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Imperial Cake
One pound butter and one of sugar beaten to a cream, one pound flour, the grated rind and juice of a lemon, nine eggs, one and a quarter pounds almonds before they are cracked, half pound citron, half pound raisins; beat the yolks light, add sugar and butter, then the whites beaten to a stiff froth, and the flour, reserving a part for the fruit, and, lastly, the nuts blanched, cut fine and mixed with fruit and the rest of the flour. This is very delicious, and will keep for months. -Mrs. E. R. May, Minneapolis, Minn.
A pound cake enriched with almonds and candied fruit, with no leavening beyond nine eggs — the beating is the whole method. The original gives no pan, temperature or time, so those are the gaps to fill.
- Almonds in the shell"One and a quarter pounds almonds before they are cracked" means weighed unshelled. Shelled almonds run roughly 40-50 percent of that weight, so use about 8 to 9 oz of blanched kernels.
- CitronCandied citron, the thick peel of a large citrus, not the citron melon. Half a pound is a lot by modern taste; candied orange peel or a mix of peels substitutes cleanly.
- Oven and timeThe original gives no temperature; a moderate oven, around 325F, suits a cake this dense. Expect a long, steady bake -- roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours in loaf pans and up to about 2 hours in a large tube pan -- and test with a skewer that comes out clean at the centre.
- Pan and yieldOver five pounds of batter. Divide between two 9x5-inch loaf pans, or use a 10-inch tube pan, lined with parchment and buttered. Serves 20 or more in thin slices.
- The hingeWith no baking powder or soda, all the lift comes from the creamed butter and the stiffly beaten whites. Cream butter and sugar until genuinely pale and aerated, and fold the whites in rather than stirring them.
- Flouring the fruitReserving flour to toss with the almonds and fruit is not decorative — coated pieces suspend in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom during the long bake.
- KeepingThe claim that it keeps for months is fair for a cake this rich, wrapped closely and stored cool. It slices better after two or three days than on the day it is baked.
Buckeye Cookery (first published 1876 as the Centennial Buckeye Cook Book, later reissued and revised as Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping) was assembled from contributions by Midwestern housewives, and the attribution to Mrs. E. R. May of Minneapolis is typical of the book's method: a network of named women trading their best-keeping cakes. "Imperial" was one of a family of grand names ")Queen's, Wedding, Pound — used for rich celebration cakes, the almonds and citron marking it as festive rather than everyday baking. Candied citron and almonds were expensive imported goods in an inland city, which is much of the point.