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Genoa Cake
1/4 pound Crisco, and 1/4 pound butter. Mix to a cream with 1/2 pound sugar, add little mace, stir in gradually yolk of 6 eggs and 1/2 beaten whites, 10 ounces flour, beat well for 1 minute, add 1 pound raisins, 1/4 pound citron, cut very fine, grated rind of 1 lemon, and 2 ounces chopped almonds. Mix well, add remainder of beaten whites last. Mix well, put in pan lined with paper, sprinkle top with chopped almonds and bake in slow oven.
A rich creamed fruit cake with no chemical leavening at all — the six yolks and the whites folded in at the end are the only lift it gets. Everything hinges on the creaming and on a genuinely slow oven.
- Slow oven means 300–325°FSlow oven is generally taken as around 300-325°F. A cake this dense with a pound of raisins in it will likely want a couple of hours or more, so test rather than trust a set time. If the top colours too fast, lay a sheet of foil or paper loosely over it after the first hour.
- The weights, in cups¼ lb Crisco is about ½ cup; ¼ lb butter is one stick. ½ lb sugar is a scant 1¼ cups granulated; 10 oz flour is about 2¼ cups spooned and levelled. Weighing is far more reliable here than measuring.
- CriscoThe book was written to sell it, and the shortening is still sold. Straight butter for the whole ½ lb works and tastes better, though the crumb will be a little firmer; the shortening is there for tenderness and keeping quality.
- "1/2 beaten whites"Beat all six whites to soft peaks, add half to the batter before the flour as the recipe directs, and reserve the other half to fold in at the very end. Fold that last addition in gently and stop as soon as no streaks show.
- No baking powder is missingNothing appears to have been omitted from this version, which relies on egg and creaming alone, though other Genoa cake recipes of the period do use baking powder. Cream the fat and sugar until genuinely pale and light -- several minutes with a mixer -- before any yolk goes in.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold at holiday time and from baking suppliers. Chop it very fine as directed; large pieces sink. Tossing the raisins and citron in a spoonful of the measured flour helps keep them suspended.
- MaceA "little" mace is about ¼ teaspoon ground. It is the aril of nutmeg and tastes like a lighter, more floral version of it; ground nutmeg at the same quantity is the usual stand-in.
- Lining the panUse an 8- or 9-inch round or square tin lined with parchment on the base and up the sides, ideally with a double thickness — long slow baking scorches the edges of an unprotected fruit cake. Yields about 16 servings, and it improves after a day or two wrapped.
- TestingA skewer into the centre should come out clean of batter; damp crumbs from a raisin do not count. The cake will still feel soft when hot and firms as it cools, so cool it in the tin for 20 minutes before turning out.
Genoa cake is the English name for a rich, unspiced-to-lightly-spiced fruit cake studded with raisins, citron and almonds, and topped with almonds rather than iced — distinguishing it from the marzipan-and-royal-icing Christmas cake and from the plainer Madeira. The connection to the Italian city is loose and traditional rather than documented; the name most likely gestures at the Mediterranean dried fruit, citron and almonds that made the cake possible, all of which came into British kitchens through Genoese and other Italian ports. Its appearance here, with Crisco creamed alongside the butter, places the book in its period: A Calendar of Dinners was written by Marion Harris Neil and published by Procter & Gamble to demonstrate their new hydrogenated vegetable shortening, and half the butter in a traditional cake being quietly replaced was exactly the argument such books were built to make.