A boozy election cake to get you through today

u up? it's bourbon loaf cake

Baking buds, hello. As I write this in the first minutes of Wednesday, the results of the U.S. election are not yet known. I, for one, am bobbing about in a deeply unsettling anxiety soup. So I crafted a recipe for a unique kind of election cake to meet this moment (and teamed up with my friends at Grist’s Looking Forward newsletter to share it): a cake that can ease the angst of waiting.

The election cake, which is described by the Culinary Institute of America as “a less dense English fruitcake,” has a centuries-old history in the U.S. It originated in New England in the nation’s early days, appearing in the country’s first-known cookbook, Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery, in 1796. Women in hosting towns would make the hearty cakes to serve to voters (i.e. white men) on their way to cast ballots — it may even have been a way for women to attempt to garner votes for the candidates and issues they supported.

In the modern political era, a growing number of bakers have been updating election cakes, using frosting and fondant to make political statements in the lead up to and fallout from elections. In the weeks after Trump’s election in 2016, the pastry chef and glacier guide Rose McAdoo created a series of political cakes, including a bust of the Statue of Liberty wearing a hijab and a cake frosted with the words “climate change is real.”

KC Hysmith, a culinary historian and writer, piped entreaties to vote atop cakes in the months preceding that election; in 2021, she frosted the words “flip the Senate” atop a sheet cake that was pointedly adorned with a Georgia peach. Last month, as this presidential election loomed, the pastry chef Natasha Pickowicz created an homage to the women who baked their way toward civic participation before they had a right to vote: a giant sunflower cake layered with concord grape jam that was inspired by the suffragists’ campaign buttons.

Each of these delicious cakes, it struck me, are meant for the before and the after of elections; so I thought I’d whip one up for the anxiety-filled during. Enter this simple, climate-friendly bourbon loaf cake. Its boozy frosting is a nod to the use of liquor in the election cakes of yore and an offering for those of us who need to smooth-brain it to get through the next few hours — or days — of waiting. This orange-scented gal is plant-based, so she’s easy on the carbon emissions, and she smells like you’ve entered the blissful unreality of a Hallmark movie. 

Baking buds, let me assure you: There will be time for the serious election cakes, for advocating through batter and bundts for all manner of important issues. But for tonight and for today, I hope you bake yourself a little treat. Or buy one. And subscribe to Grist’s Looking Forward newsletter for a weekly dose of climate solutions in your inbox — no matter the election results. 

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Recipe: Bourbon loaf cake

A true election cake for our times, this orange-scented, pecan- and chocolate-studded loaf cake retains the single most important feature of the election cakes of yore: booze. The bourbon glaze — which will leave your brain blissfully fuzzy on a day like today — is plant-based, inspired by the margarine-based frosting that tops my family’s bourbon bars recipe. The olive oil-based cake is also vegan, which makes each successive slice you inhale a tiny, defiant act for the climate, no matter what climate policies get written (or don’t) in the next presidential term. 

Serves: 8 (or, like, 1)

Ingredients — cake

• 180g (¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons) sugar

• 8g orange zest, from one medium orange

• 15g (1 tablespoon) orange juice

• 60g (¼ cup plus 2 teaspoons) olive oil

• 200g (¾ cup plus 1 teaspoon) plant-based milk, unsweetened

• 180g (1 ½ cups) all-purpose flour

• 1.5g (¼ teaspoon) baking soda

• 3.5g (1 teaspoon) baking powder

• 1.5g (½ teaspoon) kosher salt

• 42g (¼ cup) chocolate chips

• 28g (¼ cup) pecans, toasted and chopped (plus more for decorating)

Ingredients — glaze

• 180g (1 ½ cups) powdered sugar

• 28g (2 tablespoons) plant-based butter or margarine

• 2g (½ teaspoon) vanilla

• 45g (3 tablespoons) bourbon, or more as needed

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (180 degrees C). Spray a 8.5 x 4.5-inch loaf pan lightly with baking spray (you can optionally also line it with parchment paper for even easier removal).

Make the cake. In a large bowl, combine the sugar and orange zest. Mix together with your hands until the mixture is sandy and fragrant. To the same bowl, add the orange juice, olive oil, and plant-based milk, and whisk until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and kosher salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix just until the batter is smooth and no lumps remain. Mix in the pecans and chocolate chips. 

Pour into the prepared cake pan and bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until the cake springs back when poked gently in the middle (or a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean). Allow to cool to room temperature before glazing.

While the cake bakes, make the glaze. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the powdered sugar, plant-based butter or margarine, vanilla, and three tablespoons of bourbon. Mix on low speed until combined, then raise the speed to medium and mix another minute or two until no lumps remain, scraping down the bowl as needed. The texture should be like a very thick glaze, able to slowly lean and slouch its way down the sides of the cake once you’ve spread it on the top. If you need to thin it out more to achieve that texture, add up to another teaspoon of bourbon. Spread the glaze on the top of the cooled cake and, if you’d like, optionally sprinkle on some extra toasted pecans. Slice cake, shove it in your mouth, and hope for the best.

Cake will keep, tightly wrapped, for five days.

Note: 

• This cake can also be baked in a 9-inch round cake pan. Reduce the baking temperature to 350 degrees F and reduce the bake time to 27 to 35 minutes.

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An extra helping

• Read about how cakes can be a powerful form of protest (via New York Times Magazine). 

• Stay tuned for an upcoming riff on this plant-based cake (which I spent the last two weeks feverishly developing). She’s fluffy, devoid of the stodginess I associate with most vegan cakes, and ready to be reinterpreted in upside-down-cake form next month.