MARTHA’S GREAT CHRISTMAS CAKE

MARTHA’S GREAT CHRISTMAS CAKE

While cakes at the holidays have been around for centuries, it was America’s first First Lady, Martha Washington, who made the first famous Christmas Cake. Below is the exact recipe for celebrating what she called “a true Virginia Christmas” at Mount Vernon:

• “Take 40 eggs and divide the whites from the yolks and beat them to a froth, start to work four pounds of butter to cream and put the whites of eggs to it a spoon full at a time till it is well worked. Then put four pounds of sugar finely powdered to it in the same way, then put in the yolks of eggs, and five pounds of flower, and five pounds of fruit. Two hours will bake it. Add to it half an ounce of mace, one nutmeg, half a pint of wine, and some French brandy.”