All Cakes Considered - Melissa Gray [79]
15. Sprinkle ¼ cup of the reserved chopped pecans on top of the cake. For an added touch, you can press the remaining ¼ cup of chopped pecans onto the sides of the cake with your spatula.
16. Take the 6 nice-looking pecan halves you saved and press them into the top of the cake in a pleasing pattern.
17. Cover the cake loosely and allow to mature for at least a day before serving.
Appalachian Stack Cake
You’ll Never Make Fun of Meemaw and Pawpaw Again
And really, you shouldn’t. Sometimes Meemaw and Pawpaw (whom you non-Southern types would call Grandmother and Grandfather) have a good thing going. Appalachian Stack Cake, a.k.a. dried apple stack cake, or Confederate old-fashioned stack cake, or Kentucky pioneer wash day cake, is one of them.
This is not a traditional layer cake by any means: there’s no cake crumb to divide and layer. Instead, it’s several giant molasses cookies pressed out flat and sprinkled with sugar. In between these cookies is a thick spread of spiced apple filling. This cake is the opposite of elegant; it looks like Lady Baltimore’s poor mountain cousin, whom she doesn’t admit to, but wow, how that cousin charms! What taste! She’s like a Fig Newton too, but with apples! An Apple Newton!
Want a different kind of wedding cake? This might be the cake for you. According to mountain tradition, before a wedding, neighboring home bakers would each make a layer for the stack wedding cake. The number of layers in the cake were said to be a measure of the bride’s popularity. Her family would prepare the apple filling themselves.
Just want to make your house smell good? This still might be the cake for you. It takes 45 minutes to 1 hour to make the apple filling, which includes brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. Burning a spice candle doesn’t do half the job of this simmering mixture.
This is a recipe from Southern Living magazine’s 2005 annual collection, which comes with this caveat: “Don’t be tempted to eat the cake until it has stood for two days. This seasoning allows the moisture from the filling to soften the cake layers. This cake also freezes well.”
Appalachian stack cake can be thinly sliced, but it’s tricky. Plus people always come back for seconds, so count on serving 16 to 20.
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YOU’LL NEED
A large saucepan
3 medium bowls
Two 8-inch round cake pans
5 plates
FOR THE FILLING
1⅛ pounds (about 3 cups) dried sliced apples
6 cups water
1 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
FOR THE COOKIE LAYERS
⅓ cup shortening
½ cup plus 2½ teaspoons sugar
1 large egg
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup molasses
½ cup buttermilk
TO MAKE THE FILLING
(Yes, start the filling first!)
1. In a large saucepan over high heat, combine the apples and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Mix together the brown sugar and spices in a separate bowl, and set aside. While the apples are simmering, you can skip ahead to step 4 and begin the cookie layers.
3. After the apples have simmered for 30 minutes, stir the brown sugar and spices into the apple mixture, and return to a boil. Then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 to 30 minutes more, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has evaporated from the filling.
TO MAKE THE COOKIE LAYERS
4. Center a rack and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare the cake pans.
5. With the mixer on medium speed, beat the shortening until creamed. Gradually add ½ cup of the sugar and beat until smooth. Add the egg and beat until the yellow disappears, about 5 minutes.
6. In a separate bowl, dry whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.
7. In another bowl, stir the molasses and buttermilk together.
8. With the mixer on medium