SEED CAKES 1860

 "In making cakes all ingredients(this includes caraway seeds), should be heated before mixed; prepare an HOUR before the time is wanted, placed near a fire ....or the cakes will be heavy and fail...." -Civil War Recipes (Receipts from the Pages of Godey's Lady's Book) (Lily May Spaulding and John Spaulding, editors (1999 U of Kentucky)

 These days  I don't think we have to work so hard. But  I do remember my mother making Seed Cakes and heating the Caraway seeds in a fry pan, first, before using in the batter. More fragrant.

 This is the recipe that she used for eons. Foolproof. first time I made it was in Kingston, in 1995. The first time I saw her make it was 1966, when I was five....she dog eared the page and marked it with the year, which has long torn off.

 It's from the "British Columbia Women's Institute Cookbook 1958" Worth a gander if you can find a copy. Has a recipe for Chicken Liver Snacks.....that I have found in Civil war recipes...I found another copy  at a rotary auction.

 RECIPE: pinch salt, 3/4 cup butter, 1 1/4 cups sugar, 4 eggs, 1/2 cup milk, 1 tsp each vanilla and almond extract, 2 1/2 cups flour, 3 tsp baking powder, 1/2 cup citron peel, 1/4 cup orange peel 
( candied) 1 tbsp caraway seeds. 

Separate eggs. Beat eggs till soft peaks.  

 Beat rest of ingredients all together.Fold in egg whites. Plop into greased loaf pan. Bake 1 hour in moderate oven ( 350 degrees). Make sure it is baked. Cool and serve. When I was little, I would pick out all the caraway seeds. Took a few years till I appreciated it....

 One year, when we were living on a military base, I had invited some of the base wives over for coffee. I thought they would like a Seed cake.  Well, the cake  didn’t cook  long enough; was chewy and gooey in the middle…..and yes, they actually ate it and said it was lovely.  it was glop.   I learned to let it bake long enough after that!

 AND THEN: there's the Civil War recipe for Caraway Seed Cake......

 It's a little different. In 1860, Caraway Seed cake was more of a cookie. The terms for cake were meant for either a bread or a cake or a cookie...It was rolled flat and cut out into circles and baked in the fire.

 I tried making it that way. It was kind of yukky. Doughy. I prefer the actual cake version.But it was novel. A Caraway Seed cookie..

 1860: One cup butter, two of white sugar, three eggs, half a cup of seeds ( that's a  LOT of seeds), flour enough to make stiff ( about 2 cups), roll thin over sugar, instead of flour. Bake quick ( have to guesstimate the time in oven) Very delicate cake is made by substituting lemon for the seeds.

 Keeps a day or two, but is still doughy. Stick with the cake version. Definitely yummy...

 "Eggs should be very long beaten, whites and yolks apart, and strained. Sugar pounded in a mortar and rubbed into a powder on a clean board, and sifted thru a very fine hair or lawn sieve...." 
-Civil war Recipes Book

Photographs 2019