46 replies to this topic

[viva]

Alrighty - I was recently given a cooking challenge by a dear family member, and I would love to surprise her with a resurrected recipe. I need your help!

Every year for Christmas, she had an aunt who used to make a Pork Cake as a version of fruitcake. She doesn't have too many details about the cake, other than this: she's not really sure how the pork got into the cake (other than it wasn't in large, obvious chunks). It was a light-colored fruitcake, with candied fruits, and no obvious taste of liquor. (Personally, I think the concept of cake, pork, dried apples & whiskey might necessitate a little deviation from that memory).

I posted about this in the Fruit Cake thread, but it landed there with a dull thud. I think y'all are the ones who understand that "Pork" and "Cake" are not mutually exclusive terms.

I've done a bit of internet searching, and Pork Cake looks to be a heritage recipe in the South (and Midwest), but the recipes are pretty vague, specifically regarding the pork. Most recipes say "salt pork" or "fat pork", either ground or chopped fine, either saying "very fat" or "no lean". Inevitably the pork is covered with some boiling water, and then mixed with the other ingredients. Sometimes it is drained, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes the instructions say to let the pork/water combo sit and cool. All the recipes are damn old and not specific enough for this inexperienced Pork Cake baker. Even more confusing... some recipes just use "ground pork sausage" without the boiling water step.

Otherwise the recipes appear to be standard fruitcake recipes, maybe with coffee or whiskey, and various chopped candied/dried fruits. This makes me wonder if I can take a good white fruitcake recipe and replace the butter/fat with the ground fat pork/water combo.

There's a teasing mention of a Pork Cake in the Resurrect This Cake thread here, but no one appeared to be up to the challenge. I, friends, am willing to experiment. Thoughts?

[mighty quinn]

i'm from n.c. and have lived all over the south. i'll take a look in some of my jr. league cookbooks to see if there's something like this, but frankly, i've never heard of it. could it be like putting suet in mince meat?

[AmbrosiaFood]

I found a pork cake similar to what my grandmother used to make at the holidays at : http://search.yumyum...pe.htm?ID=20126



Is this what you wanted?

[Chloe]

I don't know about pork cake, but in Portugal there is a creme caramel with pork fat in it to make it extra unctious!

Chloe

[viva]

AmbrosiaFood, yes, that looks like most of the recipes I found online. You said your grandmother made something similar...did you like it?

Since I am not sure exactly what I am supposed to be making, I think I am going to try a couple of varieties to see what happens...

- Chopped pork fat/boiling water method, similar to the recipe posted by AmbrosiaFood, adding a few more candied/dried fruits and, er, maybe just a wee bit of whiskey.

- Pork sausage method

- A regular old white fruitcake as emergency backup

Since this could expand the horizons of pork fat cooking everywhere...I'll post results of the Great Pork Cake Experiment!

[AmbrosiaFood]

AmbrosiaFood, yes, that looks like most of the recipes I found online.  You said your grandmother made something similar...did you like it?

Since I am not sure exactly what I am supposed to be making, I think I am going to try a couple of varieties to see what happens...

- Chopped pork fat/boiling water method, similar to the recipe posted by AmbrosiaFood, adding a few more candied/dried fruits and, er, maybe just a wee bit of whiskey.

- Pork sausage method

- A regular old white fruitcake as emergency backup

Since this could expand the horizons of pork fat cooking everywhere...I'll post results of the Great Pork Cake Experiment! 

Yes, I liked my grandma's pork cake a lot! Her cookbooks [with her handwritten notes inside], are in storage, so that is why I had to do a online search.

I will be interested in hearing how your cake experiment turns out!

[fifi]

Dear Sister and I have researched this topic and we can only find a recipe that she used to make with pork sausage. She was feeding a hungry hoard at the time and this rich cake was a good filler and easy to make. It was like a dense spice cake baked in a bundt pan.

We can't find a recipe amongst our fairly extensive resources with the minced pork fat.

I do have to say that it sounds really good. After all, mince meat had suet in the traditional preparation. I can imagine that the pork fat melting during baking would impart a fabulous texture. I will have to try this.

[andiesenji]

Okay folks,
Here is the recipe for pork mincemeat cake from my aunt. I spent over an hour on the phone with her while she dictated the recipe. I typed it out then called her back and went over it line by line to make sure I have it exactly as it should be. Should I also post it on the fruitcake thread?

Meemaw's Pork Mincemeat Christmas cake.

