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Almond, Hickory-Nut or Cocoa-Nut Cake
One pound flour, half tea-spoon salt, fourth pound butter, pound of sugar, tea-cup sour cream, four eggs, lemon flavor to taste, and a tea-spoon soda dissolved in two tea-spoons hot water; mix all thoroughly, grate in the white part of a cocoa-nut, or stir in a pint of chopped hickory-nuts, or a pint of blanched almonds pounded. -Mrs. J. W. Grubbs, Richmond.
A plain pound-cake-type batter leavened with soda and sour cream, given three interchangeable finishes. The measurements are by weight where it matters, which makes it easier to follow than most cake recipes of its date.
- The weights in cupsA pound of flour is about 3 1/2 to 4 cups of modern all-purpose, spooned and levelled; weigh it if you can. A pound of sugar is about 2 1/4 cups, and a quarter pound of butter is one 4 oz stick.
- A tea-cupTea-cups of this period were generally reckoned smaller than a breakfast cup; allow about 6 fl oz rather than a full 8, though the book gives no measure here. The batter is meant to be thick, closer to a pound cake than a layer cake.
- Sour creamNineteenth-century sour cream was raw cream left to clabber, thick and distinctly acid. Full-fat cultured sour cream is the right substitute; it supplies the acid the soda needs, so do not swap in sweet cream or the cake will taste soapy and stay flat.
- The sodaOne teaspoon of soda against a scant cup of sour cream is the whole leavening. Dissolve it in the hot water as directed, stir it in last, and get the cake into the oven promptly — the lift begins at once.
- Oven and panThe recipe gives no oven direction; a moderate oven, around 350F, suits this batter. The quantity fills a large tube pan or two 9x5 loaf pans; allow roughly an hour to an hour and a quarter for a tube, 50 to 60 minutes for loaves, and test with a skewer.
- Cocoa-nut"The white part" means the flesh of a fresh coconut with the brown skin pared off, grated fine — roughly 3 cups from a medium nut, depending on size. Unsweetened desiccated coconut works but is much drier; soak it briefly in a little milk or cream first.
- Hickory-nutsShagbark hickory nuts are a foraged crop and rarely sold shelled. Pecans are the closest supermarket stand-in, and a pint of chopped nuts is about 2 cups.
- Pounded almondsBlanch, dry, then pulse in a food processor with a spoonful of the measured sugar. Without the sugar the oil comes out and you get almond butter rather than the coarse meal a mortar produces.
- YieldAbout 16 to 20 slices. Like most cakes of this construction it improves after a day, wrapped and kept at room temperature.
The Dixie Cook-Book belongs to the wave of compiled, contributor-credited household books that followed the success of Buckeye Cookery in the 1870s and 1880s, and the attribution to Mrs. J. W. Grubbs of Richmond is typical of how such volumes were assembled — recipes solicited from real kitchens and printed under the donor's name. The recipe's structure is older than its date: sour cream and soda rather than baking powder, a pound of flour to a pound of sugar, and a single batter dressed up three different ways depending on what the cook had. That last point is the interesting one. Hickory nuts were gathered wild across the upland South and cost nothing but labour; almonds were imported and signalled money; coconut arrived through the Gulf and Atlantic ports and by the 1880s had become the fashionable Southern cake ingredient, grated fresh, since packaged sweetened coconut is generally dated to the 1890s, after this book. One recipe, three social registers.