Recipe Election Cake

[NC Susan]

Election Cake: a history of the American tradition

https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/election-cake-a-history-of-the-american-tradition

If you’re having a hard time deciding how to treat yourself after waiting in long lines at the voting polls – perhaps Election Cake should be*in your future.

Election Cake used to be a tradition as American as, well, voting.

Originally, the unique leavened cake, which typically calls for sourdough starter, was called “muster cake” and was created by colonial women to feed to incoming troops of men who were ordered for military training by the British.

The dense bundt cake was given to militia men – and onlookers who flooded villages to watch the military drills.

However, after the American Revolution, the boozy fruit-and-spice cake used to serve British military became known as Election Cake, and women would bring the baked good to polling places for the white men, who were allowed to vote at the time, to eat.

According to Bon Appetit, the first recorded recipe for the patriotic confection was written in 1796 by Amelia Simmons in her second edition book, "American Cookery." The recipe required 30 quarts of flour, 10 pounds of butter, 14 pounds of sugar and three dozen eggs, among spices, alcohol and 12 pounds of raisins. Several different recipes for Election Cake have since been logged, calling for different ingredients, though all seemingly have the same yeast-base.

Women – who were not allowed to vote before 1920 – allegedly sometimes used the cakes as a way to sway the men to vote in line with their interests

Though beyond a political ploy, the cake was used as a celebration for the democratic process. At the time, Election Day was a holiday reportedly as large and important as Christmas is today.

Election Cake has declined in popularity since the early 20th century. Some speculate the waning interest is due to a dissatisfaction with politics as years went on. The cake never really spread beyond the New England states.

But in the past few years, especially during the 2016 election, the special Election Cake made a resurgence with bakeries vowing to “Make America Cake AgaiN

“[Election cakes] were intended to be served to the masses, to people who were celebrating the democratic process and the election,” Gebhart said in an interview to NPR.

According to social media, Gebhart’s cakes seem to be a hit with customers who stopped by after voting to reward themselves.

“Did my part, then stopped by @oldworldlevain for a slice of their Election Cake,” one commented on Instagram.

 

[NC Susan]

'Election Cake' Makes a Modern Day Resurgence
www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/article/election-cake-history

Bakeries around the country agree: This election needs more cake. They are re-interpreting an age-old recipe for modern day tastes.

It’s safe to say that sweetness is not part of the modern day election rhetoric. As this season veers off into fetid bitterness as tasty as a rusty nail, a few bakers are uniting on a platform more pleasing: for life, liberty, and election cake for all.

The official slogan, says Susannah Gebhart, baker and owner at Old World Levain (OWL) Bakery in Asheville, North Carolina, is “Make America Cake Again,” packaged neatly into a social media-friendly hashtag. Gebhart, along with Maia Surdam, her business partner, fellow baker, and historian, are joining in sweet solidarity with bakers nationwide to pour some sugar on this election season. With cake.
The baking duo took their inspiration from muster cake–a dense, naturally leavened, boozy fruit and spice cake–baked by colonial women and given to the droves of men who were summoned for military training, or "mustered," by order of British troops.

After the Revolution, the women brought the cake to early voting sites to help “muster” votes, and it became known as election cake. Back in those days, when elite white men were the only ones who could rock the vote, women claimed their place in political culture with a monstrous cake for the masses. And while it's hard to believe now, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Election Day was a holiday just as important as Christmas, and food was central to it. Bonfires, barbecues, whiskey, and cake helped to amplify the revelry and encourage voting. Whiskey, cake, and voting, an American tradition we can get behind.



The first recorded recipe for election cake, written in 1796 by Amelia Simmons in her second edition book American Cookery, called for 30 quarts of flour, ten pounds of butter, 14 pounds of sugar, and heaps of brandy, raisins, and spices.
John Grinspan, in his book The Virgin Vote, describes the democratic process as a rite of passage in America for young men, building a sense of identity, and the idea that one was contributing to a common good. But by the twentieth century, enthusiasm waned as politics became more bureaucratic, and election cake fell out of favor.
The idea for #MakeAmericaCakeAgain (bakeries are participating in a rolling basis until Election Day, more info here) originated at a baking summit in June, during a nerdy discussion on muster cake between Gebhart and a few fellow bakers including William Werner of San Francisco’s Craftsman + Wolves. Over the bonding powers of whiskey, the group decided to make it a movement, with Gebhart at its helm.
“What intrigued me was the history, to grab this snippet of forgotten time to encourage the vote,” says Werner.