Pork Mincemeat 1 1/2 pounds (prepare at least a week ahead)
See below for recipe.

currants or sultanas 15 oz
chopped pecans 2 cups
vanilla 1 Tablespoon
rum or brandy 1/4 cup (or a mixture of the two)
butter melted 1/2 cup
brown sugar 2 cups
eggs, separated 3 extra large
baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoons
water 1/4 cup
cake or pastry flour 3 cups

1. Preheat oven to 275°. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan (can use bundt pan)
2. in a large bowl, combine mincemeat, currants or sultanas, nuts, vanilla and liquor - set aside
3. In a large mixer bowl, combine butter, sugar and egg yolks: beat well. Combine baking soda and water, add to mixture.
4. Sift flour over mincemeat mixture, stir to mix well.
Combine contents of both bowls; mix well. (Batter will be stiff)
5. In small bowl of mixer, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold into batter.
6. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Bake at 275° for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, or until done. (Cake will pull away from sides of pan)
7. cool slightly, remove from pan. Cool completely and wrap to store.
(Wrap in cheesecloth - *spritz with rum, brandy, flavored brandy or flavored liquor - then wrap in plastic wrap or aluminum foil) Place in cake tin.

Cake keeps very well.

* I keep a small spritzer bottle in the kitchen just for liquor - the alcohol will evaporate rapidly from cooked foods and will evaporate in about 3 days when used on baked goods like this cake - for people like me who have an allergy to alcohol.

This method uses much less alcohol than pouring it on the cake and there is less chance of having soggy lumps saturated with liquor.

There is a commercial rum and brandy mix that is usually only available during the holidays. With the addition of vanilla - about 1 teaspoon to 1 cup of the liquor, this gives a very nice flavor to this type of cake.

Cherry Heering or Peter Heering the cherry liquer is also an excellent flavoring for fruit cakes.
-------------------------------

MeeMaw's Pork Mincemeat

1 pound lean cooked pork cut into strips
1/3 pound pork fat cut into strips
1 pound dried apples cut into pieces
1 pound Sultanas or golden raisins
1 pound mixed peel
1/2 pound citron
1/2 pound dried pineapple
1/2 pound blanched almonds

zest and juice of one large orange
zest and juice of two lemons
zest and juice of one grapefruit
1 teaspoon cinnamon, freshly ground
1 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly ground
1 teaspoon allspice, freshly ground
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
1 teaspoon kosher salt

2/3 cup sweet sherry
1/2 cup brandy
1/2 cup rum

Gather the first 8 ingredients on a tray or platter.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
Using a food grinder with the coarsest blade, alternate ingredients as you put them through the grinder so they are combined in a Dutch oven or roasting pan large enough to hold everything.
After grinding, mix well with your hands.

Add the next 8 ingredients, cover tightly and cook for 2 hours.
Remove from oven.
Place a metal colander in a large pan, line with cheesecloth and spoon the mixture into the colander.
Stir gently, turning the mixture over to drain away most of the liquid fat.
Return the mixture to the cooking pot.
Add the sherry, brandy and rum, stir well.
Cook over low heat, stirring constantly for about 20 to 30 minutes.
Ladle into sterilized jars, cover tightly and store in a cool place for one week prior to use.
Once opened, store in refrigerator.

[viva]

I'm all over this. Thank you for passing on MeeMaw's recipe, andiesenji!!

I picked up dried fruits at the store today and will be making fresh candied peel tonight. Will stop at the butcher tomorrow for some pork & pork fat... actually I asked at the grocery store today (wishful thinking), and got a blank stare: "you want what?" Yeah, you heard me. Pork fat. <sigh>

I think MeeMaw's recipe is the closest to what I am looking for, I'll post pictures of how it looks during the process! I'm also going to try one of the chopped fat/boiling water recipes, if only because I want to see how it turns out.

I'm thinking that maybe Applejack might be a good liquor to use as well? I've been hankering to use some after the Applejack thread popped up in the Fine Spirits forum.

[andiesenji]

You can use any kind of liquor as long as the proportions are the same and you can substitute it for the sherry too.
The amount of alcohol is critical as that is the preservative that keeps the stuff from spoiling or getting moldy.
My aunt said that she used Galliano one year when she had a bottle that someone had given her and she had no other use for it (doesn't drink anything except an occasional Ezra Brooks bourbon and water).
She said that she often uses "whatever is handy" meaning that if someone leaves a bottle of something at her home after a party, she feels free to appropriate it for her baking. That is, anything but scotch. She says that it may be sacrilege to some but the smell of it always reminds her of her husband's old boots. (He was a petroleum engineer.)

