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10/29/2020 12:01 AMIf there’s one thing I love better than a good contest, it’s a cake. And so, I do love the idea of an election cake contest, what with a wild election, a pandemic, and more time to spend in the kitchen.
Adam Young of Mystic’s Sift Bakery will be judging a non-partisan cake contest. Entries closed on Oct. 26, and we’ll find out who wins on Monday, Nov. 2, the day before the election on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
According to Connecticut’s official historian, Walter Woodward, years ago there was a Connecticut Election Cake Recipe.
The newer recipe I found, “A Modern Election Cake Recipe,” looks like a half birthday cake, half fruit cake. It calls for yeast, some butter and buttermilk (the latter of my favorite add-ins for all cakes), vanilla, eggs, and so on. Like a fruit cake, you add golden raisins and a quarter cup of dried fruit. And, like a yeast bread, the batter must be allowed to rise for 1 ½ hours in a Bundt pan. I kept thinking how difficult it would be for that yeast to do its job, rising with all that heavy fruit pushing it down. Also, like a fruit cake, it is topped with a glaze.
Anyway, I am not terribly fond of fruit cake. I think about that joke about fruit cake: you know, there is only one fruit cake and it just gets re-sent every year.
If you want to make a cake for socially distanced, masked election gathering, why not make any cake you like and glaze it or frost it with five-minute or chocolate icing or perhaps a decadent buttercream?
I like the recipe here, from Southern Living. I would drizzle it with dark chocolate. You coulvd make it as cupcakes. If you frost it, you might use a pure extract in the frosting, like almond or pecan. Or, what the heck, it’s your house; paint the frosting blue or red!
And make sure you vote!
Lee White of Old Lyme has been a food editor and restaurant reviewer for more than 25 years. You can email her at leeawhite@aol.com.
Million Dollar Pound Cake
From Southern Living magazine
Yield: serves 10 to 12
Ingredients:
1 pound butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour (White Lily if you have it)
¾ cups milk
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy and lighter in color, 1 to 7 minutes depending on the power of your mixer. Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until yellow yolk disappears.
Add flour to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour. Bear at low speed until mixture blends after each addition. (The batter should be smooth and bits of flour should be well incorporated to rid batter of lumps. Stir gently with a rubber spatula. Stir in extracts.
Pour into a greased and floured 10-inch pad. (I use Pam cooking spray with flour; it is in the blue can at the supermarket.)
Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour and 40 minutes, or until a long wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.