Harriott Horry's Water Cake

One of my Christmas gifts to myself this year was copy of the book American Cake: From Colonial Gingerbread to Classic Layer, the Stories and Recipes Behind More Than 125 of our Best-Loved Cakes.  I had been wanting this book for sometime as it combines two of my favorite things - American History and baking cakes.

The book is laid out chronologically.  Each chapter covers a different time period.  There's information about the ingredients available during that period in America, events that were influencing baking, and any big baking trends.  Each recipe also has a write-up that provides some history on the cake and its creator.  I'll be baking through this book over the next year or two, picking two or three cakes from each chapter.

The first chapter covers 1650-1799, and the first cake I chose to bake from here is Harriott Horry's Water Cake.  Harriott Horry was from South Carolina. The cake has only a few ingredients - sugar, water, eggs and flour - and is receptive to any topping you might have on hand.


It didn't look like much coming out of the oven.  Topped with some whipped cream and blackberries, it looks much more inviting.


The cake is described as an early sponge cake, but it does not have the texture of any sponge cake I've ever eaten.  It's almost more like the filling for a pecan pie minus the pecans.  I was concerned I'd done something wrong, but an internet search tells me that other people had the same outcome.  While the cake was edible, it's not one I would make again.  

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