[jackal10]

Interesting.
The mincemeat recipe looks very much like a traditional Xmas mincemeat, except without the sugar, and with pork instead of beef. I wonder if that is beacuse that was all that was locally available?

Mincemeat recipies with fruit and meat in turn can be traced back to medieval times. It was usually used as a pie or tart filling or to stuff apples. I wonder if there is the equivalent.

The cake recipe may in turn relate to European puddings with meat or mincemeat, such as Xmas pudding,or the Scottish Black Bun.

Is there the porky equivalent of other sorts of suet puddings? Roly Poly, Spotted Dick, Ssssex Pond, etc?

[viva]

The Pork Mincemeat Cake Experiment began last night with a fresh batch of candied orange and lemon peel. I added a bit of triple sec to the sugar syrup for some extra kick.



This morning I found my pork fat at the local carnicerias – they were much more helpful than the local chain grocery, although unfortunately my Spanish knowledge does not extend to “pork back fat”, so we were all gesturing at our backs while saying “pork” and “lard”. It worked.

The only change I made was to add white figs to the dried fruits, but keeping the total weight of dried fruit the same. Here’s everything all chopped and ready to be ground (with pork & pork fat front & center):



This was my first foray into meat (well, anything) grinding, and damn is it fun! Was it wrong that I kept singing “the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out” while the standing mixer was grinding away? It is Halloween, after all. I’ve got to find more recipes where I get to grind stuff. [/end brief juvenile foray]

Anyway, here’s everything all ground up and ready to be put in the oven:



2 hours later, here’s the mincemeat out of the oven:



It smelled and tasted ***phenomenal***. (I ate a bit.) There was no obvious “pork” flavor, but it was rich and fruity.

There was really no liquid fat to drain off the mincemeat, it had the consistency of a very moist stuffing. I didn’t worry too much, since I don’t have a problem with a little extra pork fat. I moved on to cooking the mincemeat with the liquor… here I substituted Applejack and rum (Appleton, heh). Jarred it up, and it is now resting peacefully for the next week:



I’m hoping there might be a little extra mincemeat in addition to the 1.5 lbs that the recipe calls for, because this, added to a little cornbread or similar, would be a spectacular stuffing for turkey.

Next weekend, the actual cake.

[andiesenji]

2 hours later, here’s the mincemeat out of the oven:

It smelled and tasted ***phenomenal***.  (I ate a bit.)  There was no obvious “pork” flavor, but it was rich and fruity. 

Next weekend, the actual cake.

My aunt said that one of the "problems" of making this stuff was that if Meemaw (and now her) turns her back after the roasting, some of it would "disappear" and she would catch one of her sons tucking into a leftover biscuit with a bit too much gusto.

This is a reduced size recipe. Meemaw made 8 quarts in a batch and usually made two or three batches. My aunt cut it down when she began making it 40 or 50 years ago. She hasn't made it for several years but our discussion has reminded her just how good it was and she is going to make a batch this week.
She said her husband liked it layered in between layers of "Johnnycake" or sweetened cornbread.
She would make 4 or 5 thin layers of sweetened cornbread, with buttered brown paper on the top during baking so it wouldn't form a crust. After putting the cake together with the mincemeat in between the layers, she would drizzle "raisin wine" on it. Which is simply sherry in which raisins (or other dried fruits) have been soaking for some time.
She would then wrap it tightly in muslin with more of the liquid drizzled over it and then in "tin" foil. However she would store it in the ice box, usually hidden behind the vegetables to keep the boys out of it.

[andiesenji]

By the way, your photos are wonderful.

[andiesenji]

The Pork Mincemeat Cake Experiment began last night with a fresh batch of candied orange and lemon peel.  I added a bit of triple sec to the sugar syrup for some extra kick.

This was my first foray into meat (well, anything) grinding, and damn is it fun!  Was it wrong that I kept singing “the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out” while the standing mixer was grinding away?  It is Halloween, after all.  I’ve got to find more recipes where I get to grind stuff.  [/end brief juvenile foray]

I’m hoping there might be a little extra mincemeat in addition to the 1.5 lbs that the recipe calls for, because this, added to a little cornbread or similar, would be a spectacular stuffing for turkey.

