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 making ready a particular dish. However at one time limit, a minimum of in a sure area of the nation, there was one thing referred to as Election Cake.
It’s typically related with Hartford, Connecticut and referred to as Hartford Election Cake, however historians level out that the cake was baked all through New England and usually known as Election Cake in cookbooks.
Whereas the custom of baking a cake for Election Day has largely fallen by the wayside, the follow goes again tons of 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 totally — they appear to agree that it was initially often called “muster cake.” That title may confer with the truth that these muffins had been made to feed guests who had been referred to as to militia coaching days, or to the concept of the cake serving to to “muster” votes.
Within the cookbook, American Cake, writer Anne Byrn writes that Election Cake was typically baked by sweet makers or bakers and offered on Election Day as a method to attract out voters: “Usually confectioners offered 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 muffins had been additionally served and offered at city conferences. Following the Revolution, the muffins turned tied to the brand new democratic authorities, and had 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 referred to as American Cookery, sound not in contrast to fruitcake, besides with a big measurement that spoke to the cake’s social and communal position. That American Cookery recipe referred to as for 30 quarts of flour and 10 kilos of butter. Many recipe include dried fruit, booze, and spices like nutmeg and mace (however additionally they bought a leavening enhance from yeast, which might’ve helped stop a dense cake). Under, 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, a bit of salt, and all of the flour. When gentle, at night, work in the remainder of the supplies. Beat effectively. Let it rise over night time, 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 a long time. Right here’s one from a 1965 version of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook:
Because the American Historic Affiliation explains, Election Cake gave ladies a approach to really feel like they had been collaborating within the new democracy despite the fact that voting at the moment was a privilege reserved for the few — particularly, property-owning white males: “Unable to solid their very own votes, they however contributed to the civic tradition of celebrating the younger republic by way of 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 Individuals took the best to vote as a given, reasonably than a hard-won battle, the follow of celebrating Election Day by baking a cake fell out of a favor. “We had been not the one democracy, and things like standard elections could 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 muffins and tried to “#MakeAmericaCakeAgain.” As Bon Appétit reported on the time, these bakers had been motivated by a want to encourage voting, honor historical past, and even “reinvigorate the misplaced levity of the democratic course of.” The follow then noticed a big surge of curiosity through 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 would look to historical past and contemplate channeling that power into baking as an alternative, 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 number of hours. We could not be capable to management the end result of the election, however we will management our cake consumption.
