FROST CAKES

1 lb. potato flour
1/2 lb. brown sugar
1/2 c. cream
2 eggs
Rind of 1 lemon, grated

Take one pound of potato flour, half a pound of the best brown sugar, a teacupful of cream, two eggs, and the rind of a citron [lemon], grated. Mix the flour with the cream; then add the eggs, well beaten, the sugar and the lemon; whisk them all together fifteen or twenty minutes, and bake in cheese-cake tins in a moderate oven.

The Hydropathic Cook-Book by R. T. Trall, M.D. 1854

Comment: The Hydropathic Cook-Book is a now-extremely-rare survivor of what was once a vast and thriving segment of the publishing business and indeed the "medical" industry. Sylvester Graham (b. 1794) was perhaps the founding father of this phase of the Better Living Through Diet philosophy. The only item which still bears his name is the "graham cracker," and lamentably enough it bears no trace of his whole-wheat, no-sugar dietary scheme.

Similarly, these "Frost Cakes" are without question the sexiest items in "Dr." Trall's book. As the name hints, without directly admitting, they were intended as substitutes for Christmas cookies, pies, cakes and sweets in general. One batch of these small cakes would give a hard core adherent of the Hydropathic Diet a sugar rush the likes of which we can hardly imagine, since it would be just about the only sugar she or he got all year long. Whether it was sufficient to make up for having potato flour as the base ingredient is another question.

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