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Pork Cake
One pound of salt pork, one pint of boiling coffee, one cup of molasses, two cups of sugar, two pounds of currants, one-fourth pound of citron, one tablespoon of cloves, one tablespoon of cinnamon, one teaspoon of nutmeg, two teaspoons of saleratus, five cups of flour; chop pork very fine. Bake three or four hours in a very slow oven.
— Mrs. James Cartan
A boiled-coffee fruitcake that uses salt pork in place of butter and eggs — a keeping cake built from pantry staples. The batter is enormous by modern standards and the oven must stay low.
- The hinge: pour the coffee boiling hotThe recipe specifies boiling coffee but not the method; in versions of this cake that do spell it out, the boiling liquid is poured over the finely chopped pork so the fat softens and disperses through the batter. If the liquid is merely warm you risk chewy specks of pork suspended in cake. Let the mixture stand until barely warm before adding the saleratus and flour, or the leavening spends itself early.
- Salt porkUse fat salt pork (fatback or streaky salt pork), not bacon — smoke and cure flavourings will read as wrong here. Chill or briefly freeze it to chop it truly fine; a food processor pulsed with a spoon of the sugar keeps it from pasting. No additional salt or fat goes into the cake.
- SaleratusSaleratus was the period leavening (originally potassium bicarbonate, later used loosely for sodium bicarbonate); substitute baking soda. Two teaspoons is a reasonable amount against the acidity of a cup of molasses, and there is no baking powder in the recipe.
- "A very slow oven"Roughly 250–275°F by the usual period reckoning, and such conversions are approximate. At three to four hours this is a long, gentle bake meant for a cooling wood range; in a modern oven set 275°F, and tent the top with foil once it has coloured.
- Currants and citronCurrants here are dried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants — two pounds of them. Citron is candied citron peel, sold in tubs at holiday time; candied orange or lemon peel substitutes acceptably.
- SpicingA tablespoon each of cloves and cinnamon is heavy but deliberate, and against a batter of this size it lands about where a dark fruitcake should. Ground cloves lose potency quickly, so use a reasonably fresh jar.
- Yield and pansThe quantities are very large — on the order of seven pounds of batter, enough for three or more 9x5-inch loaf pans, generously lined with parchment. Fill no more than three-quarters full.
- Doneness and keepingA skewer should come out clean but the crumb will stay dense and moist; this cake does not rise much. Cool completely, wrap tightly, and give it a few days — like most molasses fruitcakes it improves and will keep for weeks.
Pork cake belongs to a family of nineteenth-century American fruitcakes that use chopped salt pork as the shortening, and it turns up across New England, New York and the Midwest under names like "pork cake" and "salt pork cake." The logic is a farm pantry: salt pork kept well in the cellar, while butter was seasonal and eggs were worth selling. Scalding the pork with boiling coffee — or in other versions boiling water — did the work of creaming butter, and the molasses, heavy spicing and two pounds of currants covered any lingering savour. Recipes of this kind cluster in community and church cookbooks like this one, where a village receipt carries the contributor's name and stands as a small record of what a farm kitchen actually kept on hand.