New Year's Cake In New York

A Victorian New Year's celebration in New York had to include several things on the menu in order to insure success. New Year's in New York meant lots of people visiting, expecting to sit down and be offered a glass of wine and something festive to eat.

A proper Victorian New Year's menu would have included smoked boneless turkey, pickled oysters, both chicken and lobster salads, and perhaps jellied tongue. But above all - there had to be New Year's cake: usually from a bakery, large, rich and beautifully decorated.

One might have other desserts on hand, too - such as fancy ices, jellies, candies and Charlotte Russe.* But New Year's cake, above all, was a must. What sort of cake was New Year's cake? Traditionally, it was a plain pound cake with either chopped almonds or caraway seeds in it. Susan Williams writes in Food in the United States 1820s-1890 (2006, p. 178) that the caraway seeds may have had an origin in Dutch baking traditions, because such cakes were served at New Year's Day receptions in New Amsterdam.

However, a recipe in Good Housekeeping magazine in 1888, for "German New Year's Cake," gives directions for a light fruit cake with candied citron and raisins. Sometimes a coin was hidden in the cake for a lucky person to find, as is also traditional in Christmas cakes. And the New York Times, in 1875, recommended two cakes for New Year's Day: a fruitcake or a Marble Cake (chocolate and vanilla batter swirled together, exactly like marble cakes today). In other words, by the end of the 19th century, one could have any kind of substantial cake on hand - but cake you had to have! And it needed to be iced and decorated in the fanciest way possible. For example, the Oxford Club in Brooklyn, which my 3rd great uncle David Barnett was a member of, had, in 1885:

a big New Year's cake in the form of a castle, bristling with sugar guns, [which] formed an attractive table piece which was properly admired and then destroyed.

The custom of holding an open house with a buffet-style meal on New Year's Day was a longstanding New York tradition, dating back to the 17th century. In New Amsterdam, New Year's cookies were wafers impressed with special designs; by the 18th century, honey spice cookies were also popular; by the 19th, cookies were often served alongside the glorious spectacle of the New Year's cake. Bakers often invited ladies, via newspaper advertisements, to inspect a display of all the fancy cakes just after Christmas.

In Brooklyn, James Kernan, whose store was at Fulton and Jay, offered "Sayer's celebrated fruit cake" and "Charlotte de Russe, plain and gothic"* in 1859, as well as "Basket Cake in great variety" (I assume that this was a cake shaped to look like a basket). Troxell's Saloon had "the choicest selection" of New Year's cakes in Brooklyn in 1867, as well as supper rooms for sleighing parties, confectionary - and even ear muffs! Thompson's, in the same year, had everything from boned turkeys, jellied hams and lobster salads to pyramids of confectionery and baskets of mottoes; they also provided the New Year's host with "glass, silver, china and waiters."

Also in Brooklyn, Anderson's, in 1856, sold bon bons,cornucopias, crystallized fruits and French candies. Anderson's was also pleased to loan any customer china, glass and silverware - but no waiters, apparently.You would have had to go back to Thompson's for them.

Additional Sources

Barnes, Donna R. and Peter G. Rose, Matters of Taste: Food and Drink in Seventeenth-century Dutch Art and Life, (2002, p.25).

"The Oxford Club Receives," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 4, 1885, p. 1.
"The Household," New York Times, Dec. 26, 1875, p. 9.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle ads:  James Kernan, Dec. 20 1859, p. 3; Troxell's, Dec. 17, 1867, p. 3; Thompson's Dec. 24, 1867, p. 3; and Anderson's, Dec. 27, 1856, p. 3. 

 New Year's Card with musicians (1904): NYPL.
A Happy New Year postcard: NYPL.
Picture of fancy cakes from Mrs. Beeton's All About Cookery, ca 1930.

*I am not sure what a gothic Charlotte [de] Russe was, but am looking into it; I'll edit this if I find out. And if you know, please do tell! A charlotte is a dessert of sponge cake or ladyfingers molded with custard and/or cream; the Charlotte Russe, or Russian charlotte, consists of ladyfingers and Bavarian cream. Individual Charlotte Russes (yellow cake topped with cream in a paper cup) were popular, inexpensive New York City treats in the 1930s.