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Thanksgiving Coffee Cake
Cream 1 cup of butter and 1 scant cup of sugar, add 1 beaten egg, 1 scant cup of honey, 1 cup of cold coffee, 2 cups of currants, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon of allspice, 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar, 1 teaspoon of soda and 4 soda and 4 cups of flour.
A fruited spice cake leavened with soda and cream of tartar, sweetened half with sugar and half with honey. The original gives no pan, no oven and no time, so those are the first things to settle.
- The garbled line"4 soda and 4 cups of flour" is a compositor's slip: the soda has already been called for a phrase earlier. Read it as 4 cups of flour and nothing more.
- Coffee cake means coffee in the cakeThis is not the yeasted, streusel-topped breakfast bread the term suggests today. The cup of cold brewed coffee is an ingredient, darkening the crumb and sharpening the spice.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh red or black currants. Two cups is about 10 oz; toss them with a spoonful of the measured flour so they do not sink.
- LeaveningTwo teaspoons cream of tartar with one teaspoon soda is the household equivalent of about four teaspoons of modern baking powder, plus a little extra lift from the acidity of the honey and coffee. Sift both with the flour and get the batter into the pan promptly; the reaction begins as soon as the liquid meets the soda.
- Mixing orderThe list is the method. Cream butter and sugar, beat in the egg, then add honey, coffee and dry ingredients alternately so the batter does not break; a cup of honey and a cup of coffee against one egg will curdle a creamed mixture if dumped in at once.
- Oven and panBatter of this weight suits a tube pan or two loaf tins. The original names no oven or time; 350F works, or 325F for a deep tube pan; expect 50 to 70 minutes and test with a skewer.
- Honey browns fastHoney cakes colour well before they are set. If the top is dark at the halfway mark, tent it with foil rather than dropping the heat.
- Yield and keepingAbout 16 generous slices. Like most honey-and-spice cakes it improves after a day wrapped tight, and the crumb turns moister as the honey draws moisture back in.
Honey cakes are among the oldest sweet baking in Europe, and the American versions in turn-of-the-century household books lean heavily on spice and dried fruit, since both keep and both stretch. The cold coffee is the thrifty touch, and the currants and triple spice make this an economical relation of the raisin-heavy fruitcakes that anchored the Thanksgiving and Christmas table. Cream of tartar with soda was a common chemical leavening in the American kitchen through the nineteenth century, and it coexisted with commercial baking powder for decades, kept up by cooks who went on using what they trusted.