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Boiling Water Cake
1 cupful boiling water 1 cupful sugar 1/2 cupful Crisco 1 egg 1/4 cupful chopped candied citron peel 1 cupful sultana raisins 2 1/2 cupfuls flour 1/2 teaspoonful salt 2 teaspoonfuls baking powder 1/4 teaspoonful grated nutmeg 1/2 teaspoonful lemon extract Put Crisco and sugar into basin, pour boiling water over them; let stand till cold, then add egg well beaten, sift in flour, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg, add peel, raisins, and lemon extract, and mix well. Turn into greased and floured small square tin and bake in moderate oven half hour. Cool and cover with boiled frosting.
Sufficient for one small cake.
A plain fruited cake from a Crisco-sponsored cookbook, built on an unusual method: boiling water is poured over the fat and sugar and the mixture left to cool, which melts and re-emulsifies the shortening so it disperses through the batter without creaming. The one thing to respect is that cooling step.
- Let it go fully coldIf the mixture is still warm when the egg goes in, the egg may curdle and the baking powder will begin working before the cake reaches the oven. Give it as long as it needs to reach room temperature; a cold water bath speeds it up.
- CriscoStill sold, and the recipe was written to promote it. Any solid vegetable shortening works; half a cup is about 100 g. Butter can be substituted by weight, though the crumb will be a little less tender.
- Moderate ovenConventionally read as about 350F / 175C, though the book gives no temperatures. Half an hour suits a shallow square tin of roughly 8 inches; start testing at 25 minutes with a skewer in the centre.
- Sultanas and citronSultanas are golden raisins. Candied citron peel is the thick, pale green candied rind of the citron fruit, sold at holiday baking counters; candied mixed peel or candied orange peel is a reasonable stand-in. Toss the fruit in a spoonful of the measured flour so it does not sink.
- "Small square tin"Probably something on the order of an 8-inch square pan. The batter is thick rather than freely pourable, so spread it level with a spatula before it goes in.
- Boiled frostingThe period term for a frosting made by beating a hot sugar syrup into stiff egg whites, essentially what is now called Italian meringue (and a close relative of seven-minute frosting). It must go on a completely cold cake or it will slide. A simple lemon glaze suits the flavouring just as well.
- YieldOne small square cake, cut into 9 or 12 pieces.
A Calendar of Dinners was written by Marion Harris Neil and issued by Procter & Gamble to sell Crisco, the hydrogenated cottonseed shortening launched in 1911; the recipes are built around the product, and the book's real work is teaching cooks that a vegetable fat could replace butter and lard in cake as well as pastry. Cakes that pour boiling water over the fat and skip creaming altogether belong to a family of thrifty methods — a genuine advantage when the fat is firm and the only tool is a wooden spoon. With one egg, no milk, and dried fruit standing in for richness, it sits in the same economical tradition as boiled fruit cake and the wartime cakes that followed, though the citron peel and nutmeg mark it as a modest holiday or tea cake rather than everyday bread.