Miss McConnell’s Cake Recipes

This Snow Cake recipe and the others in this post that include Bermuda Cake, Lemon Cake and Ginger Crisps are by Miss McConnell.  They come from a cookbook from 1873.  The cookbook included cake and cookie recipe in the same section.  There is a Ginger Crisps recipe that sounds like it should be a thin cookie.  One of the sad things about these recipes is there are no details on cooking them.  They are really a list of ingredients, but I really want to share them because they are 147 years old as of this year!

I think ladies just knew how to cook and didn’t feel the need to pass on too much detail around 150 years ago.  Women were in the home and being passed down the knowledge of the things they were making by their mothers.  If you are feeling less confident about being handed a list of ingredients to make the cake, I have a few resources to share.

I recently shared an article by Mrs. Belle De Graf about making cake.  She ran a newspaper column in the San Francisco Chronicle for several years.

I have a measurement conversion page that I update as I find information from specific places.

When trying to decide what size pan to make these recipes in, I found a great resource at Sally’s Baking Addiction that you will want to look at.

I won’t be posting printable recipes until I have made any of the cakes in this post.  It would be too difficult to give any more detail that what I have shared without actually making the cakes.

Bermuda Cake

2 cups molasses, 1 cup each, sugar, milk and butter, 1lb fruit: 3/4 raisins, ¼ citron, 1 tablespoon each soda, cloves and cinnamon, 1 nutmeg, 3 eggs, 4 cups flour.

Miss MARY McCONNELL

Lemon Cake

1 teacup butter, 3 of sugar, 5 eggs beaten separately, 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon soda, juice and grated rind of 1 lemon, 4 cups sifted flour.

M. McCONNELL

Snow Cake

1 teacups fine sugar, 1 of flour, 1 small teaspoon cream-tartar whites of ten eggs; flavor to taste.

M. McCONNELL

Ginger Crisps

2 cups molasses, 1 cup sugar, 2 cups butter, 1 tablespoon soda, 2 tablespoon ginger, 1 teaspoon alum.

Miss MARY McCONNELL