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Fruit and Delicate Cake
Two and one-half tea-cups sugar, four and one-half tea-cups flour, one tea-cup butter, four eggs, one tea-cup sour milk, one small teaspoon soda, flavor with lemon; take enough out of this to fill two jelly tins, then to the remainder add one cup chopped raisins, one cup currants, one cup citron, two tablespoons molasses, two tablespoons brandy, one tablespoon cinnamon, one-half tablespoon mace, and half a teaspoon cloves; bake this in jelly tins; when done, spread jelly between the cakes, which must be put together in this way; first delicate then fruit, alternately; then frost with boiled frosting or confectioners' frosting.
One batter, split and doctored, gives you a four-layer cake of alternating pale and dark tiers. The trick is dividing it before the fruit and spice go in, and remembering that the fruited half will bake more slowly than the plain.
- Divide first, then loadMeasure out roughly half the batter for the two plain layers before adding anything else. The original only says "enough to fill two jelly tins" and does not specify a proportion; bear in mind that once the fruit, molasses and brandy go in, the remainder will make up rather more batter than the plain half.
- Tea-cupsA nineteenth-century tea-cup is usually reckoned at about 6 fl oz, three-quarters of a modern measuring cup. Scaled that way the recipe runs about 1 7/8 cups sugar, 3 1/3 to 3 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup butter and 3/4 cup sour milk. If you use full 8 oz cups throughout the proportions still hold, and you simply get a larger cake.
- Jelly tinsShallow round layer pans, 8 or 9 inches across and an inch or so deep. You will need four, or bake in two batches. Grease and line the bottoms.
- Sour milk and sodaSour milk here means naturally soured raw milk, acidic enough to react with the soda. Use buttermilk, or clabbered whole milk. Sweet modern milk will leave a soapy taste and a flat crumb.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction. A moderate oven, about 350F, suits it. The plain layers will take about 20 to 25 minutes; the fruited layers, heavier and wetter, need 30 to 40 and benefit from being dropped to 325F if they colour too fast.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks or diced for holiday baking. Chop it fine. Candied orange or lemon peel is the nearest substitute if you cannot find it.
- Flour the fruitToss the raisins, currants and citron with a spoonful of the measured flour before folding them in, or they will settle to the bottom of the pan.
- Spice quantitiesA tablespoon of cinnamon and half a tablespoon of mace are assertive by modern standards but correct for a dark fruit layer meant to contrast with the plain one. They are not a misprint.
- Boiled frostingSugar syrup cooked to the soft-ball stage, 238-240F, beaten into stiff egg whites. It sets firm with a matte shell. Confectioners' frosting is the uncooked alternative: sifted icing sugar beaten with a little water, cream or egg white.
- YieldTwo plain layers and at least two fruited ones, giving a cake of roughly 12 to 16 slices. It keeps well for several days; the fruited layers improve on the second.
Cakes like this belong to the era of the layer cake as a set piece of the supper table. Splitting a single mixture into a pale half and a dark, spiced, fruited half was a familiar economy of American receipt books, sold under names like harlequin, or simply "fruit and delicate" -- "delicate cake" being the period term for a light cake made with plenty of butter and sugar and, often, whites only. The jelly spread between the layers rather than buttercream is often said to mark it as an older practice: boiled frosting went on top, where it would show, and a spoonful of preserve did the work inside. The brandy and molasses in the fruit half are there for colour and keeping quality as much as flavour, both being habits inherited from the older, heavier English fruit cake.