Hog Island Applesauce Cake: This Old-Fashioned Recipe Is “Pure Christmas”
A holiday classic from Virginia’s barrier islands
The holidays may be over, but cake is always in season! This past fall, I visited the Barrier Islands Center, a museum showcasing VA’s coastal history. I was on the hunt for historic recipes. Even though I worked at the BIC in high school, surrounded by stories and artifacts, the Shore’s culinary traditions were still unfolding for me. When I found Hilda Simpson Tittermary’s Hog Island Applesauce Cake, I knew I found something special for the holiday season.
Behind this gorgeous cake was a series of disasters. Once Garden & Gun accepted my pitch for the story, visions of beautiful bundt cake began to dance in my head—lovely ridges, snowy with a light dusting of powdered sugar, a simple cake stand, holly and evergreens.
I thought it would be easy. It wasn’t. In the cookbook “Memories and Recipes from Hog Island,” Hilda indicated that she found the recipe her Aunt Mary Simpson Riggins things, which dates the recipe sometime in the late 1800’s. Turn of the century, island dwelling Mary and her niece Hilda merely needed a list of ingredients and the instructions “bake in hot oven 1 hr.” It was up to me to figure out the rest.
My first attempt, using a borrowed Bundt, stuck persistently to the pan. I consulted the web for more detailed Bundt preparation instructions, buttered, floured, and tried again. The second cake? Stuck. At this point, I was beginning to panic. The cake photoshoot with Brittany Miller of Shenandoah Imagery was mere hours away and I did not have anything photo worthy.
Recalling a pandemic-era radio story, I called up the King Arthur Baking hotline, a resource so wonderful, I’m shocked it exists. Expert bakers ready to answer questions, soothe frustrations, and suggest solutions.
I quickly explained to Maggie that my cakes were sticking, in a hurry to get back to baking to meet my deadline. She offered some pointers about the temperature of the batter and how to prepare the pan and I whipped up my third attempt. Eager to see the results, I stood over the pan during its obligatory 10 minutes of cooling and flipped it over, hopeful for the satisfying plunk of a well cooked cake. Nothing. The third cake was stuck in the pan.
After primal screaming into a couch cushion, I called Maggie back and carefully read her my recipe and informed her of my constraint— I couldn’t alter the historical accuracy of the ingredients.
An eggless cake, the recipe relied on the acidity of the applesauce to activate the baking soda. “What kind of applesauce are you using?” she asked. “Homemade,” I replied, realizing that the past-prime Galas I used were not nearly tart enough. I zipped over to the store to pick up a jar of applesauce and a tube pan, on Maggie’s recommendation.
The Nordic Ware tube pan I purchased didn’t need to be covered in parchment paper, but I wasn’t taking any risks. The fourth attempt went into the oven along with the remains of my hope. 1 hour of baking and 10 minutes of cooling later and I experienced the satisfying plunk I had waited for. The picture perfect cake plopped out of the pan. I quite literally jumped for joy, taking a celebratory lap around the back yard.
Ever so patient, Brittany met me 4 hours after our scheduled shoot and photographed the finished cake. Sometimes everything goes as planned, but every once in a while, bakes and dishes burn, fall, flop, and stick. Behind every perfect picture is a healthy handful of disasters. Each one making success so much sweeter. Tackling this challenge was once of my proudest moments of 2024.