Tag Archives: Washington Cake

Virginia Campbell’s Washington Cake

In hon­or of the hol­i­day week­end, we’re post­ing one of Vir­ginia Camp­bel­l’s patri­ot­ic recipes from her own hand-writ­ten cook­book.  This appears to be an adap­ta­tion of Martha Wash­ing­ton’s recipe, and it’s no sur­prise Vir­ginia has a ver­sion of this in her own cook­book; Vir­ginia was the Mis­souri Vice-Regent for the Mount Ver­non Ladies Asso­ci­a­tion, and she was instru­men­tal in rais­ing mon­ey to restore Mount Ver­non.  (We even have a pic­ture of Martha hang­ing in Camp­bell House right out­side Vir­gini­a’s bed­room as homage to her.)

Notice, Vir­ginia does not give direc­tions out­side the list of ingre­di­ents, assum­ing the cook will know how to add the ingre­di­ents at prop­er inter­vals.  If you’re an adven­tur­ous cook, give this one a try to hon­or the Wash­ing­tons this Fourth of July weekend:

Wash­ing­ton Cake
1–3/4 pounds flour
1–1/2 pounds sugar
3/4 pound butter
8 eggs
1 pint warm milk
1 tea­spoon of pearl ash dis­solved in French brandy
2 pounds cur­rants or raisins or 1 pound of each
2 nutmegs
6 cloves
1 tea cup brandy

Tried and good.

Vir­ginia Camp­bel­l’s Wash­ing­ton Cake

Hap­py Fourth of July from all of us here at Camp­bell House Museum!