SC - OOP Cider cake

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

The original recipe is from _The American Frugal Housewife_ by Mrs. 
Child (1836)

"Cider cake is very good, to be baked in small loaves.  One pound and a 
half of flour, half a pound of sugar, quarter of a pound of butter, half a 
pint of cider, one teaspoonful of pearlash; spice to your taste.  Bake till 
it turns easily in the pans.  I should think about half an hour."

At the beginning of the chapter on cakes, Mrs. Child says that butter 
should be "very faithfully rubbed into the flour... before the ingredients 
are mixed".  Also, this looked much more like an Irish soda bread than 
a modern cake, so I cut the butter into the flour instead of creaming it 
with the sugar.  Pearlash is a chemical leavening not much used today; 
I substituted baking powder.  I also added salt, on the assumption that 
salt is pretty much a given in most baking recipes.  The biggest problem 
was the liquid.  Half a pint of cider is *not* enough to moisten 6 cups of 
flour.  I decided to call it a "scribal error".  One pint -- or rather half a pint 
for the half-recipe I baked -- worked quite well.  It is perhaps 
unnecessary to mention to this list that in this context, "cider" would 
mean hard cider.  Presumably one could substitute sweet (ie., non-
alcoholic) cider.  I just opened a bottle of Woodpecker.


CIDER CAKE

3 c. flour 
4 TBS unsalted butter (1/2 stick) 
1 TBS baking powder 
1 tsp. salt 
1/2 c. sugar 
1 tsp. allspice 
1/2 tsp. ground ginger 
 about 1 c. cider 

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease a cookie sheet or a cake pan. 
Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices. Cut the butter 
finely into the flour mixture, using a pastry blender or two knives. Add 
the sugar and mix well. Stir in enough cider to make a soft dough. Turn 
it out onto a floured board and knead gently 5 or 6 times. Shape the 
dough into a flat round loaf about 8 inches in diameter, and place in the 
prepared cake pan or cookie sheet. Slash a cross on top of the loaf. 
Place in the preheated oven, and bake until a toothpick inserted into the 
center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Remove from pan, and cool 
thoroughly on a rack before slicing. 


Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
mka Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net