Laura Dean Bennett
Staff Writer
When I found this recipe in a shoebox full of my mother’s papers, I thought it might have been made up by my grandmother, who was known to come up with some innovative recipes during the Depression. But when I looked it up on the internet, I found that it’s not an original family recipe after all.
I can’t wait to try making it, but who, besides me, will be brave enough to eat something called stinging nettle cake with moss icing?
If you don’t have a ready supply of nettles at hand, some recipes for this unusual cake say that spinach may be substituted for the nettles.
Stinging Nettle Cake
1 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cup sugar
6 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
4 Tbsp. lemon juice
Zest of two lemons
2 cups nettle puree
4 cups flour
4 tsp. baking powder
2 small pinches of salt
Carefully gather a bunch of nettles with leather gloves. Lay them on newspaper to wilt. When wilted, they lose their sting.
When completely wilted, dice nettles up fine. Add about a tablespoon or more of water to make a slurry. Set aside. (These days we could use a blender or food processor.)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare 2 nine inch pans and one smaller pan (any shape). Grease and dust with flour and line bottoms with a circle of waxed paper on the bottom of the pans. Grease on top of the waxed paper circle, too.
Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs, one by one until well combined. Then add the vanilla, lemon juice and zest and mix well. Add the nettle puree?
In a second bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well, then add into the nettle mixture.
Pour into pans and bake at 325 degrees about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
“Moss” Icing
1 cup shortening or unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. ground spruce or hemlock needles, washed and patted dry
1 1/2 Tbsp. grapefruit juice
1 lb. confectioners’ sugar
Cream shortening, salt and evergreen needles until smooth and creamy. Add 4 cup confectioners’ sugar. Beat to a stiff icing consistency.
Blend in grapefruit juice until mixture is smooth. Add in more sugar or juice to reach desired consistency for spreading.
Remove cake from pans. Cool completely. With a long bread knife, trim cake tops to make them flat. Retain leftover cake pieces for later. Place one 9” layer onto cake plate. Wrap waxed paper strips around the edge of cake for ease of cleaning up leftover pieces of “moss” later.
Spread a layer of frosting on top of the first layer, then place second 9” layer on top. Place cake in the ice box to firm up for an hour.
Make the “moss” by crumbling leftover cake pieces and the small cake into course pieces and crumbs.
Remove cake from ice box, cover with remaining icing. Press the cake pieces all over the cake until it appears covered with “moss.”
Carefully pull away the strips of crumb-covered waxed paper and serve.
