Need some way to deal with the insanity of this Election Day? Maybe it’s time to revive an old Election Day tradition from the early days of this country, baking an ELECTION CAKE.
It turns out people used to bake a specific type of cake on Election Day to get through the long nights of counting ballots. It’s kind of like a dense fruit cake.
The recipe involves your standard cake ingredients like flour, butter, and eggs. . . plus things like brown sugar, buttermilk, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, raisins, and pecans.
The election cake recipe is making a comeback right now between the rise in baking during the pandemic and people’s need for ANYTHING to help make this election smoother, it’s a natural fit.
Election Cake Recipe
- 2/3 cup (150ml) warm water (105 to 115°F)
- 1 packages of active dry yeast (1/4 oz/7g)
- 4 cups (565g) all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 8 oz (2 sticks or 225g) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 2 cups (400g) firmly packed brown sugar
- 1 cup (236ml) buttermilk
- 1 Tbsp vanilla
- 1 cup (145g) golden raisins
- 1/4 cup (35g) finely chopped dried cherries (use figs for the original recipe, or any dried fruit that you prefer)
For the Glaze
- 1 1/2 cups (180g) confectioners sugar
- 2 Tbsp whisky (or brandy)
- 1/2 tsp good quality vanilla
-optional: 1 cup of whisky to drizzle onto the cake and numb our pain