Next weekend, the actual cake.

There IS something about grinding things that look one way and have them look totally different when they come out of the grinder.
I love making pimento cheese, alternating mild cheddar and the canned large pimentos or sweet peppers from the middle eastern store.

The mincemeat mixture would be good in stuffing. It is also good in fried pies or little tarts. I also seem to remember that Meemaw made a side dish with this mincemeat and chestnuts.
Since I didn't spend as much time at their house as I did with my other grandparents, my memories are not as sharp.

[viva]

I may bring any extra mincemeat to Thankgiving and do a little stuffing experimentation exercise. It's still sitting there, looking tasty, and I am trying to keep from eating it all before I make the cake.

To borrow Emeril's phrase, pork fat rules.

[andiesenji]

I may bring any extra mincemeat to Thankgiving and do a little stuffing experimentation exercise.  It's still sitting there, looking tasty, and I am trying to keep from eating it all before I make the cake.

To borrow Emeril's phrase, pork fat rules.

You could probably make another batch, after all, there is "another" holiday in a month!!!

[andiesenji]

I received a newsletter today from Diana Serbe, from In Mama's Kitchen,
and noted that there were several English christmas recipes represented, including one for mince meat, the real thing, containing beef.

This one appears to be fairly simple, fewer ingredients and fewer steps than the one I have so I am posting it for those who may not want to use pork.

Mincemeat recipe.

[helenjp]

That "In Mama's Kitchen" site is wonderful! I've often thought that the best memorial I could make to my mother is to organize her recipes and pass the old favorites on to those who would like them. There's a good 100 years of recipes to go through, just gotta get them out of storage when I go back to NZ next.

I'd appreciate it if you would post the pork mincemeat cake on the cakes thread - here in Japan, beef suet is hard to find, and beef is either dubious or ruinously expensive. I will most certainly be trying this recipe out!

[viva]

Well, folks, I finished the Pork Cake last night. Yay!

First step is the batter. I’m pleased to report that there is probably 3-4 times as much mincemeat in Andie’s recipe than you need for the cake, so there’s plenty left over for stuffing experimentation and, well, just general snacking. I added chopped dried apples, dried pineapple, and sultanas in the final batter, and used Applejack again as the liquor.



All I have to say is that MeeMaw must have had a mean right arm, because stirring the flour into the mincemeat requires muscle power. “Batter will be stiff” is an understatement! Heh. Anyway, after adding the brown sugar-egg mixture, the flavors in the mincemeat came out even more.

I had enough batter to make myself a little mini-loaf too – because the cake is a gift, I need quality control, don’t I? Just to make sure it’s a good gift?



After 2 hours of smelling wonderful, the cake was done…



This is a picture of the interior of the half-eaten mini-loaf. Sorry that it isn’t in the best focus, but let’s just say by the time I realized the focus problem, the mini-loaf was <ahem> gone. It was ***delicious***… by far one of the best tasting fruit cakes I have ever had. Snaps to MeeMaw!



I’m clearly going to need to start rendering my own lard, because pork fat is just a whole ‘nother flavor dimension. Next up I am going to make another of the recipe types, wherein you chop the pork fat and pour boiling water over it. The dried fruit is soaking now.

Thanks for your family recipe, Andie! I’ll let you know how my family likes it in a few weeks.

[andiesenji]

That "In Mama's Kitchen" site is wonderful! I've often thought that the best memorial I could make to my mother is to organize her recipes and pass the old favorites on to those who would like them. There's a good 100 years of recipes to go through, just gotta get them out of storage when I go back to NZ next.

I'd appreciate it if you would post the pork mincemeat cake on the cakes thread - here in Japan, beef suet is hard to find, and beef is either dubious or ruinously expensive. I will most certainly be trying this recipe out!

Helen,
It is post #8 in this thread. I can post it on the fruitcake thread if necessary. However I believe Viva has already cross linked it.

[andiesenji]

Regarding the "very stiff batter" in the pork cake. I think Meemaw used her hands to mix it.
She did have strong arms. Even though by the time I knew her, they had had a washing machine for several years, the bedding always was washed or boiled, in a big tub in the back yard and Meemaw would work that tub full of sheets with a long handled paddle.

She wasn't a very big woman but tough. She would go out to the woodshed and split wood for the wood stove if the "boys" weren't moving fast enough for her.

I either use my hands (gloves, of course) or use the Danish whisk I got from King Arthur Flour a few years back. It is perfect for cutting through stiff dough.

