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One transcription of Martha Washington’s Great Cake recipe utilized the following ingredients: a peck of flour, three quarters of a pound of sugar, three pounds of melted butter, and seven pounds of currants. Added to these ingredients were four grated nutmegs, cloves, cinnamon, mace, caraway seeds, water, and salt.
Great Cake. Martha Washington’s Great Cake was a large celebratory cake consisting of fruit and spices. In 1797, George Washington refused to serve a third term as President. Washington bade the public farewell and returned to Mount Vernon in time for Christmas festivities.
The end result was a risen cake similar to panettone, the Italian delicacy that lies somewhere between a cake and bread in texture and is also commonly eaten at Christmas. However, Martha Washington’s Great Cake would have had a denser texture than panettone and contained greater quantities of fruit and spice than the Italian sweet.
In the TV program: Martha Stewart baked this in a 16x16x3-inch square pan (it was HUGE!). I suppose you could divide the batter between two 13×9 pans, too. She frosted it with a meringue (whipped egg white & sugar) that was lightly baked to give it a crunch — and claimed that it would keep for weeks if the cake wasn’t cut.
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