Martha Washington's Great Cake - American Cake -

Slices all lined up.

I had to backtrack in the book to make this one. For lots of reasons I had to skip forward, but here it is.

This cake reminds me of fruit cake but a 100 percent better than what would show up at Christmas time as a kid. It should taste better, it's full of wine soaked currants, lots of spices and baked slowly. There are no nuts or citrus. It's flavors are direct and good.

On a scale of 1 is never again and 10 is I can't wait to make this for the people I love. This falls right around 7. The most notable thing about this cake is that it takes hours. Soaking the currants then baking it low takes a long time.

Recipe:
3 cups currants
.75 cup white wine
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter
4 eggs
2 cup flour
.5 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon each cinnamon, nutmeg and mace
3 ounces of reserved wine from the soak


Soak the currants in the wine for at least an hour. Pour off the wine and reserve it.
Prepare a 10x5x3 inch bread pan. Spray it with oil spray then line the pan with parchment and spray it again.
Preheat oven 275 degrees.
Cream the sugar and the butter together. Add the eggs one at a time. Mix the salt and spices into the flour. Add one third of the flour to the eggs and butter. Mix, add half the reserved wine. Add the second third of the flour then the second half of the wine. End with the flour. Mix thoroughly. Fold in the currents. Pour into a prepared 10x5x3 bread pan.
Bake for 2+ hours or until a tester inserted comes out clean. Cool completely before cutting.

As a side note It looks like I'm not going to make the Hickory Nut cake. The nuts are EXPENSIVE and hard to find. They are $28 a pound on the internet and I genuinely don't want to spend that. And sure, I don't need a whole pound, but I'd have to buy a whole pound and it's just not worth it to me. Sorry Anne Byrn.