Appalachian Stack Cake - by that well-known Yorkshire authority

 I was introduced to Appalachian Apple Stack Cake when Sharon was compiling her family cook book.

Stack cakes are rooted in mountain culture, loved by the early settlers.  Perhaps having origins in European tortes, both Kentucky and Tennessee now lay claim to be the source of the first stack cakes.  However, they could not have been common until the mid-19^th century when wheat flour became widely available.

The cake is somewhat of an enigma.  It is relatively expensive to make and is very time-intensive: hardly consistent with the economically-deprived area of Appalachia where life could undoubtedly be very hard. Not surprisingly, stack cakes were usually reserved for special occasions: weddings, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Their use as a wedding cake has an interesting twist: friends and family supposedly brought a layer each for the cake and the bride's family then spread the apple filling on the layers as they arrived.  Some are skeptical about this traditional story as a stack cake should ideally sit and “cure” for at least two days. The moisture from the apples then softens the layers, making the cake even more delicious.

Some of the ingredients are critical: sorghum molasses in the cake mixture and spices (cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg) in the apple filling.  Sorghum molasses were prepared each year.  The cane was crushed and pressed to release the juice, which was then cooked until it reduced to a dark, sweet, syrup. Traditionally, the cake layers would be baked individually in a cast-iron skillet over a cooking fire, stacking and filling as you go.

Carefully dried, sulfur-free apples are essential for the filling and most recipes spurn the use of apple sauce as a substitute.  Pieces of apples were threaded onto strings and hung in the rafters or strewn onto quilts spread out under the autumn sky. Properly-dried apples are sweet, pliant, and flavorful. To make the stack-cake filling, the dried apples are gently cooked until they collapse into a thick stew.

The recipes inevitably have local variations and the final cake can vary significantly.  Some cakes look undoubtedly “cake-like” whereas others look like a stack of relatively stiff cookie-like layers.  Either way, to accommodate the typical eight layers (and as many as twelve), each needed to be pressed very flat.