Stack Pies and Cakes

[ludja]

A good friend originally from West Virginia was recently at a family wedding back home. He got one of his favorite aunts to talk about traditional dishes, and she, being a great baker, mentioned lots of pies and cakes--including "stacked pies".

I think one of the traditional fillings is usuallly dried apples-- and when I've heard mention of this it often seems to be from the Appalchia area.

I looked on the web a bit and found some info on stack cake here.

"The number of layers stacked in this cake varied from five to nine in the recipes we received. Most included molasses, but some left it out. Some recipes used what was basically a cookie dough; others a pie-crust dough. And some of these cooked the dough in a skillet instead of an oven.

Also, note that though the filling usually consists of reconstituted dried apples mixed with spices, prepared applesauce can be substituted to save time. "

How does one "stack" pies? (i.e. get them out of the pan)

What are traditional fillings?

What types of stake cake do you know of?

Good recipes appreciated if you are motivated to share!

[Gifted Gourmet]

I have read a great deal on stack cakes as part of my preparation of the weekly Southeast Forum Digests and came upon this as a marvelous recipe and explanation of the process:

Towering, Tempting Apple Stack Cake

“My mother made this [stack Cake] often with apples she dried on a hot tin roof,” writes Ruby Boggs Stoner of Bear Lake, Michigan. Ruby's family lived in Kentucky, one of the mountain-dotted states in which impressive stack cakes have traditionally been prepared.

Stack cakes are culturally akin to the classic European torte.

Shuck Bean, Stack Cakes, and Honest Fried Chicken : The Heart and Soul of Southern Country Kitchens by Ronni Lundy should you wish even more detailed information on this ...

[ludja]

Thanks Gifted Gourmet.

I like Lundy's book, Butterbeans and Blackberries so this might be another nice addition.

Good link to the stack apple cake recipe as well. Besided the recipe, the local cookbooks described sound potentially interesting.

Has anyone ever made a stack cake like this?

I'm very intrigued by the "stacked pies" I've heard of as well, but there is little info I could find on the web...

Has anyone had a stacked pie or even heard of them?

[Darcie B]

Here is a recipe from a 100 year old West Virginia woman (a friend's mother-in-law). She usually uses homemade apple butter in between the layers.

Molasses Stack Cake

2 cups molasses

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. ginger

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 heaping tsp. soda

2 heaping tsp. baking powder

pinch cloves

nuts if desired

Mix together enough flour to make a soft dough. Roll thin. Using a dinner plate, cut in rounds for layers and bake at 350 degrees. Put the layers together with either apple butter or cooked, spiced dried apples. May stack as many layers as desired. May also make into cookies.

[ludja]

Thanks Darcie B. (and welcome)...

Tha cake sounds delcious; thank you for taking the time to share it. I would like to surprise my friend from West Va. with a stack cake.

Go 'Eers... (Boo B.C.)

[Gifted Gourmet]

When I did a Google search on "stacked pies" I realized that most of them were merely layering of crepes, filo, or something similar .. with savoury ingredients ... stacked enchilada pie, stacked burrito pie and the like ... more of an appetizer thing ...

Stacked cakes are usually more for desserts, of course!

(for my 4,000th post, I find myself babbling about stacked enchilada pies ... whatta world! )

[ludja]

Thanks for helping in the research Gifted! (and on posting your 4000th post right here... )

I did finallly find something on the stacked pies and the info was under my nose... in Bill Neal's Southern Cooking. I got a hint on-line re: chess pies and then looked back in my books.

Here is a quote accompanying his Chess Pie recipe:

In Tennessee, as many as six or seven of these pies, baked and cooled, are stacked on each other and sliced as a cake.  Elsewhere, they are offered singly, with a little whipped cream.

Once I searched with "chess", I also found these sites:

Lemon Stack Pie

(This recipe is also for lemon chess pies that are stacked (3); then a caramel sacue is poured over the whole. Here, the pies are baked in foil pans which can then be peeled away...)

and

stacked chess pies

Chess Pie, a concoction of eggs, sugar and butter, is a southern favorite. I read in an old cookbook, that early Mississippi settlers made "stack cakes" for Christmas. They baked 5 to 7 chess pies, and while they were still warm, removed them from the pans and stacked then one on top of the other. They'd let the "stack" stand for 3 or 4 days and the weight of the pies would cause them to compress into a rich, sugary cake.

