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Hickory Nut Cake
One and one-half cups of sugar, half a cup of butter, a scant half cup of sweet milk, two cups of flour, three eggs, three teaspoons of baking powder. Bake in layers.
A plain creamed-butter layer cake of the late nineteenth-century type, written for a cook who already knew the method. Note that the ingredient list never mentions hickory nuts, so you will have to supply them yourself.
- The missing nutsDespite the title, no hickory nuts appear in the list. The nuts were either folded into the batter as chopped nutmeats -- about a cup -- or scattered through a boiled white icing between the layers; either reading is defensible.
- Method the recipe assumesCream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, then add the milk alternately with the flour sifted with the baking powder. The instruction "bake in layers" is the only direction given because the creaming sequence was taken for granted.
- "Sweet milk"Plain whole milk, specified only to distinguish it from sour milk or buttermilk, which would have called for soda instead of baking powder. A scant half cup means just under 4 fl oz.
- Baking powderThree teaspoons to two cups of flour is high by modern standards, early powders being weaker than current ones. Two teaspoons of modern baking powder is likely to give a better crumb and less risk of a chemical aftertaste.
- FlourNineteenth-century household flour was softer than today's all-purpose. For a finer texture, replace two tablespoons per cup with cornstarch, or use cake flour, allowing a cup plus two tablespoons for each cup of all-purpose.
- Pans and ovenThe quantity fills two 8-inch or 9-inch round pans. Bake at 350F for 22 to 28 minutes, until the centre springs back.
- Hickory nuts themselvesShagbark hickory nuts are rarely sold and are laborious to crack, the shells being thick and the meats deeply lobed. Pecans, which are themselves a hickory, are the usual substitute.
- YieldOne two-layer cake, about ten slices. It wants a filling of some kind, whether boiled icing, jam, or sweetened whipped cream.
Hickory nut cake belongs to a family of American nut cakes that made use of whatever grew nearby rather than what could be bought: black walnut, butternut, hickory and, in the South, pecan. Shagbark hickories are native across the eastern United States, and the nuts were gathered in autumn and stored in the shell. That the nuts go unlisted here is characteristic of community and household cookbooks of the period, where recipes were copied out as reminders for cooks who already knew the dish and needed only the proportions.