I just had to try **Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.’s 1922 Bread Tart recipe** because the ingredient combination was so unusual. The whole process starts with a fascinating twist: soaking fresh breadcrumbs in grape juice and lemon juice. That's what got me. I've never heard of such a thing!

You may have just seen my post about making [Doug Jr's Spaghetti Fairbanks](https://www.reddit.com/r/OldCelebrityRecipes/comments/1wpymxl/last_night_i_made_the_delicious_spaghetti/) last night for dinner, well this is what we had for dessert. A father and son sort of dinner, I guess you could call it.

* I started by soaking fresh bread crumbs in the grape and lemon juices
* Then 5 egg yolks get beaten with 1 cup of sugar
* Add *nut meats*! In this case I added a cup of chopped walnuts. Then added the baking powder and bread crumb mixture.
* Now here's one thing that needs to change. Just adding the baking powder to the ingredients like this can't incorporate well at all. (In fact later while eating the cake, I detected a very slight weird metallic taste that I think was coming from the baking powder.)
* This recipe definitely need finessing. 
* *When or how would you add the baking powder*? 
* After whipping up the egg whites in a separate bowl, fold them into the rest of the batter.
* I used two buttered and floured [9" cake pans](https://link.amazon/B0hsRmYhz) and divided the mix evenly between the two. Make sure you get an even amount of walnuts in each pan, because they sink to the bottom of the mixing bowl.
* My toaster/ convection **oven was preheated to 350** and I had to bake them one at a time. (my real oven broke a couple of weeks ago). They cooked very quickly and did not take 20 minutes but only about **12-15 minutes**.
* Since this recipe does not give exact pan size or oven temperature, we just went with the obvious options. 
* When both cakes were done, I cooled them on a rack in their pans and then made the filling
* Now this filling has a raw egg in it, so I went for a modern version which turns out to be lemon curd (see recipe). I used the same measurements as the old recipe, but with new cooking instructions. I didn't put the walnuts into the filling and just used them on top of the cake after the filling was added.
* Beware when unmolding your cakes because they're very delicate and break and crack easily. One of mine broke in a few pieces, but it was easy to put back together and then the filling covers the cracks.
* I added the filling layered between the two cakes and then had enough of the lemon filling to add a little to the top and then sprinkle with nuts.

All in all, this tart/cake was very good and so different. I was expecting it to be sort of like a bread pudding, and I guess it is, but the texture of course is very different. I couldn't detect any grape flavor, but then again the lemon curd is very pronounced.

It's very good and I expect it might get a little better over the next couple of days if it lasts that long. I feel like I'd have to make this tart a few more times to really get the heart and soul of it, but even without the trial and error needed for something like this old recipe, it still turned out very delicious and so different! 

This delicate **bread tart** is moist and light and has a nice tartness from all the lemon used in the icing. So for an old celebrity recipe from the [Stag Cook Book of 1922](https://link.amazon/B0a9F5Cpr), I think we did good! Yum!



This was such an unusual recipe, I had to try Douglas Fairbanks' Bread Tart recipe from 1922. You start off by soaking bread crumbs in grape juice and finish by filling the layers with lemon curd. It's very a delicate, different dessert somewhere between a bread pudding and a nice custard cake.