Wednesday's Chow - Stack Cake

Stack Cake was a traditional pioneer wedding cake. Each guest would bring a layer of cake to the ceremony and the cake would be put together at the celebration. Usually applesauce, made from fresh or dried apples was spread between each layer and the layers were stacked.  The bride’s popularity could be measured by the number of stacks and by the number of layers in each stack….the more stacks, the more popular she was. Though one does wonder how this really worked, if she got the catch of the county, would the other girls rejoice in the marriage with lots of layers?

As each guest brought their own favorite type of cake, the cake was apt to be colorful and of varied flavors.  Here’s a recipe for a simple molasses cake, typical of a pioneer times and very likely to be part of a Wedding Stack Cake.

Stack Cake

Ingredients:

 1 cup butter

1 cup sugar
1 cup molasses
3 eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup milk
2 16 ½-oz jars chunk-style spiced applesauce
Whipped cream
Chopped nuts

Directions: 

Cream together butter and sugar.  Stir in molasses; add eggs, one at a time, beating after each.  Stir together flour, soda, and salt, add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating after each addition. Grease and flour three 8x1½ -inch baking pans.  Pour 1 1/3 cups batter into each pan (refrigerate remaining batter).  Bake at 350° till done, about 15 minutes.  Cool 5 minutes, remove from pans and cool on rack.  Wash pans, grease and flour. Repeat with remaining batter. Spread applesauce between layers. Spread whipped cream and nuts on top layer.  Makes 24 servings.