Thanksgiving means turkey, the Fourth of July equals scorching canine and burgers, and Christmas brings ham, so why doesn’t America have a particular meals to eat on Election Day? Maybe as a result of we’re now too mired in disgust and/or despair by the point a presidential election rolls round each 4 years to be involved with getting ready a particular dish. However at one time limit, a minimum of in a sure area of the nation, there was one thing known as Election Cake.
It’s typically related with Hartford, Connecticut and known as Hartford Election Cake, however historians level out that the cake was baked all through New England and customarily known as Election Cake in cookbooks.
Whereas the custom of baking a cake for Election Day has largely fallen by the wayside, the observe goes again a whole lot of years. Although historians disagree on the origins of Election Cake — some say it may be traced to England, some say it was an American invention fully — they appear to agree that it was initially referred to as “muster cake.” That identify might check with the truth that these truffles have been made to feed guests who have been known as to militia coaching days, or to the concept of the cake serving to to “muster” votes.
Within the cookbook, American Cake, creator Anne Byrn writes that Election Cake was typically baked by sweet makers or bakers and bought on Election Day as a means to attract out voters: “Usually confectioners bought tickets to the occasion. On one such Election Day in 1841 in Montpelier, Vermont, the bakery marketed that with a 50-cent ticket you’ll obtain a pound-size serving of cake and the possibility of a hoop inside.”
By different accounts, these truffles have been additionally served and bought at city conferences. Following the Revolution, the truffles turned tied to the brand new democratic authorities, and have been baked on Election Day as a celebratory dessert — therefore, Election Cake.
Early recipes for the cake, the primary of which appeared in a 1796 cookbook known as American Cookery, sound not not like fruitcake, besides with a big dimension that spoke to the cake’s social and communal position. That American Cookery recipe known as for 30 quarts of flour and 10 kilos of butter. Many recipe comprise dried fruit, booze, and spices like nutmeg and mace (however in addition they acquired a leavening increase from yeast, which might’ve helped forestall a dense cake). Beneath, a recipe from 1889.
ELECTION CAKE, No. 6 Miss C. M. Ely
Two quarts flour ; one and a half kilos sugar ; one pound butter and lard ; one pint home-made yeast ; one pint or extra new milk. one egg ; one wineglass (sherry) of brandy and wine, blended ; two nutmegs ; one pound raisins.
Combine at 2 P.M., including half the butter and sugar, labored to a cream, with yeast, milk, somewhat salt, and all of the flour. When gentle, at night, work in the remainder of the supplies. Beat effectively. Let it rise over evening, and, within the morning, work over, put in pans, and let it rise an hour. Bake in average oven. Frost the loaves.
Recipes for the cake advanced over many years. Right here’s one from a 1965 version of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook:
Because the American Historic Affiliation explains, Election Cake gave ladies a strategy to really feel like they have been taking part within the new democracy although voting at the moment was a privilege reserved for the few — particularly, property-owning white males: “Unable to solid their very own votes, they nonetheless contributed to the civic tradition of celebrating the younger republic via meals.”
Election Cake seemingly by no means gained a lot traction past New England, and by the early 1900s, it had light into obscurity as ladies’s suffrage gained traction. As new generations of People took the fitting to vote as a given, moderately than a hard-won battle, the observe of celebrating Election Day by baking a cake fell out of a favor. “We have been not the one democracy, and things like fashionable elections might not have appeared as uniquely American,” the historian Alice Ross writes.
However in response to the 2016 presidential election, a contingent of American bakers, led by Susannah Gebhart of Previous World Levain Bakery in Asheville, North Carolina, rediscovered the glory of election truffles and tried to “#MakeAmericaCakeAgain.” As Bon Appétit reported on the time, these bakers have been motivated by a need to encourage voting, honor historical past, and even “reinvigorate the misplaced levity of the democratic course of.” The observe then noticed a big surge of curiosity in the course of the 2020 election.
With the nail-biting 2024 presidential election, it might be tempting to forego meals altogether in favor of a bottle of whiskey — however we’d look to historical past and contemplate channeling that vitality into baking as a substitute, whether or not it’s a Nineteenth-century Election Cake recipe or another cooking venture that retains us from being glued to our telephones, a minimum of for a couple of hours. We might not have the ability to management the result of the election, however we are able to management our cake consumption.
