Forward by Jennifer Rae Vliet – If you are one who can exchange the nail biting during this 2024 election time for prayer AND Election Cake, it would seem like the healthier route for the soul and the tummy.
As a CIA trained pastry chef, I am all for reviving this wonderful sentimental and historical practice however, I will be honest…I have not done that much baking for quite a while now. Truth be told, my head, heart and hands have been focused more on sharing truth here at this incredibly special site, The Plain Truth, as well as on election integrity in many forms and getting out the vote projects. Since the day the 2020 election was called and in all of my estimation stolen from the majority, my priorities had shifted quite a bit. Never ever though will I fully set aside my love for baking and couldn’t imagine passing up the chance to marry part of our American story with this affection.
What a cake, I have to say. I have not made this yet, but it is a unique confection no doubt. It seems to be a yeasted, alcohol laden, rich and warmly spiced creation at that. This is a sweet story of American history right here…
Whatever Happened to Election Cake?
Once an American tradition, the practice of baking a cake for Election Day has faded into obscurity, but some have tried to revive it
by Dana Hatic, Whitney Filloon, and Bettina Makalintal
Thanksgiving means turkey, the Fourth of July equals hot dogs and burgers, and Christmas brings ham, so why doesn’t America have a specific food to eat on Election Day? Perhaps because we’re now too mired in disgust and/or despair by the time a presidential election rolls around every four years to be concerned with preparing a special dish. But at one point in time, at least in a certain region of the country, there was something called Election Cake.
It is often connected with Hartford, Connecticut and called Hartford Election Cake, but historians point out that the cake was baked throughout New England and generally referred to as Election Cake in cookbooks.
While the tradition of baking a cake for Election Day has largely fallen by the wayside, the practice goes back hundreds of years. Though historians disagree on the origins of Election Cake — some say it can be traced to England, some say it was an American invention entirely — they seem to agree that it was originally known as “muster cake.” That name could refer to the fact that these cakes were made to feed visitors who were called to militia training days, or to the idea of the cake helping to “muster” votes.
In the cookbook, American Cake, author Anne Byrn writes that Election Cake was often baked by candy makers or bakers and sold on Election Day as a way to draw out voters: “Often confectioners sold tickets to the event. On one such Election Day in 1841 in Montpelier, Vermont, the bakery advertised that with a 50-cent ticket you would receive a pound-size serving of cake and the chance of a ring inside.”
By other accounts, these cakes were also served and sold at town meetings. Following the Revolution, the cakes became tied to the new democratic government, and were baked on Election Day as a celebratory dessert — hence, Election Cake.
Early recipes for the cake, the first of which appeared in a 1796 cookbook called American Cookery, sound not unlike fruitcake, except with a large size that spoke to the cake’s social and communal role. That American Cookery recipe called for 30 quarts of flour and 10 pounds of butter. Many recipe contain dried fruit, booze, and spices like nutmeg and mace (but they also got a leavening boost from yeast, which would’ve helped prevent a dense cake). Below, a recipe from 1889.
Recipes for the cake evolved over decades. Here’s one from a 1965 edition of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook:
As the American Historical Association explains, Election Cake gave women a way to feel like they were participating in the new democracy even though voting at that time was a privilege reserved for the few — namely, property-owning white men: “Unable to cast their own votes, they nevertheless contributed to the civic culture of celebrating the young republic through food.”
Election Cake seemingly never gained much traction beyond New England, and by the early 1900s, it had faded into obscurity as women’s suffrage gained traction. As new generations of Americans took the right to vote as a given, rather than a hard-won battle, the practice of celebrating Election Day by baking a cake fell out of a favor. “We were no longer the only democracy, and such things as popular elections may not have seemed as uniquely American,” the historian Alice Ross writes.
But in response to the 2016 presidential election, a contingent of American bakers, led by Susannah Gebhart of Old World Levain Bakery in Asheville, North Carolina, rediscovered the glory of election cakes and attempted to “#MakeAmericaCakeAgain.” As Bon Appétit reported at the time, these bakers were motivated by a desire to encourage voting, honor history, and even “reinvigorate the lost levity of the democratic process.” The practice then saw a large surge of interest during the 2020 election.
With the nail-biting 2024 presidential election, it may be tempting to forego food altogether in favor of a bottle of whiskey — but we might look to history and consider channeling that energy into baking instead, whether it’s a 19th-century Election Cake recipe or some other cooking project that keeps us from being glued to our phones, at least for a few hours. We may not be able to control the outcome of the election, but we can control our cake consumption.