For this campaign, Richard Miscovich, author of the book From the Wood-Fired Oven and part of original election cake brain trust (he coined #MakeAmericaCakeAgain), devised a base recipe by sifting through historical records, diaries, and cookery books at the Johnson and Wales Culinary Museum in Providence, Rhode Island.
“It’ll be fun seeing how different people interpret this recipe,” he says, citing regional nuances.


OWL Bakery’s version is a baby bundt made with Gebhart's well-loved sourdough starter, locally milled whole wheat pastry flour, sorghum, dried apples, cherries, and raisins soaked in bourbon, and warming spices like coriander, nutmeg, white pepper, cinnamon, and others. Sarah Owens, owner of BK17 Bakery and author of Sourdough: Recipes for Rustic Fermented Breads, Sweets, Savories and More, whipped up a rye-based election cake with brandy-soaked dried golden figs, orange zest, spices, and orange glaze (pictured at top). Werner opted for an earthy rye and buckwheat base, with bourbon-bolstered stone fruits, and a toothsome mix of poppy seeds, flax seeds, and cocoa nibs. Miscovich chose an egalitarian version filled with currants and spices, minus the booze, so that everyone can partake.
Gebhart and Surdam want to reinvigorate the lost levity of the democratic process, and do some good. A portion of all election cake sales will go to the League of Women Voters in honor of the women who didn’t have access to formal channels of voting in the early days of American democracy.
And in this political season, fraught with more sideshow displays than Barnum and Bailey, it’s time for a new decision–one slice of cake? Or two?

 

[NC Susan]

Election Cake
http://nourishedkitchen.com/election-cake-a-touch-of-american-culinary-history/

Election Cake is a traditional cake historically served at the time of mustering or elections in early America. It is a sour-leavened caked sweetened with unrefined cane sugar, molasses, dried fruit, brandy, white wine and spices. This recipe calls for sourdough starter which you can find online or make yourself.

Ingredients

4½ cups sifted soft whole white wheat flour
1¼ cups buttermilk or sour milk
¼ cup proofed and bubbly sourdough starter
½ pound butter
1 cup unrefined cane sugar (Find it here.)
¼ cup blackstrap molasses
1 tablespoon white wine
2 tablespoons brandy
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon finely ground sea salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 cups dried currants

Instructions

In the basin of a standmixer (like this one), beat the flour together with the milk and sourdough starter until it forms a ball. Then oil a large glass bowl (like this one that comes with a lid), plop the dough into the bowl and cover it securely. Allow the dough to rest at least 8 and up to 12 hours.
Beat the butter, sugar and molasses together with the brandy and wine until fluffy, then beat in the eggs.
Remove the ball of dough from the bowl, and tear it into ½ inch pieces. Drop them into the bowl with the butter and spoon in the salt and spices. Beat them all together, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, until they form a uniform batter. Fold in the currants.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, and then grease and flour two 9-inch tube pans (these are the ones we used).

Spoon the batter evenly into the two pans, filling them about ¾ up their sides. Bake the cakes about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cakes' center comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack, and allow them to cool completely before unmolding.

Notes
If you don't keep a sourdough starter, but want to make election cake, beat 1 tablespoon instant yeast and an additional 1 cup milk and ½ cup flour into the flour in the first step.
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[Melodi]

I've been thinking about making one of these for years, I've also been saying for years that at least the Presidential and Mid-Term elections should return to being Holidays - in the early days of the Republic they were almost a local fair, which featured voting for the men but also militia's practicing, women spinning (spinning wheels had been an important symbol of the Revolution), the cakes and often boxed lunches, children's games etc etc

It brought everyone in the neighborhood, town, village or main settlement together for the entire Patriotic themed event, also meant that people traveling for a day or two just to get to vote had many activities to look forward to.

Another story in one of my cookbooks said that by the early 19th century, most polling areas had two tables of "election cake" one for each party and extra was given out to those who voted "a straight ticket."

Great ideas and great history - glad this was posted.

 

[Blastoff]

Used to attend an old church that still had an Election Day Lunch in the early 90's. Bean soup, etc., but don't remember any special election cake.