Fruit Cake (One cup butter one of brown)

A plain, molasses-heavy fruit cake of the everyday sort — no brandy, no citron, no eggs to speak of. The book assumes you already know how such a cake is mixed and baked, so the working details have to be filled in.

• Half a pint of molassesA pint is 16 fl oz, so this is 1 cup. Unsulphured molasses suits the cake best; blackstrap is markedly more bitter and will dominate it.
• A pound of flourAbout 3 1/2 to 4 cups, depending on how it is scooped. Weigh it at 1 lb (455 g) and you will be exactly right; measuring by cup here is the main way this cake goes wrong.
• Sour milkNineteenth-century sour milk was raw milk left to clabber. Use buttermilk, or a cup of milk with a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice stirred in and left ten minutes. The acid is structural — it is what the soda reacts with, along with the molasses.
• Only two eggsThis is not a rich Victorian black cake; it is a soda-and-molasses cake carrying fruit. Expect a dense, moist, dark crumb rather than a light one, and do not be tempted to beat air into it.
• Flavor to tasteThe recipe leaves this entirely open. Fruit-cake spicing of the period commonly ran to cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and sometimes mace or allspice; roughly 1 to 2 teaspoons cinnamon and a teaspoon each of cloves and nutmeg is a workable modern reading.
• The fruitTwo and a half pounds of dried fruit into one pound of flour is a great deal. Toss the currants and raisins with a few spoonfuls of the measured flour before folding them in, or they will settle to the bottom.
• Oven and timeThe recipe gives no oven or timing instruction; this has to be supplied. A low oven, about 300 to 325F, suits a cake this dense. Two greased and lined 9x5 loaf pans will need roughly 1 1/2 to 2 hours; a single large tube or deep cake pan closer to 2 1/2 to 3. Tent with foil once the top has set, and test with a skewer in the centre.
• Yield and keepingAbout five to six pounds of cake — two good loaves. It improves for several days wrapped tight, and will keep a couple of weeks in a cool place; a cloth dampened with spirits, renewed occasionally, extends that considerably.