Cakes - Scripture Cake

As with the Breads section, the Cakes section (one of the longest sections of the books.  We're going to be eating a lot of cake over the course of this blog) opens with a little poem:

"With weights and measures just and true,
Oven of even heat
Well-buttered tin and quiet nerve,
Success will be complete."

Weights and measures?  Check.
Oven of even heat?  Check.
Well-buttered tin?  Check.
Quiet nerve?  It depends on what the boys are up to, but we'll check this one off too.
Success?  Erm... I'm not so confident.  We'll see what Amos, Nahum, Jeremiah, and Samuel have to say about it.

Background

The first recipe in the Cakes section is for Scripture Cake.  This clearly makes sense in that it is a church cook book.  The recipe itself is more murky, but we'll get to that later.  There are actually two Scripture Cake recipes in the book.  It's a little funny because both recipes reference almost all of the same Bible verses.  I suppose it is a good thing because they each are lacking in details in one area, but provide more details in another.  

At the start of the recipe, it says, "This recipe will encourage Bible reading and if the correct ingredients are chosen from the references given, it will make a good cake."  There are a couple things that I think are worth noting.  If you're reading the verses alone, you're not going to get much out of it.  It would have been cool if somehow the verses all together were able to weave some deeper message, but maybe that's too much to ask.  Perhaps if you're reading about "spices and precious stones" you would likely read deeper into the context of the verse.  Personally, I find it a little hard to look passed the somewhat contrived nature of this Bible study, but I guess I can put that aside.  Secondly, the "correct ingredients" are somewhat hard to determine as we shall see later, which makes arriving at "a good cake" a little more doubtful.  Sarah would argue that (thirdly) anything with raisins and dates would not likely result in "a good cake" regardless of the ingredients.  We shall see.

So, without further ado, the recipe:

Time to open the Bible

For those who aren't the Christian analog of a Hafiz, here are the verses which were taken from this website:

1Kings 4:22 - Solomon's provision for one day was thirty kors of fine flour and sixty kors of meal

Judges 5:25 - "He asked for water and she gave him milk; In a magnificent bowl she brought him curds.

Jeremiah 6:20 - "For what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba And the sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable And your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me."

1Samuel 30:12 - They gave him a piece of fig cake and two clusters of raisins, and he ate; then his spirit revived. For he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights.

Nahum 3:12 - All your fortifications are fig trees with ripe fruit-- When shaken, they fall into the eater's mouth.

Numbers 17:8 - Now on the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds.

1Samuel 14:25 - All the people of the land entered the forest, and there was honey on the ground.

Leviticus 2:13 - 'Every grain offering of yours, moreover, you shall season with salt, so that the salt of the covenant of your God shall not be lacking from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt. 

Jeremiah 17:11 - "As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid, So is he who makes a fortune, but unjustly; In the midst of his days it will forsake him, And in the end he will be a fool."

Judges 4:19 - He said to her, "Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty." So she opened a bottle of milk and gave him a drink; then she covered him.

Amos 4:5 - "Offer a thank offering also from that which is leavened, And proclaim freewill offerings, make them known. For so you love to do, you sons of Israel," Declares the Lord GOD.

2Chronicles 9:9 - Then she gave the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold and a very great amount of spices and precious stones; there had never been spice like that which the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

You can see that some problems may arise.  

• The second verse references water, milk, and curds.  I think it is fairly safe to assume that the first ingredient listed is the likely one intended.  
• On the other hand, 1 Samuel 30:12 as well as Nahum 3:12 both have figs as their first ingredient, so presumably the 1 Samuel verse probably refers to raisins.  
• The second Jeremiah verse could be a little problematic.  Do I need partridge?  It's probably not partridge eggs (good 'cause they cost $2.25 each and I can't get any this year) based on what the verse says.  That could mean any kind of egg at all.  Salmon?  Canary?  Alligator?  Of course, it means chicken eggs, but I am used to very specific recipes.
• The Amos verse is probably the most problematic.  "That which is leavened" doesn't tell me much.  The Biblehub page for the verse gives multiple versions of the verse, but whether it refers to leavened bread, yeast, some other leavening, or something else all together is not clear.  Based on the amount called for, I think it is safe to assume that it is either yeast, baking powder, or baking soda.  The end of the recipe says "Follow mixing directions for any basic fruit cake" so I may have to refer to another fruit cake recipe to see what is used there.
• Last things last:  2 Chronicles 9:9.  Gold, spices, and precious stones.  Let's make the assumptions that the Ladies weren't so over the top as to include gold and gemstones in the recipe like some lunatics.  But "spices" is very ambiguous.  I'll probably stick to spices that like sweets like cinnamon or allspice.  

