sifted dry ingredients alternatively with milk and vanilla, beating after each addition until smooth.  Line the bottom of 3-9 inch pans with waxed paper.  Pour in batter.  Bake in moderately hot oven (375 degrees) for 25 minutes.  Cool and frost.

(NOTE: Salt is not listed in the original recipe but is in the instructions.  There is a similar recipe for chocolate cake that uses ¾ teaspoon salt in its recipe, so we included it here. (Some old recipes leave out ingredients because of common knowledge or mistakes in copying.)

Mrs. W.M. McDonald’s Chocolate Fluff Frosting (1949)

6 T. butter

4 squares chocolate

2 ¼ cups confectioner’s sugar

½ t. salt

½ t. vanilla

3 egg whites

Cream butter.  Add 1 cup sugar and blend.  Add vanilla, melted chocolate and salt, and mix well.  Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.  Gradually add remaining sugar to egg whites, beating until mixture stands in peaks.  Fold into chocolate mixture and stir until smooth.

 =====

“Dating back to the 1930's, Mystery Cake was tremendously popular as it required very little butter and eggs, precious ingredients in Depression era America. The flavors in this cake are rich with no true tomato taste, just the warmth of the spices and sweetness of the raisins. This cake keeps beautifully and can be enjoyed as a snack cake with no icing needed, or iced with a simple vanilla glaze to dress it up. ‘This is a pleasant cake, which keeps well and puzzles people while you are cooking other things, which is always sensible and makes you feel rather noble, in itself a small but valuable pleasure.’-M.F.K. Fisher (1942)” --http://www.kingarthurflour.com

Mystery Cake, or Tomato Soup Spice Cake (1930s)

4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg, well beaten

1 can condensed tomato soup (Campbell's preferred) 10 3/4 ounce size

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 scant teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup raisins (optional)

1) Preheat oven to 350°F. Spritz a 9" round cake pan with cooking spray. Line with a parchment circle and spritz with spray again. Cream butter and sugar in large bowl. Add egg and mix well.

2) Combine baking soda with undiluted soup in can. Let foam for 1 minute. Pour soup mixture into butter/sugar/egg and blend well. Mixture will look slightly curdled. This is normal.

3) In a small bowl combine flour, baking powder and spices. Whisk well and add to tomato soup mixture. Beat together for 1 minute on medium speed. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes. Cool on wire rack and ice as desired.