How to make Brooks Cake
Posted on | September 18, 2009 | No Comments
Brooks Cake Recipe
To raise funds for the antislavery cause, Mary Brooks baked and soldher signature tea cake, widely known as Brooks Cake. It was served atall Concord anti-slavery meetings. This tea cake tastes great with jam.
Ingredients
One pound flour (4 cups)One pound sugar (2 cups)Half pound butter (2 sticks)Four eggsOne cup milkOne teaspoonful baking sodaHalf-teaspoonful cream of tartarHalf-pound currants (8 ounces), add in half of itMakes two loaves(Directions not given in original recipe.)This makes two loaves; and, if such faithful hands and careful eyes ashers attend to its making, it will be fit for the banquet of the gods. Thedevoted woman lived to see the cause for which she so earnestlylabored as successful as was always her recipe for “Brooks Cake.”
— from the writings of William S. Robinson, 1877
Notes:
Mary Merrick Brooks was the daughter of a slave owner, the wife of a conservative senator, and the leading, most persistent abolitionist in town! The Brooks house was moved from its original site where the main Concord library now stands, to 45 Hubbard St. in 1872.