Spice Cake
Source: Martha McCulloch-Williams, 1913
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
- Cream the butter with the yellow sugar and black molasses together. Add the egg yolks one after the other, beating hard between each addition. When all yolks are incorporated, add the whiskey or brandy (or strong, clear coffee if preferred), grated chocolate (omit if using coffee), powdered cloves, allspice, ginger, mace, and cinnamon. Add the grated nutmeg, powdered black pepper, salt, and a bare dusting of paprika. Beat all together hard for ten minutes.
- Brown the flour in the oven but do not burn it. Sift the browned flour and add the baking powder to it. Gradually add the flour mixture to the batter and beat hard for five minutes after all the flour is incorporated.
- Pour the batter into a deep, well-greased pan lined with buttered paper. Let the batter rise for ten minutes with the oven door open, then bake in quick heat until done through.