Appalachian Stack Cake

I attempted to make an old fashioned applesauce stack cake to take to our family reunion. This was only the second time I had ever made this cake. I don't have my grandma's recipe, so I just put together my own recipe from others I had.

There aren't many ingredients. 

I think this is why the cake was popular in the old days.

It took a few simple ingredients that they already had on hand.

My grandmother made this cake all the time.

I have many memories of walking  in the back door of the kitchen

and her slicing me a piece of this cake.

My Aunt once told me that if Grandma didn't have applesauce, 

she would put apple butter or jelly in-between the layers.

1 cup sugar, 3/4 cup shortening, 3 eggs, 2 tsp. vanilla, 1 cup buttermilk, 4 1/2 cups flour (I use self rising flour) , 2 tsp. ginger

(48 oz jar of applesauce, 3/4 tsp. allspice, 3/4 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp cinnamon)

Cream 3/4 cup shortening and 1 cup of sugar

Add 3ggs, beat well. Add 2 tsp vanilla and 1 cup of buttermilk.

(I did not use a mixer, I did all my mixing by hand)

Add 4 1/2 cups flour and 2 tsp. of ginger.

 

This would normally make around 8 layers, but I made my layers smaller than usual.

With my hand, I made the dough into 10 balls and patted them out by hand onto floured wax paper.

 

I greased the bottom of a pie plate. It measured around 7" inside the pie plate. 

Place the floured circle of dough inside and pat it out to fit.

Cook in 375 degree oven until golden  brown (around 15 minutes or so)

(For larger layers, you could use a 9" cake pan.

You can turn the cake pans upside down and put the dough on the bottom

of the greased pan. This way, it will easily slide right off after baking.)

 

Stack the baked layers and place a generous amount of the applesauce mixture in-between each layer.

Some recipes say to let them cool before stacking. I didn't.

 

Poke toothpicks in the top, cover with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator.

It is better after setting for a couple of days.

It gets moister the more it sets.

 I also put the applesauce mixture on the top.

Many recipes tell you not to do this.

Well, I had to be different. I figured the more applesauce the better.

What would Grandma say? 

"Well honey, at least you tried."

Seriously, it turned out pretty good.

Give it a try sometime, it is not all that hard.

Do you remember your grandma making these cakes?

 

Here's a picture of it on the front of my cookbook. 

Click here to view on Amazon.