Preparation

Quick note.  As you may notice in the pictures, this is not my kitchen.  I was in my sister and brother-in-law's kitchen.  We drove up to their place for their wedding.  It was a great weekend, but cooking in someone else's kitchen can be tough.  So much hunting for things.  Why couldn't they have organized their kitchen like mine?

Anyway, I decided that the ingredients look enough like a quick bread recipe that I would proceed in that fashion.  I creamed the sugar, eggs, salt, and milk.  Then I came to the figs.  They're big suckers, so they'd need to be dispatched.

So many raisins!  Sarah is very skeptical.

They're sticky too.  I'm growing skeptical too.

As I was cutting the figs up, I thought about how chewy they were going to be in the cake, so I decided to give 'em a good soak along with the raisins in the water that was listed in Judges 5.  That proved to be a good move.  I nuked the raisins and figs in the 1 c. water until it was good and steamy, and let it sit covered while I creamed the wet ingredients.  Once the dried fruit were softened, I slowly added the fruit to the batter whisking as I went.  Nobody wants curdled eggs in their Scripture cake.  

I did look at the other Scripture Cake recipe that was in the cook book, and it helped me narrow down some of the ingredients as it had almost all of the same verses but also mentioned which clause to look at.  It also gave a little insight into the method for preparing the cake.  It said, "Method; Proverbs 23:14"  That says, "You shall strike him with the rod and rescue his soul from Sheol." This meant nothing to me.  Fortunately, Biblehub had multiple translations of this verse.  Some of them mentioned Sheol.  Others mentioned death, and others still mentioned hell.  So my interpretation is that I had to beat the hell out of my batter.  I wonder if this some Lady's little joke.  If so, I like it.  5 points to Mrs. Walter M. Pedersen.

There's still some Sheol in there.

No more Sheol, and we're ready to bake.

Into the oven.  The recipe says one large loaf, but I had far too much batter for one loaf.  So I adjusted the baking time down a little bit, but the centers were still very loose when 45 minutes was up.  I began to fear.  Then I remembered that I am a kitchen superhero.

Never fear!  Kitchen Man is here!  He's got nice legs.

I stopped fearing, and kept baking until the centers no longer jiggled.  And here is our final product.

Nice color.  Crispy caramely edges.  This could be alright.

Unfortunately, I don't have any tasting pictures.  I wasn't that with it.  It wound up being difficult to remove the cakes from the pans as they were pretty sticky.  I managed to get them out mostly in one piece, but there was no hope in cutting them up and arranging them prettily.

Tasting and Reaction

As I mentioned earlier, I made these at my sister's place.  Since Sarah is no fan of raisins nor figs, I thought it would be good to have these where plenty of other people could help us finish them.  The day before Molly and Isaiah's wedding was a get together for family who had traveled from all over the country for the special day.  It was great catching up with people, and sharing food together.

My uncle Paul's picture.  You can see the Scripture cake on the back right side of the table.

I wish I had put out a little pad of note paper for people to write down their thoughts.  I did get a few thoughts though:

• Bev Sandness (one of my mom's aunts) said:  I remember eating it decades ago...... yours was delicious too.  Glad you shared it today.  
• Molly said:  I really loved it.
• To my surprise and hers, even Sarah said it was alright.  She kept picking at one of the pieces as we were driving over to the party.  She said that the crispy edges were the best.  She then added that it reminded her of a sticky energy bar.  That may not be praise, but that she had any at all says a lot.

As for me.  I came in with low expectations.  Fig pieces tended to be the bits of gorp that just happened to not get finished by the end of a canoe trip when I was a guide in the Boundary Waters.  With such an imprecise recipe too, I was worried it wouldn't turn out at all.  On the contrary, it was alright.  It was sweet, dense, and good enough that I probably had five or six pieces all together, even when other sweets were available.  I think that is good enough to have Scripture Cake be the high water mark so far on Cook Book Time Machine.  Well done, Mrs. Carl Green.  I hope you would have been satisfied with my cake.

Final Thoughts

Something that didn't actually strike me until I was finishing up this blog post is that this Scripture Cake probably filled the same role this weekend as it did for some of the Ladies of Zion Lutheran.  People gathered, shared stories, laughed, caught up, ate, danced, sang, and celebrated together.  Though the world of 1951 seems almost foreign to me, I find it comforting that we still gather together in love and fellowship.  The Ladies may not have necessarily cared for the "hippity hop" music (as my great aunt Clara calls it) that was played after the wedding , I think they would have been right at home at the party on Friday and the wedding on Saturday.  

Lastly, here's to you Molly and Isaiah.  I couldn't be happier for you two and I count myself lucky to be a part of your family.  I hope that we will be sharing food and laughs together for many many years to come.  I love you both.

Credit:  Paul Carlander

Next time:  Cookies!