Hartford Election Cake

The New England Yankee Cookbook (1939) by Imogene Wolcott, contains a recipe for Election Cake, which originated in my current hometown of Hartford, Connecticut. According to Wolcott, Election Cake is over 100 years old and it is also known as March Meeting Cake, Connecticut Raised Loaf Cake and Dough Cake. It is a yeast cake made with brown sugar, spices, and raisins. I found this link to a current article on Election Cake:

http://drupal02.nypl.org/blogs/2008/10/17/election-cake

No Election Cake for me tonight. I will go with pie instead: Frank Pepe's New Haven style tomato pie, that is.

For the election party I'm attending, I'm bringing a version of Bon Appetit's Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce not thematically related (except that it's listed as a "spooky" dessert)

I made, as usual, some changes which worked out well: I subbed my leftover kabocha for the canned pumpkin, double the amount of fresh cranberries drizzled with honey for the raisins, added almonds, seasoned with allspice and mace instead of pumpkin pie spice. I then reduced the sugar in the caramel sauce and added a shot of orange juice and about 1/4 cup of bourbon.