Hickory Nut Cake

A few years ago, when my grandma was slowly sending me the contents of her house via USPS Priority flat-rate mail-box shipments, including pounds and pounds of pennies, she sent me this super old notebook filled to the brim with recipes—some of them handwritten and some clipped from newspapers. I looked through it, immediately interested in the short little recipe for how to make hickory nut cake.

On more than a few occasions, my grandma had told me the story of how her mother would task her with the work of retrieving the hickory nut meat from whole hickory nuts in order to make the cake. She told me how she sat outside with a hammer, smashing the shells, and then picking out the nuts. 

The problem was that I couldn’t find hickory nuts anywhere. And so I eventually gave up on the idea.

Until I found myself in Madison, Wisconsin, at their epic Saturday farmers market that surrounds the Capitol building. Tim—of Lottie and Doof fame—called it the best farmers market in the country and I’m not going to argue with him. After all, that's where I finally found my hickory nuts. And as I purchased a bag (with some borrowed funds from my brother) (I have a problem with keeping more than three dollars of cash in my wallet), I knew that once I was back home, I was going to make that cake.

I love the way the recipe is written, basically with the attitude of: Look, I’m not going to handhold you through this process. It ends with: “Bake in 2 small loaves and ice with thick white icing.” I guessed on two normal-sized loaf pans, 350°F, and just kept my eye on them while they baked. It ended up taking about 25 minutes.

As for the thick white icing, I decided to do a less-sweet version of this recipe. As you can see, it didn’t turn out very white, but I stand by it anyway.

The timing of my hickory-nut discovery was pretty perfect. It was almost exactly two years ago that I was 29 weeks pregnant with Teddy when Grandma came to stay with us for a week. And when I made this cake a few weeks ago, what do you know? I was 29 weeks pregnant with this second baby. I’m sure she would have loved a slice.

p.s. I was just about to post this when I got the exciting news that my book is a semifinalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards. If you don't mind, I would really, really appreciate your vote! It's super easy to do, especially if you are already a Goodreads member. AND Matt is apparently offering to cook lemon pasta "at some point in the future" for anyone who votes for me.

Hickory Nut Cake via a super old newspaper clipping
NOTE: Turns out hickory nuts look and taste a lot like walnuts, so don’t be afraid to substitute them here.

Cream together 1 ½ cups fine granulated or pulverized sugar and ½ cup of butter; add ¾ of a cup of sweet milk [whole milk], 2 ½ cups flour, sifted with 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1 cup of hickory nut meats dredged light with flour; lastly, add ½ teaspoon vanilla and fold in the whites of 4 eggs beaten to a stiff froth; bake in 2 small loves and ice with thick white icing.

Icing for Such a Hickory Nut Cake as the One Above adapted from Taste of Home

1/2 cup butter
scant 1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup half-and-half
1 cups confectioners' sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
more hickory nuts to top icing (optional)

Make icing by melting butter in a medium saucepan. Add brown sugar; boil 2 minutes. Add milk; bring to boil. Remove from heat; cool to lukewarm. Beat in sugar, flour*, cream cheese, and vanilla.

*The original recipe called for 2 cups of confectioners’ sugar but after adding 1 cup, I found it to be insanely sweet and thus, opted to use flour to thicken it without making it even sweeter. I personally think it worked great.