(Pickled) Citron Cake

ByKara
Sliced pickled citron cake on white plate with glass of milk and blue napkin on yellow table

After successfully growing citron melons this summer, I found that I had even more melons than required to make Agnes Poist’s Old-Fashioned Citron Preserve.

I used the extra melons to make Mrs. Benjamin Chew Howard‘s recipe for citron pickles, seasoned with vinegar, brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. Howard’s recipe yielded a tasty syrupy concoction that might be good for cocktails or other creative uses, but I was a bit at a loss for what to do with the pickled citron melon flesh. Snacking? Fans of pickled watermelon rind might say so, but I don’t tend to snack on something like this. I worried about it rotting in the fridge.

Vintage newspaper article about citron melons with photo of woman and children inspecting large melons from garden
Louisville Kentucky Courier-Journal, 1953

I decided to put the “citron” to the test, as I had intended to do with Poist’s preserve. That recipe preserved the melon in a sugar syrup flavored with citrus peel. It could allegedly be used in cakes, like actual citron. Unfortunately, it molded before I got around to trying to bake with it.

What if I baked a cake with pickled citron? The idea sounded a little weird but I thought I’d try it anyway, to see just how well the citron melon could live up to its namesake.

I used a recipe from “The Maryland Cook Book,” a 1902 cookbook by Mrs. Emma J Strasburg. Originally from Staunton, Virginia, Strasburg and her husband moved to Baltimore around 1883.

The Strasburgs ran a boarding house in the 1890s. Emma’s husband David died in 1895. Her cookbook may have been for money or for prestige – I only know that it was sold at the Women’s Exchange, and that Emma died in 1903, before getting a chance to benefit from it one way or the other.

Vintage Maryland Cook Book from early 1900s held in hand against blue background
Mrs. E. J. Strasburg’s “Maryland Cook Book,” 1902

Not wanting to waste ingredients on a potentially weird cake, I copied the Citron Cake recipe from her book and quartered it, baking a tiny loaf cake.

As it turned out, the cake was very good and I baked a whole one shortly after.

Citron Melon does indeed make a nice substitute for other dried fruits. I imagine that cake recipes like this one were intended to be made with dried or candied citron peel, but after making the cake myself, I could now be convinced that cooks would consider the ingredients interchangeable with the melons.

Citron Melons are a pain to prepare, and they don’t have much to offer that watermelon rind or cantaloupe wouldn’t – Mrs. Howard’s pickle is actually for “Sweet Pickle, of Cantaloupe, Peaches or Citron.”

Nevertheless, I’ve already got my citron melon seeds ready to go for 2023.

Recipe:

Baking ingredients for pickled citron cake including Swans Down flour, baking powder, butter, egg, sugar, and jar of preserves

Four eggs (beaten separately), 3 cups of sugar, 1 cup of butter, 1/2 cup sweet milk, 3 cups of flour, 2 1/2 teaspoonsful baking powder, 1/2 pound chopped citron rolled in flour. Bake in a sheet.

Recipe from “Maryland Cook Book,” by Mrs. E. J. Strasburg

Chopped pickled citron pieces on wooden surface for citron cake recipe
Unbaked citron cake batter in dark loaf pan before baking
Slice of golden pickled citron cake on decorative plate with crumbs
Golden-brown baked citron cake on decorative blue and white plate on wooden surface

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