Good stack cake recipie?

[VaVol]

I'd never had one until I went to school at UT - then I was hooked. I remember them being easy to make but I haven't tried in about 20 years.

[VolFrannie]

My mother makes the best stake cakes on the planet, but only at Christmas. I'll see if I can find her recipe.

[GhenghisVol]

Whats a stack cake? You talking about pancakes? There are no good pancakes, only waffles.

Dog people / Cat People
Elvis people / Beatles people
Waffle people / Pancake people and finally
JFG Salad Dressing people / Mayonaise people

I belong to the left side.

[volchef]

I confess that I, too, do not know what a stack cake is. Waffle house waffles are ace shit though. Seriously good stuff.

[VolFrannie]

Nope, not pancakes. It's a multi layer cake with fruit filling. My mom makes apple ones but you can use other things like peach or raspberries.

Here's the recipe.


Combine in a bowl and lightly stir--
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. baking powder

Cream together:
1 cup shortening
2 1/2 cups sugar

Add and beat well:
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Add buttermilk mixture and mix with a spoon

Shift together and stir into mixture:
4 cups of flour
1 tsp. salt

Add enough flour to make dough easy to handle. Divide into 7 portions. Roll or pat each portion into wax paper lined iron skillet(10' or a pan--iron skillet works best.) Bake for about 10 minutes at 420.

Stack layers with this hot mixture.

Soak overnight and cook until mushy:
2 lbs of wine sap apples--when cooked this is about 6 1/2 cups.

Add to hot sauce:
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. each cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves.
2 cups sugar

Let cake sit in the fridge at least 2 days...the longer you let it sit the better it is.

[volchef]

This sounds delicious frannie. Thank you!

[RynoVol]

Stack cakes should be in any restaurant that considers itself to serve southern food. Can't believe Cracker Barrel hasn't put one out there in all this time.
Of course, no restaurant could compete with Grandma's stack cakes. You can pass the recipe down through the family, but Grandma's will always be the best.

[real turf fan]

There is a nearly lost local to upper east TN version in which the cake layers are large flat cookies with ginger and molasses ingredients in the cookies. I'm still hoping to find that one from some one.

Old timers tell of when wedding cakes never came from bakers. Receptions would be at the church where the marriage ceremony was performed and the guests would bring layers to make the Bridal Stack cake...the more esteemed the couple, the higher the cake.

Apple stack cakes to me are the soul of Tennessee.

[VaVol]

Yes, it's a very uniquely East Tn / Southern Ky. tradition. It has mostly been lost on today's generation but it's a great Southern food. I discovered it during my freshman year at UT.
Example: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.slashfood.com/media/2008/11/apple-stack-cake.jpg

[VaVol]

More for you history Food-ers:


In the mountains weddings were celebrated with "in-fares" where people gathered to party, dance, and eat potluck food. Because wedding cakes were so expensive, neighbor cooks brought cake layers to donate to the bride's family. The dough for the cake was rolled or pressed out into very thin layers and baked in cast-iron skillets. The family of the bride cooked, sweetened, and spiced dried apples to spread between the layers of the cake. The number of layers per stack of her wedding cake often gauged the bride’s popularity. Sometimes there would be as many as twelve layers, but most often the average was seven or eight layers. Along with weddings, the stack cake was served at family reunions, church suppers, and other large gatherings.
The original recipe is a long, tedious process (taking as much as three hours to assemble). Some cooks just use regular cake layers and plain applesauce or apple butter, or a combination of both, as the filling between the layers. While stack cake made this way may be tasty, there is no comparison between applesauce or apple butter and the strong apple flavor that dried apples give.

[GhenghisVol]

Swear to damn I've never heard of stack cakes.

My grandma only fed me chess pie, pecan pie, coconut cake, and blackberry cobber and apple pie with cheese on top.

[Tnphil]

Chess Pie.....if you dont like it...your missing something.....When I was a kid I didnt want a birthday cake on my birthday....my moma would make me a chess pie....those were the days...

[VolFrannie]

Yep. My grandmother made them and passed them down to my mother and so on. My mom actually use to sell them, but she can't make that many anymore.

Most people outside of East Tennessee/WNC and Kentucky have never heard of them. They're yummy! My mom's recipe looks just like the photo except we don't put a layer of the apple sauce on top...too hard to wrap it up that way.

Real Turf Fan, the layers are very similar to a gigantic sugar cookie.