Spice Cake

History

"Spice Cake" is recorded in Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" (1913), and it is heavily spiced even by the standards of its own chapter. A coffee cup of well-washed butter is creamed with two cups of yellow sugar and one cup of black molasses; seven egg yolks go in one after another with hard beating between each. Then comes the spicing — a tablespoonful of whiskey or brandy, a teaspoonful of grated chocolate, and a teaspoonful each of powdered cloves, allspice, ginger, mace and cinnamon, plus a whole grated nutmeg.

The historical record does not document a specific earlier origin for this particular cake.

"Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" is a mixture of recipes and plantation reminiscence. McCulloch-Williams was a white writer born near Clarksville, Tennessee, who grew up on a plantation before the Civil War; the book's dedication is "to our Mammys," and much of the cooking it records is the work of enslaved and formerly enslaved Black women it does not name.

Ingredients

• 1 coffee cup butter
• 2 cups yellow sugar
• 1 cup black molasses
• 7 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoonful whiskey or brandy
• 1 teaspoonful grated chocolate
• 1 teaspoonful powdered cloves
• 1 teaspoonful allspice
• 1 teaspoonful ginger
• 1 teaspoonful mace
• 1 teaspoonful cinnamon
• 1 nutmeg
• 1/2 saltspoonful powdered black pepper
• pinch salt
• dusting paprika
• 4 cups flour
• 2 teaspoonfuls baking powder

Instructions

1. Cream a coffee cup of well washed butter with two cups yellow sugar and one cup black molasses.
2. Add to it one after the other seven egg-yolks, beating hard between.
3. When all are in, add one tablespoonful whiskey, or brandy, one teaspoonful grated chocolate, teaspoonful each of powdered cloves, allspice, ginger, mace, and cinnamon, a grated nutmeg, and half a saltspoonful of powdered black pepper.
4. Add also a pinch of salt, and the barest dusting of paprika.
5. If whiskey is for any reason disapproved, use strong, clear coffee instead, putting in two spoonfuls, and leaving out the chocolate.
6. Beat all together hard for ten minutes.
7. Then add four scant cups flour browned in the oven but not burned. Sift after browning, adding to it two teaspoonfuls baking powder.
8. Beat hard five minutes after the flour is all in.
9. Then pour in a deep, well greased pan, lined with buttered paper.
10. Let rise ten minutes with the oven door open, then bake in quick heat until done through.