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Cup Fruit Cake
One cup butter, one cup sugar, one cup molasses, one cup sweet milk, four cups of flour, three eggs two cups of chopped raisins, two cups of currants, one cup citron, one very small teaspoon of soda, half a teaspoon of cloves, one and one-half teaspoons of cinnamon, one-half a cup of wine or brandy, one nutmeg.
A cup-measure fruit cake given as an ingredient list only, in the confident nineteenth-century assumption that any cook knew what to do with it. The proportions are sound; what is missing is method, pan size, oven and time.
- Method, since none is givenCream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the molasses and milk alternately with the flour and spices. Toss the fruit with a few spoonfuls of the measured flour before folding it in so it does not sink.
- Sweet milkSweet milk simply means fresh milk, as opposed to the soured or buttermilk that often appears in these books. Whole milk is the right substitute.
- The soda is deliberately smallOne very small teaspoon of soda works on the acid in the molasses; the reaction tempers the acidity and gives some lift, with the eggs and creamed butter helping. Too much soda can give a soapy taste and a darker, coarser crumb.
- One nutmegA whole nutmeg, grated, is roughly 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons. Pre-ground nutmeg loses its edge quickly, so grate it fresh if you have the whole spice.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks or diced by the pound at one time and now mostly a holiday item. Chop it small; candied mixed peel or candied orange peel is the nearest common stand-in.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh red or black currants. Rinse and dry them if they are dusty, and plump them briefly in hot water or in the wine if very hard.
- Pan and ovenThis makes a large cake, around 5 pounds of batter, which is more than two 9x5-inch loaf pans will comfortably hold; divide it between three loaf pans or use a large tube pan, lined with parchment, and bake slowly, in the region of 300 to 325F. Loaves take about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, a tube pan longer; test with a skewer at the centre.
- The wine or brandyThe half cup is doing double duty as flavour and keeper. The cake improves after a few days wrapped and stored, and will keep for weeks if brushed occasionally with more spirit.
- YieldAround 5 pounds of finished cake, enough for a great many thin slices. Fruit cake of this density is usually cut thin rather than in wedges.
Cup cakes in the older sense had nothing to do with paper liners: the name meant a cake measured in cupfuls rather than weighed, and the whole point was that it could be recited from memory. The tidy string of ones here -- a cup each of butter, sugar, molasses and milk -- is the mnemonic doing its work, in the same family as the one-two-three-four cake. That the recipe gives no oven and no timing is characteristic of the period, when a cook judged a wood-fired range by hand and eye rather than by number. A dark, spirit-soaked fruit cake of this kind was not a dessert course so much as a keeping cake, cut thin for the evening tea table.