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Hickory-Nut Cake
2 cupfuls sugar, 1 of milk, 3 cupfuls flour, 2/3 cupful butter, 3 eggs, 2 teaspoonfuls baking-powder, 1 cupful nut-kernels, cut fine. Tried and not found wanting.
An ingredient list with no method, which was normal for a book aimed at cooks who already knew how a butter cake goes together. The proportions are a standard creamed 1-2-3-4 style cake, so the handling is predictable.
- Method, since none is givenCream the butter with the sugar until pale, beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the flour sifted with the baking powder alternately with the milk. Fold the chopped nuts in last, tossed with a spoonful of the measured flour so they do not sink.
- OvenNo baking instruction is given. A modern equivalent is 350F: two 9-inch layers take about 25-30 minutes; a single tube or loaf pan runs 50-60 minutes.
- Hickory nutsShagbark hickory kernels were gathered, not bought, and are still hard to find commercially. Pecans are the closest relative and the standard substitute; walnuts work but are more tannic.
- Butter measure2/3 cupful is about 5 1/3 oz, or a scant 11 tablespoons. If using unsalted butter, add about 1/2 teaspoon salt; the original lists none, and salted butter was commonly used.
- Baking powderTwo teaspoons for three cups of flour is on the light side by current standards, but the quantity as written works; there is no need to increase it.
- EggsEggs of the period were ungraded and often smaller than today's large. Three large eggs give a slightly richer, moister crumb, which is no loss here.
- YieldEnough for two 9-inch layers or one 10-inch tube cake, serving 12. It takes a plain boiled or brown-sugar frosting well; the nuts want something not too sweet against them.
Hickory nuts were a free ingredient across the American Midwest and Upper South, gathered in autumn from shagbark and shellbark trees and cracked at home over the winter, which is why they turn up in nineteenth-century home baking far more often than in commercial confectionery. The shells are notoriously hard and the kernels come out in small irregular pieces, which suits a recipe calling for them cut fine rather than halved for decoration. Recipes of this kind are frequently printed as bare ingredient lists, trusting the reader with the method, and a tag like "tried and not found wanting" reads as a vouching for the recipe by whoever supplied it.