A family tradition and a hilarious family story...
This is my great-grandmother’s recipe for Kentucky Jam Cake. It was a family tradition, handed down through the generations, and my daddy made this every year. It’s a wonderful, old fashioned cake made with lard and ground raisins, so many memories and a helluva good story as well.
First the story, then the recipe...
Daddy was getting older, his eyesight wasn’t that good anymore and he wasn't the cleanest with his cooking, but he still made Mammy’s Jam Cake and one year he made it and sent it home for us at Christmas in this rusty old cake tin. That cake didn't look right and I was afraid for us eat it so I sat it in the garage on the workbench. The boys were little, like, eight and eleven, and in the garage was a putty knife, we used it as a pooper scooper because we had a cocker spaniel that crapped on the garage floor and we would use that putty knife to clean up the dog doodoo. The boys were horsing around in the garage one afternoon and they cut a piece of that cake with that dirty pooper scooper and threw it in the floor for the dog.
And then hubby was going to work, he ran the company so everybody of course ate when he brought in food, so he grabbed that cake with the hunk cut out with the pooper scooper off he workbench and took it to work for the company Christmas pitch-in dinner. AND in the meantime, Daddy had called me and said "Janice, don't eat that cake, I think I doubled the flour and left out the sugar." OMG, can you imagine, him taking that nasty cake in that old rusty tin and all of those people trying to eat it. He was in SO much trouble with me!!! We have all laughed about it for years tho, it's a great memory...
And now for the infamous recipe that dates back to the early 1900’s, it really is a delicious Christmas cake. It’s best made several days ahead and stored in a sealed container to age. ~ Jan
Mammy's Jam Cake
2 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
6 eggs (leave out 3 whites for frosting)
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. slt
3/4 cup lard (not shortening)
1 cup blackberry jam (if you make this I would buy a good quality of blackberry jam with seeds, nothing compares to the old days tho when it was homemade)
2-1/2 cups flour
Cream lard, sugar, add eggs and beat. Sift flour, soda, salt and spices together 3 times. Add alternately with buttermilk to mixture. Mix thoroughly, add jam and beat 3 minutes (do not use mixer).
Spoon into greased cake pans (makes 4 large layers) - Bake at 350.
Frosting
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 box raisins (ground)
3 egg whites stiffly beaten
Cook sugar and water until hard ball, add hot to beaten egg whites, stir in raisins. Frost cake between layers.
Note: I remember eating this as a little girl, and it was a tall cake, I’m guessing those 4 layers would be 8” cake pans. Daddy always let this age a few days.
