Eliza Leslie's two Jelly Cakes

The first "Jelly Cake" using cake in an English language cookbook was in the third edition, of Philadelphian Eliza Leslie’s Seventy-five Receipts, 1830, in the Appendix. Almost thirty years later, Miss Leslie (1787-1858) updated her Jelly Cake recipe.

Jelly Cake 1830
Stir together till very light, a pound of fresh butter and a pound of powdered white sugar. Beat twelve eggs very light, and stir them into the butter and sugar, alternately with a pound of sifted flour. Add a beaten nutmeg, and half a wine-glass of rose-water. Have ready a flat circular plate of tin, which must be laid on your griddle, or in the oven of your stove, and well greased with butter. Pour on it a large ladle-full of the batter, and bake it as you would a buck-wheat cake, taking care to have it of a good shape. It will not require turning. Bake as many of these cakes as you want, laying each on a separate plate. Then spread jelly or marmalade all over the top of each cake, and lay another upon it. Spread that also with jelly, and so on till you have a pile of five or six, looking like one large thick cake. Trim the edge nicely with a penknife, and cover the top with powdered sugar. Or you may ice it; putting on the nonpareils or sugar-sand in such a manner as to mark out the cake in triangular divisions. When it is to be eaten, cut it in three-cornered slices as you would a pie.
Leslie, Eliza. Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats. 3d ed Boston: Munroe & Francis, 1830

Jelly Cake 1857
For baking jelly cake you must have large flat tin pans rather larger than a dinner plate. But a very clean soap-stone griddle may be substituted, though more troublesome. Make a rich batter as for pound cake, and bake it in single cakes, (in the manner of buckwheat, or thicker) taking care to grease the tin or soap-stone with excellent fresh butter. Have ready, enough of fruit jelly or marmalade, to spread a thick layer all over each cake when it cools. Pile one on another very evenly, till you have four, five, or half a dozen; and ice the surface of the whole. Cut it down in triangular pieces like a pie. Jelly cake is no longer made of sponge cake, which is going out of use for all purposes, as being too often dry, tough, and insipid, and frequently not so good as plain bread.
Leslie, Eliza. Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book. Phila: T.B. Peterson, 1857


Kentucky Jam Cake. In the 1980s we lived in Kentucky for a few years and a southern friend would make this layer cake. Tennesee was also known for jam cakes.

Blog posts on Cakes HERE. Gateau de Mille Feuilles cake with cream, marmalade, jelly... between layers of puff paste. July 2024 post HERE

Image of Bordeaux Cake in Frederick Bishop's The Illustrated London Cookery Book. London: J. Haddon printer, 1852. "Pound cake, with alternate layers of preserves, with jam on the top."


UPCOMING TALKS

Feb 4 Tue 7 Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery. Seth Rockman. Mayflower Society HERE TAPE may be HERE

Feb 6 Thur 12 Every History is a Story. Book of Bread. William Rubel HERE

Feb 6 Thur 12:30 Food as a Weapon of the Weak in American Slavery Accounts. Urszula Niewiadomska. Institute of Historical Research. IHR HERE

Feb 6 Thu 7 Chocolate kings. Hershey vs Mars. Dr. Leslie Goddard. Putnam County Public Library District. HERE

Feb 8 Sat 10:30AM History in the Kitchen – Grits. Gunston Hall. families HERE TAPE maybe HERE

Feb 9 Sun 2 How American Children Became the Pickiest Eaters in History. Helen Zoe Veit author of upcoming book Picky: How American… CHoW Culinary Historians of Washington DC HERE

Feb 11 Tue 5:30-7 London's Underground Nightlife of the 1920s & 30s. Lucy Jane Santos. Replay for one week. New York Adventure Club $12 HERE

Feb 11 Tue 7 Taproom Tastings: Asian-American Foodways. Catherine Prescott and Mary Tsaltas-Ottomanelli. Keeler Tavern Museum. donation HERE

Feb 12 Wed 6:30 From the White House to Our House: Why Functional Pots Reflect Culture and Time. Anne Bailey. The International Museum of Dinnerware Design HERE and tape

Feb 12 Wed 10-11:30pm A Pickle Problem: The Deli Revival and American Jewish Religion. Ashkenazi (Eastern European) culinary revival. Rachel B. Gross. New Lehrhaus. $15 HERE

Feb 14 Fri 7AM St Valentine's Day: History, Customs and Historic Food. Love and Loathing. Paul Couchman - The Regency Cook. £21.50 HERE

Feb 14 Fri 10AM There is Death in the Pot. Frederick Accum's (1769-1838) A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons. 1820. Lena Heide-Brennand. Viktor Wynd & The Last Tuesday Society £6.76/10.94 HERE

Feb 14 Fri 5:30-7 The Sacred Sweet: A Journey Through the History of Chocolate. Lucy Jane Santos. Replay for one week. New York Adventure Club $12 HERE

Feb 16 Sun 4 Henry Orr, a Black Caterer in Early Federal Washington, DC. Dr. Leni A. Sorensen. CHAA Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor HERE TAPE may be HERE

Feb 20 Thu 7AM? Sucre à la crème: Origin and Trajectory of an Authentic Québec Confection. Patrick Charbonneau. Mexican Gastronationalism and Vitiviniculture: Contrasting Foundational Myths with Contemporary Multicultural Foodways in Querétaro. Axel Elías. Institute of Historical Research. IHR HERE

Feb 20 Thu 8 Food in the Midwest: More Interesting Than You May Think. Cynthia Clampitt. Chicago Foodways Roundtable. HERE TAPE may be HERE

Feb 23 Sun 8 The Obscure Origins and Mysterious Disappearance of the Savoury Course. Dr. Adam Balic. Bay Area Culinary Historians BACH HERE TAPE may be HERE or HERE

Feb 24 Mon 5:30-7 Fine Dining on the Rails: History of the Pullman Train Car. Becky Libourel Diamond. Replay for one week. New York Adventure Club $12 HERE

Feb 26 Wed 6:30 Chocolate in the Hispanic World. Margaret Connors McQuade. Culinary Historians of New York $10 HERE


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