I always wear gloves because invariably, as soon as I get my hands in a mess of something, the phone will ring. This way I just strip off a glove and answer. Clean hand = clean phone.

[andiesenji]

By the way, Viva, I am so pleased that you like the cake. As soon as I get caught up with my current tasks, I am going to fix some of the mincemeat also.

[viva]

Andie, I'm happy to do your family recipe proud. I think my stepmother will be very pleased as well - I can't wait to see if this is the type of cake that she was fondly remembering from her youth. If it ain't, I'm taking the whole thing back home with me! :)

[andiesenji]

You certainly did a beautiful job with it. It looks perfect.

[lovebenton0]

Viva, beautiful cake! And great shots all the way through.

Andie, thanks for posting the recipe -- a bow to Meemaw and your aunt as well. Thannks to all the recipe/pics and discussion I'm now thinking the mincemeat would be ideal in my cornbread dressing for T-Day.

[bleachboy]

What a thread!! Great photos, viva! I really can't imagine how this cake tastes. Maybe some weekend...

[viva]

Another little update: I made another one of the pork cake recipes. This is one of the boiling water/chopped fat types:

¾ pound very fat pork, chopped
1 cup sherry (I used rum)
¼ cup light molasses
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon allspice
4 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup chopped orange peel
¼ cup chopped lemon peel
½ cup seeded raisins
½ cup currants
½ cup walnuts
4 eggs
(I used a different combination of dried fruits ... cherries, pears, etc)

Pour boiling water over pork and let stand 10 minutes. (The water kind of half-cooked the pork - it turned opaque instead of pink, and the fat softened. Here’s what it looked like whilst standing)



Drain and chop by hand. (I chopped to about ⅛-inch)

Mix with liquor, spices, molasses, and sugar.

Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together, add fruits and nuts, and stir well. Add to pork fat mixture & stir to mix. Add eggs & stir to mix. Pour into a greased loaf pan. (I used a Bundt pan & another mini-loaf… here’s the batter before baking…)



Bake at 350 for 2 hours. (My cake only needed 90 minutes in a Bundt pan)

And here’s a shot of the mini-loaf & interior:



The chunks in the cake that look like pork? They’re pork. I diced to about ⅛ inch after the boiling water step, but you could still see ‘em and taste ‘em.

I must say that it did not have the complexity of flavor that came from the mincemeat recipe, and it was *a lot* heavier... kinda sat in my stomach like a rock. MeeMaw's recipe, I think, distributes the fat and meat throughout the dough better for moistness and flavor. The little pork chunks were interesting, but may put some people off.

The MeeMaw cake will definitely be my gift cake.

I’m glad to see folks interested in this! Crescat Pork Fat, Vita Excolatur: "May the use of pork fat grow from more to more, and so be human life enriched"

[viva]

Just wanted to let y'all know that MeeMaw's Pork Cake went over famously - a call was even made to Grandma in Texas, who requested the recipe. That's an accolade!

We put it on the T-Day dessert buffet, not bothering to note that it contained meat (no one attending has any aversions to pork) - half the cake was gone by the end of the night without the slightest suspicion. I also gave her the jar of mincemeat, which was difficult to part with.

[lovebenton0]

Just wanted to let y'all know that MeeMaw's Pork Cake went over famously - a call was even made to Grandma in Texas, who requested the recipe.  That's an accolade!

We put it on the T-Day dessert buffet, not bothering to note that it contained meat (no one attending has any aversions to pork) - half the cake was gone by the end of the night without the slightest suspicion.  I also gave her the jar of mincemeat, which was difficult to part with.

You are a kind soul, viva!

I used the basic idea for the pork mincemeat, but changed some ingredients as my purpose was to use it for dressing and cornbread sticks. It turned out to be a most successful experiment. Notably, I did not use any of the candied fruits such as citron, but did use dried apples and golden raisins, then some dried pears in place of the candied fruits -- the pears are so close to candied anyway. Also I used bourbon in my version (mostly because I left it up to my mr to pick up rum or bourbon, whichever he preferred because other than the small amount to go in the mincemeat he'd be the one drinking it ). Oh, yes, yes, and one large yellow sweet onion, which replaced some weight of the candied fruit. And I added a good bit of sage which is really delicious and gave it an earthy smokiness. Other than that I followed right along. It is a definite keeper for future cornbread dressings and special cornbread sticks and wedgies.