Did you know doing your civic duty can be delicious? Neither did I. But thanks to Gordon’s love of the Reader’s Digest Back to Basics book, we spent election day eating cake.

There is a section in the book devoted to regional cooking, and one of the recipes was for Hartford Election Cake. Apparently, “This spicy cake, studded with fruit, was served in March at town meetings that often lasted all day. The recipe was first published in 1800 in Hartford, Connecticut, in the second edition of Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery. Later the cake became know as Hartford Election Cake and was eaten while waiting for returns or to celebrate a victory. It was one of the first foods to be associated with American politics.”

So Gordon made cake to celebrate election day, and it was delicious. Granted, as Gordon pointed out, anything with lemon glaze is bound to be good. He also cheated by adding rum extract because it seemed to match all of the other ingredients.

This will definitely become a November tradition and will allow us to explain history to our confused friends who don’t understand us.