I guess I'll see what my friend finds out over Christmas from his aunt in West Va. He is going to bake with her to learn how to make her coconut cake and some other recipes. She's the one who mentioned "stacked pies" in the first place, piquing my interest.

The apple stake cakes sound delicious as well-- I'll probaby try that first it being apple season and all. I'm both attracted to and a little scared of the stacked chess pies--I have a feeling I will have to try it sometime...

[andiesenji]

Stack cakes were very popular at church socials where I grew up in western Kentucky.

One version was the only time "sweet" cornbread or "johnnycake" was made which also included some spices in the mix.

The layers, about 1/2 inch thick, were baked individually, usually in the same old black skillet as regular cornbread and turned out and the top "leveled" or trimmed, to make it flat enough to stack well and also so it could soak up some of the liquid from the filling.

Dried apples or dried peaches or pears were chopped up and cooked with just enough water and sugar for them to plump and develop a thick sticky syrup, then the hot mixture was ladled over the first layer then the second layer was added and so on.

During the holidays one version was apples or thick apple butter alternated with home made cranberry sauce.

Our cook made them with all kinds of jam, peach, concord grape, raspberry, etc., layered with a buttermilk pound cake of her own devising. I wish I had the recipe but no one seems to have gotten it while she was still alive.

She explained that the cakes kept their shape because "dey got dat mucilage to kep em standin'"

So obviously the filling has to be somewhat sticky to keep the layers from sliding, particularly in the ones with many layers.

[racheld]

I'm coming into this discussion several months late, but it's fascinating--a bit of remembered history which has evaded most cookbooks, and indeed, most cooks.

My first MIL made a stacked cake, of homemade batter---"first you start with some yard eggs; they make the cake good and yellow." She made enough batter for a three-layer cake, but the process involved pouring in only a small amount, then spreading it thinly in the buttered pans. This was put into the hot oven, timed for several minutes only, then whisked out, flipped onto nice "cup towels"---always cup towels, never tea towels or dish towels, though they were all made of the same waffle-imprinted fabric.

Then the pans were washed, re-buttered, and another spreading and baking, til all the batter was used, whether it came out an even number or not. Until then, I had never washed the same three pans four times in an afternoon.

Jam went between some layers, frosting between others, in some formula of distribution which I never quite captured. The entire cake was then covered in a "poured" frosting, usually chocolate or butterscotch, which was swirled into an attractive pattern. Mine had a tendency to keep dripping off the cake, leaving naked, droopy layers surrounded by a luscious moat to be scraped up and re-united with individual slices as they were cut. (If sneaky fingers hadn't stolen the entire sticky pond of it before serving).

The stacked cakes and pies sound rich and scrumptious; most of the cakes seem to be MADE OF pies. I just can't fathom how, in those days before teflon and Pam, they might have removed warm chess pies from the pan without breaking and falling apart.

And can you imagine slicing down through SEVEN layers of pie? And EATING a slice? The slices must have been one microt wide, or everyone would have been on a sugarbuzz for the duration.

This has been a nice memory...I'm glad I stumbled on the thread. (But it doesn't make me want to go through all that buttering and washing).

rachel

[ludja]

Found some other info on stacked pies here on the website "pie of the month club". As some mentioned above, the pies have a custard/chess pie type filling (here, flavored with orange). The pies are covered with a caramel/butterscotch poured frosting.

Also ran across some info when looking up Kentucky Derby food recently. As andiesenii mentioned above, sometimes other dried fruits are used besides apples--like dried peaches for instance.

Thanks for your great post and reminiscences also racheld--interesting that different fillings were used in the layers. Re: getting the pies out of the pans--the stacked pie recipe I linked to above said to make sure the pies were completely chilled first. (Still seems like it would be tricky though... )

Edited May 10, 2005 by ludja (log)

[cathrynapple]

hmmm...sounds similar to a Lithuanian Torte we serve here. several layers of a pastry-kind-of-thing with an apricot filling. it's kind of dry, though. we douse it in a ladleful of berry sauce.