Gum Drop Cake

Featuring a “delightful and innocent confection” made for the masses.

Gumdrops by j2wade, on Flickr

Gumdrops are essentially a combination of gelatin or pectin (or both), sugar, and coloring agents, with the occasional flavoring agent added.

The earliest references to gumdrops in American newspapers seem to be from around the early 1850s, where candy was in a transitional phase between what it was in the 1830s–a way of coating medicine to make it more palatable–and what it was in the 1860s, a treat for children. (Consider the ad from 1857, below right.)

For most of American history, remember, sugar was expensive to produce. You’d be lucky to get a bit of rock candy, and that if your family was comparatively wealthy. In the 1820s, we isolated pectin from apples. In the 1830s, the cost of sugar went down. In the 1840s, we started to make candy molds, and in the early 1850s, used steam to heat sugar to keep it at a constant temperature without scorching.

Gumdrops became popular not only because the ingredients were no longer prohibitively expensive but because the technical expertise required to produce them lowered. They didn’t actually have to be made by a druggist with beakers and burners–you could shape and mold them in small quantities anywhere. They were so affordable, in fact, that you could put them in a cake.

Here’s a brown sugar version from the September 12, 1934 edition of the Sheboygan Press:

Gum Drop Cake 2 cups brown sugar 2/3 cup shortening 4 eggs 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon cloves 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 1-1/2 cups sour milk 1/2 cup nut meats 3/4 cup gum drops 1/2 cup raisins 1/2 cup dates 3 cups flour 1 teaspoon soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt Cut gum drops; sprinkle 1 cup flour over the gum drops, nuts, raisins and dates and mix well. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and beat thoroughly. Add sour milk alternately with the sifted dry ingredients, then add the first mixture and stir only until well mixed. Pour into an angel food tin lined on the bottom with paper and bake 1 hour at 350 degrees.

From a box sold in Martinez, California.

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