Kit's Appalachian Apple Stack Cake

A cake that could be a real community effort!

Sorry again for the delay. My life post-vow renewal/reception has surprisingly meant even less time and energy for the blog than before, and as much as I miss it, it's kind of been nice to have some time to get the rest of my life back on track. 

What better way to get back in action than to try out this cake that - allegedly - would have been enjoyed at wedding celebrations in Depression-era Appalachia? Read on to see how this unusual, slightly involved cake may or may not have been the hit at weddings from time gone by.

I've been enchanted by this cake since I first learned of its existence, but it's slightly high maintenance assembly instructions have always had me shying away from making it myself. The story goes that these cakes originated in Appalachia and were big hits at weddings for brides who didn't have much to spare on fancy wedding cakes. Instead of splurging on ingredients, the bride's female relatives and friends would each bake a layer of cake and bring it to the wedding, slathering each layer of cake with apple butter and stacking them one on top of the other. Popular brides had very tall cakes. This unique tradition helped people be thrifty while showing their support for the new couple, something Kit's Aunt Millie would no doubt approve of. 

There's a decent chance this story is just that - a story. Isn't that the way with so many fun recipe origins? Anne Byrn of American Cake notes that a cake assembled and eaten on the same day would be dry and kind of unpleasant tasting. You need to let it sit at room temperature for at least a day or two to let the apple butter fully seep into the layers. Not exactly ideal for a day of assembly, right? 

But I think it's still possible there's some truth to this maybe folktale. In communities where family and friends lived close by, it's totally not out of the question for the volunteer bakers to be able to swing by and drop off a cake the day or two before a big event. The layers I made were also small enough that I would think a particularly close friend or relative could swing making a layer or three instead of just the one, so who knows? Maybe the story's perfectly true. 

Either way, on to the recipe. 

Again, I cracked open American Cake to guide me, although I cheated quite a lot by totally ignoring her instructions on how to make my own apple butter. We went apple picking with our friends and picked up a jar of homemade apple butter from the orchard that I figured would be equally tasty and save me quite a bit of time. 

The cake batter in American Cake is pretty simple, and ends up with a really thick end product. Mix together 5 cups of flour with 1 teaspoon each of baking soda and baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Set this aside, and in a separate bowl, combine 2/3 of a cup of shortening, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 cup of molasses. Blend this together with a hand mixer and add two eggs, one at a time. Finally, alternate the dry ingredients with 1 cup of room temperature buttermilk. 

Divide the batter into six layers, and add them to as many nine inch cake pans as you can which have been greased and lined with parchment paper.

The layers get baked for about 16 minutes at 350 degrees. Once they're done, let them cool in the pan for three minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool. As soon as they're on the wire, slather them liberally with apple butter and start stacking.

This is where the recipe started to lose me. I only have two nine inch cake pans, so it took a long time to get the cake baked, and working with the batter and the parchment paper was really difficult. It was so thick, it kept peeling the parchment paper off the bottom of the pan. After they were done baking, the layers were uneven, and definitely not the pancake shape or texture I'd been told they should look like. Stacking uneven layers lead to some cracking, that while not completely catastrophic to the construction of the cake, was still annoying to have to deal with. By the time I had all six layers out of the oven, slathered in apple butter, stacked, and dusted with powdered sugar, I was definitely ready to just put the cake dome on and let it sit for a while instead of fussing with it more. 

So, what did it taste like?

Just okay. This cake wasn't one of my absolute favorites I've ever made, which is admittedly sort of not fair because I've made quite a number of cakes since starting this blog. I have to admit, I think that assessment might also have more to do with my frustration with getting the batter in the pans and the fact that the cake started to crack, plus I was trying to organize a Halloween party and just feeling super burnt out on the blog in general, so when I finally bit into the cake and discovered it was a little dry and not super sweet, I was just underwhelmed and kind of eager to move onto the next thing. I'd be interested in trying it again, or maybe experimenting with a different recipe, but probably not for a while. The odds of me cycling back around to a dish and trying a different version is pretty slim when I've got so many other things I'd like to try out. 

The cake was a little dry, although the apple butter did ooze into the layers the way it was advertised and offered a nice moistness and apple flavor. The cake itself had a texture that definitely reminded me of a soft gingerbread cookie rather than a real cake, but that was to be expected after handling the cakes when they came out of the oven. A couple folks tried it at the party, but considering how many half eaten pieces I ended up throwing out and the fact that most of the cake remained untouched, I feel like it wasn't really a fan favorite either. 

Which is fine! Not every recipe can knock it out of the park, and I'm glad I gave this a try anyway. Let's just hope the next adventure is a little more worth the hassle.

Until then, we have a lot of cake to dole out to folks!