I realize I’m writing a lot about recipes I’m finding in my great-grandmother’s cookbook, but these are just so fun to try! Anyway, I came across a recipe called “George Washington’s Wedding Cake,” and decided to give it a go. It’s a reproduction of a (now) 300 year old recipe, and seemed to be missing a few things, like type and amount of spices. I googled some George/Martha Washington cake recipes. While I did not find the wedding cake recipe, I found a different recipe that described using nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, cloves, and other spices. I’ve got those four spices on hand, so those are what ended up in the cake.
Okay, so this cake is definitely designed for a crowd – 3 cups of butter, 18 eggs, 8 cups currants, 10 cups of flour…you get the picture. I cut the recipe in half, and got down to business. I wanted to use as many ingredients as I already had, rather than buying new which required a smidge of improvisation. I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of plain pastry flour. I feel like this would be closer to what they would have had then anyway. Aside from my improvised spices, the only other substitution I made was golden raisins for the currants the recipe called for. Because raisins are larger than currants, I halved the amount for the half recipe (1/4 the full amount).
This is a very labor intensive cake. You have to fold in eggs in two different stages, while beating in other ingredients in between. Plus the eggs must be separated, beaten/whipped to very specific stages, all in addition to all the other mixing. I would not make this cake for something other than a special occasion, that’s for sure. I got my arm workout though, so that’s a bonus. The batter is incredibly stiff before you fold in the egg whites in the last step. How tough is it to fold in those whites? The picture below is my husband, who had to help me do the last bit.
Because I cut the recipe in half, I had to do a little guess work on the bake times. The original states that it should bake for 3.5-4 hours (!!!), but I knew it wouldn’t take nearly that long. I wanted to be sure to get an even bake, so I used my springform cake tin with funnel base. I started the bake with 1 hour, which I knew would be too little, but was a good starting point. It was definitely not done yet, so I added 30 minutes. That did the trick! If I ever do this cake again, I may check to see if 15 or 20 minutes would also suffice.
My kitchen smelled amazing, like spices and fruit. The cake baked up beautifully, but I was left with the question of whether or not to frost. Or glaze. Or drizzle. Or dust with sugar. Surely wedding cakes 300 years ago had frosting or icing of some kind, right? In my research, (admittedly post-drizzle/glazing of the wedding cake), it looks like they almost always did some variation of royal icing. This makes total sense – it’s durable, and relatively stable. Both are very important when you have limited preservation and cooling choices.
I think I have a little more work to bring this recipe up to modern standards, but this first go was definitely not bad. It was a dense, fruity, spicy cake. I can picture the cake decorated with royal icing at a party. I’m really glad I tried this 300 year old recipe!
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