Episode 65 Pudding & Cream & Cake that is Not a Lie
18th Century, pre-revolutionary cake was generally a heavy dense thing compared to our modern, airy baking powder assisted cakes. The only leavening was yeast and eggs. And sugar? Expensive. Cakes were definitely less sweet. If you were not wealthy, or it wasn't a wedding, birth or a death, molasses and maple syrup (more generally known as "maple molasses" in the 18th century) would stand in. And these too would tend to make your cake more dense as well.
It was also common for cakes to be only slightly sweetened and then studded with dried or sugared fruit - think fruit cake. Either the dense bricky stuff of English descent - or the new Italian star of the modern American winter holiday scene, panettone
18th century cake American cakes were largely thick, moist things that were lightly sweetened. THey would be studded with dried fruit for sweetness, and often served with a sweetened wine sauce to add sweetness and flavor.
Later in the century, and up the social ladder where crystalized sugar was used, the common flavorings were things that were mostly considered uncommon now. Caraway seeds and rose water show up in recipe after recipe. Spice cakes were also typical - ones that included cinnamon, pepper, clove, ginger (dried) or galangal, and the all new allspice were common as well. The one flavor to survive was lemon and citron. While fresh citrus juice was unlikely, the peels dried and candied showed up repeatedly.
Vanilla is still unknown. Chocolate is an exotic drink, and not thought of as a cake flavor.
And the brioches and babkas - the yeast risen sweet bread type cakes that will grow and flourish in eastern Europe and Germany do not have a place in the colonies for a variety of reasons.
First of all, baking culture is very rough and ready. The kitchens and ovens needed to make these long rising cakes are simply not present in the frontier scene. And as I'd mentioned before, the high quality kitchen servant who was turning these masterpieces will have no need to flee to a further shore until the 19th century.
And the kitchen servants and slaves who do arrive in the the colonial kitchens either are learning how to bake as they go - from English cookbooks - which have no tradition of such things.
And thus - even though the colonies are developing a farm scene that starts to have enough eggs, and a pretty good supply of cream and butter - the skills needed to make anything but the most basic cake are entirely lacking.
*Agave "nectar" is not what they use to make tequila.
1) it is a syrup. Nectar is an unregulated marketing term, like "crème" and "creamy". It doesn't actually mean anything.
2) it is concentrated fluid in the leaves of the agave plant.
3) the good stuff, that goes into the tequila is in the "piña" - the center part.
4) it is another industrial waste (like molasses and then rum) that has found a new life as a product on the American market. The sugary liquid concentrated into agave "nectar" is just a profit center for a part of the tequila process that was simply going to waste.
The only reason it hasn't been made into some new spirit - "leaf mezcal" or something is probobly due to the fact that it is much cheaper to simply manufacture industrial ethanol and flavor it. Thus the current rage in "hard seltzer".
Interesting Media:
Byrn, Anne. American Cake. NY; Rodale, 2016
Hess, Karen. The Martha Washington Booke of Cookery. NY; University of Columbia Press, 1981
The Usual Suspects in Cookbooks:
The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy - Hannah Glasse
The Compleat Housewife - Eliza Smith
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