Historically Christmas has been one of those rare times that the marginalized ate cake. Why, because the ingredients including the flour, baking powder, sugar necessary represented a sum of many that would have taken the average person weeks if not months to earn. The author of the cake recipe below, Amy C. Fisher, was born in South Carolina circa 1837 the offspring of an enslaved woman whose's master, a European from France, impregnated. Fisher would go on to work as a cook in her adult life. She eventually relocated to San Francisco where she had a thriving catering business. That's what we at Babson College call, entrepreneurship in action.
Jumble Cake Recipe
Ingredients
1 teacup butter
1 and ½ teacups sugar
1 and ½ pints of flour
4 eggs
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1/2 teacup of almonds chopped fine
2 teaspoons of yeast powder
Instructions
1 teacup of butter, 1 and ½ teacups of sugar, 1 and ½ pints of flour; 4 eggs, 2 teaspoonfuls of cinnamon, 1/2 teacup of almonds chopped fine, 2 teaspoonful of yeast powder sifted in the flour. Beat the butter, sugar and eggs together, then add the flour. Put cinnamon and almonds in and work the whole up well, then roll on the board to thickness of half an inch, and cut out a finger's length and join together at ends, so as to be round. Grease pans with butter and put to bake.
*Abby C. Fisher, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking. (San Francisco: Women's Co-op Printing Office, 1881)
