Dried Apricot Cake - A Shaker Recipe

Sometimes when I am thinking about this blog, I just pick a random book off the shelf and browse through it, looking for ideas.  Today I was drawn to The Best of Shaker Cooking, by Amy Bess Miller and Persis Fuller, which was published originally in 1970 and this revised edition in 1985.

ISBN 0-02-584980-8

Shaker cooking is interesting because of the use of herbs and also because those folks really used and polished their recipes.  Cooking tasty, nutritious food was a noble goal in their eyes, as evidenced by this "Comment on Kitchen Education" from the Shaker Manifesto, published in 1883:

The origin of many of the troubles which afflict mankind may be traced to a disordered stomach. ... Give the stomach good, wholesome food, and it will fill your veins with pure blood; which in turn will give you a healthy brain and drive away the whole brood of manufactured troubles. 

The manifesto quote is on page 434 of the cookbook, and is followed by the authors' "Note on Shaker Cooking."

Shaker cooking is not a collection of recipes but rather an attitude toward food and its preparation.  In Shaker kitchens meals were planned and cooked to satisfy both bodily and, in a sense, spiritual hunger.  The Sisters prepared food as efficiently, nutritiously, and tastily as possible.  ... They knew, too, that meals must "create contentment, joy and satisfaction in those who partake of them."

I look at each recipe as one that is proven and pushed to be its best.

In skimming through it, I realized first that I wanted a dessert (my sweet tooth was speaking loudly to me) and second, I had a bag of dried apricots that needed to be used.  A dried apricot cake seemed to fit the requirements.  This recipe had the added bonus that it required sour cream (which I had) and not milk (which I didn't have).  It is credited to the North Union Shaker Village, Ohio.  You can read more about the history of the village by clicking here.

Shaker Dried Apple (or Apricot) Cake (page 213)

1 cup dried apples (or apricots)

1 cup molasses

2/3 cup sour cream

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 3/4 cups flour, sifted

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

The apricots were soaked the night before.  Just apricots and water left on the counter.

Soak dried apples in water overnight.  In the morning cut fine and simmer in molasses for 20 minutes.  Cool.  Combine cream, sugar, and egg and beat until smooth.  Combine dry ingredients and sift several times.  Blend both mixtures and beat until smooth.  Add fruit and molasses.  Turn into buttered bread pan and bake in  moderate 350 degree F. oven for 1 hour.  This is a very tasty dessert; the dried apples take on a citron flavor.  Makes 1 cake.

My Notes

Plan ahead of the day you are making this cake because you have to soak the dried fruit overnight.  

I took the drained, soaked apricots and first sliced them thinly, then chopped them until they were small bits.  Some bits were smaller than others.  

I love the ulu knife.

I put them in a pan with the molasses, brought them to a simmer over medium heat, then reduced the heat to low for the 20 minute simmer.  I stirred them occasionally.  

Before cooking

When the 20 minutes was up, I turned off the heat to let them cool.  This was a good time to start preheating the oven, although it took more than an hour to cool the fruit.  This is also a good time to butter the loaf pan.  I put the oven to 325 degrees because I was using a glass loaf pan.

After cooking

For the rest of the recipe, I just followed along through the steps as directed.  Here is the sour cream, sugar, and egg after mixing.

Then, in a separate bowl, I placed the dry ingredients.  It is helpful to have the brown spices because instead of sifting the mix, I whisked it until it looked well mixed, and the brown spices show me that.

Both mixtures blended together nicely.

And then the fruit and molasses mixture went in.

I noticed that the mixture started bubbling right away, so I moved quickly to get the batter into the bread pan.  Since I wasn't sure how much the cake would rise, I was concerned that putting in all the batter into one pan would overflow it, so I grabbed another loaf pan, buttered it, and put the rest of the batter in it.  Both pans were no more than 2/3 full.

After one hour of baking, the loaf pans came out.  I was disappointed to see that both had collapsed in the middle, although poking in a pick told me they were cooked through.

I let them cool for a little while, then pulled the cakes out of their pans and let them finish cooling on a rack.  Having them upside down made them look better, but I don't think Paul Hollywood of the Great British Baking Show would have been fooled by this.

The Verdict

These are dark cakes and the scent of cinnamon and cloves filled the house.  Very nice!

The texture was fine, the crumb was moist and tender, and the fruit came through as little bits of chewy dispersed throughout.  I thought it was interesting that I could not tell they were apricots, as the flavors of the molasses and the spices were dominant. 

It was sweet but not cloyingly so.  The exterior was a little chewy and slightly crisp, which was nice.  Later it was not really crisp but very sticky.  If you don't like cloves, find a substitution because they were very dominant, along with the molasses.  I found that there was a pleasant bitterness, which my guest taster thought was wonderful.  He decided this cake would be perfect with his 80 year old madeira, so I gave him some pieces to take home.

