Connecticut · Dessert
Hartford Election Cake
- Advanced
- 5 h
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a sweet edge rounding the corners, fading in warm spice.
Ingredients
- For the sponge: 200g flour, 7g instant yeast, 250ml warm milk
- For the dough: 400g flour, 200g brown sugar, 170g butter, 2 eggs, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cloves, 1 tsp salt
- 250g raisins soaked in 120ml sherry or brandy
- 100g currants
- For the glaze: 150g icing sugar, 2 tbsp milk
The skills inside
Shaping by handProofing: the rise before the ovenCreaming butter & sugarThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Whisk the sponge ingredients together and let stand, covered, 1 hour until bubbly. 60 min
- Cream the butter and brown sugar, beat in the eggs, then add the sponge, remaining flour, spices, and salt. Knead to a soft, rich dough.
- Work in the drained fruit. Rise, covered, 2 hours until doubled. 120 min
- Shape into a buttered bundt or tube pan and rise 1 hour more. 60 min
- Bake at 175C for 45-55 min until deep brown and hollow-sounding. Cool, then drizzle with glaze. 55 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Creaming butter & sugar 28 recipes
- The butter started at the right temperature: it took a fingerprint and held its shape, neither greasy and slumping nor hard from the fridge.
- It has visibly paled, from yellow towards near-white, and grown in volume, and getting there took minutes rather than seconds.
- The texture is light and aerated: a spoonful is fluffy and holds a soft peak rather than sitting dense on the spoon.
- Rubbed between finger and thumb it is still faintly gritty with undissolved sugar, and not slick or oily.
- It is one homogeneous cream: not split, slackened, or separating into a greasy mass with liquid running out of it.
Where it goes wrong The butter was too warm, or it was beaten well past its point, so the fat softened and gave up the air it had taken: the mixture goes slack and oily and the cake bakes dense and greasy with a sunken middle.
Proofing: the rise before the oven 78 recipes
- Judged on volume against the container rather than on the clock: visibly grown, and grown by roughly the amount the recipe describes.
- The poke test agrees: a floured fingertip pressed a centimetre in leaves a dent that springs back slowly and only part of the way. Straight back means it is not ready; no spring at all means it has gone.
- The surface is domed, smooth, and slightly sheened: not cratered, wrinkled, or collapsed, and not skinned over and dry from proofing uncovered.
- Handled, it feels alive and airy: light for its size, with bubbles visible under the skin.
- It springs in the oven: the piece lifts in the first minutes and the scores open. A shape that does not move at all was proofed past its point before it went in.
Where it goes wrong It was proofed to the clock in a kitchen colder or warmer than the recipe assumed: overproofed, it collapses as the blade touches it and bakes flat and dense with a sour edge; underproofed, it tears at the side and bakes tight.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauternes
- Also Right
- Demi-sec Champagne
- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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