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Black Cake (One pound powdered white sugar)
One pound powdered white sugar, three-quarters pound butter, pound sifted flour (brown or not as preferred), twelve eggs beaten separately, two pounds raisins stoned and part of them chopped, two of currants carefully cleaned, half pound citron cut in strips, quarter ounce each of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves mixed, wineglass wine and one of brandy; rub butter and sugar together, add yolks of eggs, part of flour, the spice, and whites of eggs well beaten; then add remainder of flour, and wine and brandy; mix all thoroughly together; cover bottom and sides of a four-quart milk-pan with buttered white paper, put in a layer of the mixture, then a layer of the fruit (first dredging the fruit with flour), until pan is filled up three or four inches. A small cup of Orleans molasses makes the cake bläcker and more moist, but for this it is not necessary to add more flour. Bake three and one-half or four hours in a slow oven. This is excellent. - Mrs. M. M. Munsell, Del aware.
A full-scale nineteenth-century fruitcake, leavened by nothing but twelve well-beaten eggs. The hinge is the oven: at anything above a true slow oven the outside sets and scorches long before the center of a five-inch-deep cake is done.
- Slow ovenRead this as about 300F, and 275F is safer for a cake of this depth; the recipe fills the pan three or four inches. Three and a half to four hours is realistic; test with a skewer and, if you have a thermometer, look for 200-210F at the center.
- Powdered sugarIn 1877 this meant granulated sugar ground fine, not the modern confectioners' sugar cut with cornstarch. Use ordinary granulated, or pulse it briefly in a processor.
- "Brown or not as preferred"This most likely refers to browned flour: dried in a dry skillet until it takes color and smells nutty, then cooled and sifted. It darkens the crumb and mutes the raw-flour taste; plain flour works as well.
- WineglassA wineglass was commonly reckoned at about 2 fluid ounces, so roughly a quarter cup each of wine and brandy. The wine was probably a fortified one such as madeira, sherry or port.
- Currants and citronCurrants here are dried Zante currants, small dried grapes, not fresh red or black currants. Citron is the candied peel of the citron fruit, sold in blocks at holiday season; candied orange or lemon peel substitutes acceptably.
- Stoning raisinsRaisins of the period were sold with their seeds and had to be split and picked. Modern seedless raisins skip the step entirely; still chop part of them, as the recipe asks, so the fruit distributes.
- Orleans molassesNew Orleans molasses was a light-to-medium cane syrup, not blackstrap. Use ordinary unsulphured molasses; blackstrap will turn the cake bitter.
- The panA four-quart milk pan is a wide, shallow vessel roughly 10 inches across, its sides often flaring rather than straight. A 10-inch springform or two 9-inch round cake pans, lined with buttered parchment rather than buttered writing paper, will hold the batter.
- Yield and keepingThe ingredients add up to something in the range of eight pounds of cake, traditionally served in thin slices. Wrapped in brandy-dampened cloth and kept airtight in a cool place, it improves for weeks.
"Black cake" is the old name for the darkest end of the English plum-cake family: a batter carrying more fruit than flour, colored by spice, browned flour, molasses or burnt sugar, and held together by a great many eggs rather than by chemical leavening. Recipes of this type traveled with British settlement, and the same lineage produced the Caribbean black cake soaked in rum and the American wedding and Christmas fruitcakes of the nineteenth century. Its presence in Buckeye Cookery (1877), a compilation of contributions from Ohio housewives, marks it as an occasion cake: twelve eggs, four pounds of dried fruit and half a pound of citron represented real expense, and four hours in a cooling wood-fired oven was a serious undertaking. The credit to a named contributor from Delaware is typical of the book, which was assembled from household manuscripts rather than written by a single author.