Martha Washington's Old-School Cake Required 40 Eggs And A Shocking Amount Of Butter

Presidents and first ladies crave sweets from time to time, just like the rest of us. Thomas Jefferson enjoyed a scoop of ice cream, Calvin Coolidge liked apple pie topped with pork, and Jackie Kennedy had a penchant for the elegant strawberries Romanoff. But the original first lady, Martha Washington, was fond of an old-school dessert no one makes anymore. During yearly Christmas celebrations, Washington arranged for enslaved people to make what was known at the time as a great cake, a type of fruited cake. 

While there are a few different versions of her recipe, the one recorded by her granddaughter, Martha Parke Custis (on file with the George Washington Presidential Library) might give you pause based on the ingredients. It called for 40 eggs, which is over three dozen. It's a lot, and with the cost of eggs being what they are, that's probably reason enough not to replicate it. But if you'd like to try, you'd better have a Costco membership. It also included 4 pounds each of butter and sugar, 5 pounds of flour, and fruit (and lots of it). To spice it up, this great cake recipe requires mace and nutmeg along with brandy and wine. But on the bonus side, it probably pairs well with George Washington's favorite cocktail, the cherry bounce.

All of these ingredients create an enormous cake well deserving of the "great" moniker. Martha Washington's fruit cake is legendary. Martha Stewart and Caroline Kennedy once tried their hands at making it on Stewart's show. To give you a little perspective, they baked it in a 16-by-16-by-3-inch square pan, which is quite large. Its over-the-top size makes for a long baking time too, five and a half hours to be exact. 

When it comes to the taste, its texture is dense while its taste is rich and sweet. As popular as this cake once was, today, fruit cakes tend to get a lot of hate. While they might make an appearance during the winter holidays, you won't see them at many summer soirees or bake sales. But if you decide to make one anyway, might we suggest opting for a more modern recipe — to save money on eggs if nothing else.