My conclusion was that this cake needed a frosting, so I took some cream cheese and spread it on a piece.  That was good, but what was better was mixing cream cheese with a little powdered sugar and a splash of lemon juice, mixing it until it was smooth, then spreading it on the cake.  

That was excellent.  The frosting added another layer of complexity and also balanced the bitter, sweet, and spice with a creamy texture and a little sour from the lemon juice.

I think this cake would be good with a robust tea or hot coffee.  I also think it might be good with a little finely slivered bits of candied ginger in the batter.  Perhaps replacing the cloves with powdered ginger would be good.  A sprinkling of slivered almonds over the frosting would be pretty and tasty, too.

Success!  The recipe "felt" like a quick bread but some of the techniques (cooking the fruit in molasses, mixing the wet with the dry ingredients thoroughly) were different.  I don't know what I did wrong that made the tops sink in, but it turned out to be no big deal once I turned them over.  It is very reminiscent of a gingerbread, but softer and very moist and tender.

A Digestive Biscuit. Very British!

My guest taster was given a very special bottle of wine:  an 80 year old bottle of Sercial Madeira.  We were told it would go best with cheese, nuts, and digestive biscuits.  I accepted the challenge and found a recipe for the biscuits, all the while wondering why they are called that.

A quick trip to Wikipedia answered my question.  Two Scottish doctors created the biscuit in 1839 with the idea it would help with digestion, because of the supposed antacid properties from the sodium bicarbonate in them.  (Click here for the article.)  It was also pointed out that,

[d]igestive biscuits are frequently eaten with tea or coffee.  Sometimes, the biscuit is dunked into the tea and eaten quickly due to the biscuit's tendency to disintegrate when wet.  Digestive biscuits are one of the top 10 biscuits in the United Kingdom for dunking in tea.  The digestive biscuit is also used as a cracker with cheeses, and is often included in "cracker selection" packets.

I found a recipe in The English Biscuit and Cookie Book by Sonia Allison.  Ms. Allison describes them as "Traditional midmorning and very British biscuits".

ISBN 0-312-25347-8

Digestive Biscuits (page 8)

3/4 cup whole-wheat flour

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon oatmeal

4 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons brown sugar

3 to 4 tablespoons cold milk

Cold butter, cold whole wheat flour, cold milk

1.  Sift the flours and baking powder into a bowl.   Add the oatmeal.

2.  Rub in the butter.  Add the sugar.  Run the mixture through the fingers to mix well.

3.  Using a fork, stir in the milk to form a stiff paste.

4.  Turn onto a floured surface.  Knead lightly until smooth.  Roll out thinly.

5.  Cut into 12 rounds with a 2 1/2-inch cookie cutter, re-rolling and re-cutting trimmings to make the required number.

6.  Transfer to greased cookie sheets and prick all over with a fork. 

7.  Bake until pale gold, allowing 15 to 18 minutes in an oven preheated to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

8.  Cool on a wire rack.  Store in an airtight tin when cold.

My Notes

Start the oven preheating!

When I read over the recipe, it struck me that it is basically a pie crust made with whole- wheat flour and with sugar added.  So I treated it as such.

I measured out the butter first (4 tablespoons is 2 ounces) and put it in the freezer.  It wasn't frozen solid but it was very cold.  

My whole-wheat flour lives in the freezer, so it was used that cold. 

The flours and baking powder well mixed.  Oatmeal waiting for inclusion.

When it came time to rub in the butter, I first grated the butter and then mixed it with my fingers into the very cold flour.  

Grated very cold butter.

The same with the sugar -- I measured it into the flour and butter mixture, then mixed it with my fingers until it was well blended (it was still cold).  

The butter is mixed in.

The brown sugar has been added.

It took 5 tablespoons of milk to get the dough to come together like a pie crust.  Four tablespoons just wasn't damp enough.  

With four tablespoons of milk.

Then I put the dough into a covered bowl to rest in the refrigerator for 15 minutes while I cleaned up and set up for rolling and cutting.

With 5 T of milk and some mixing with my hands.

The recipe says you will end up with 12 biscuits, but I got 20.  

Instead of pricking it all over with a fork, I used my Uzbekistan chekich, a bread stamp with a pretty design made from nails.  Actually, I used both of my chekich to see how the biscuits would turn out.  (My daughter brought them back from her trip to Uzbekistan several years ago.)

The first batch came out golden brown in 15 minutes.  The second batch overcooked a little in 14 minutes.  

Second bread stamp pattern

The Verdict

Crispy!  Slightly sweet, and then nutty from the whole wheat.  Overall sort of bland but not in a bad way.  

I can see them as a backdrop for butter or cheese and to go with tea (what I drink) or coffee (what my guest taster drinks).

We had them with the Madeira along with a white cheddar studded with cranberries and also some almonds.  Delightful!  Eighty year old Madeira is smooth, flavorful, and perfect with the suggested accompaniments.  

There is still some Madeira left so making a second batch of digestive biscuits is a high priority.  

Success!