Sue's Diner: Independence Day Cake

 This week's recipe was mentioned in the fifth installment of Before The Blood.

Munsonville Inn would also sell a frosted loaf, popular in Thornton, known as Independence Cake, and Bryony longed to try this food from a land so far away.

 More than once, she and Susan read the advertisement in the window, boasting it was "flavored with wine and brandy," as well as "rich with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and citron," and "heavily speckled with currants and raisons."

Here is an actual nineteenth century recipe we found online:

"Twenty pounds of flour, fifteen pounds of sugar, ten pounds of butter, four dozen of eggs, one quart of wine, one quart of brandy, one ounce of nutmegs, three ounces each of cinnamon, cloves, and mace, two pounds of citron, five pounds each of currants and raisins, and one quart of yeast. Frost it, and dress it with box and rose leaf."

It's now my favorite Fourth of July recipe (however, no one else in my family likes it). 

With several of us getting COVID shots tomorrow, we probably won't be making it this year.

Still, you can try our modified recipe on the Sue's Diner page on the BryonySeries website.

But try the recipe this week. It will be gone some time next week. A new recipe will take it's place. 

Photos of the Independence Cake are from a previous year. This cake also freezes well.

By the way, Sue's Diner is only real in the BryonySeries world. But didn't Timothy do a great job making the page look like a real menu at a vintage diner?

Here is the full diner page: bryonyseries.com/sue-s-diner. You can't really order, of course (wouldn't it be great if you could?).

This chicken salad and homemade crackers recipe also appears in the BryonySeries cookbook Memories in the Kitchen: Bites and Nibbles from "Bryony," which is a permanent fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Will and Grundy Counties.

For more BryonySeries recipes, check out our three cookbooks at our BryonySeries bryonyseries.com/general-store.