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Canadian Cakes
Mix thoroughly one pound of the best flour, a quarter of a pound of maizena, three-quarters of a pound of sugar, and a pinch of salt. Rub in three-quarters of a pound of butter, and add eight eggs well beaten, half an ounce of candied peel chopped very small, a wine-glassful of brandy, and half a pound of currants. Beat these ingredients well together, and put the mixture into shallow tins, which must be lined with paper dipped in oil or butter, and bake in a good oven. Time to bake, half an hour. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for four cakes.
A rich egg-raised fruit cake in the mid-Victorian style, with no baking powder at all — the lift comes entirely from the beaten eggs. That fact governs everything else about the method.
- Maizena is cornflourMaizena was a widely sold brand of refined maize starch; use plain cornstarch, 4 oz (about 1 cup). It softens the crumb by diluting the flour's gluten.
- Weigh, don't scoopThe proportions are given by weight in the English pound: 1 lb flour (450 g), 12 oz sugar (340 g), 12 oz butter (340 g), 8 oz currants (225 g). Volume measures will not reproduce the balance, particularly for the butter.
- The eggs are the leaveningEight eggs, beaten until pale and thick and then beaten again into the mixture, are the only aeration. Work quickly once they are in and get the tins into the oven; a batter left standing goes flat and bakes heavy.
- "A good oven"An unspecified brisk but not fierce heat; something in the region of 350-375F/180-190C is a reasonable modern starting point. Thirty minutes suits shallow tins; test with a skewer, as a rich egg batter browns before the centre sets.
- Wine-glassfulRoughly 2 fl oz (60 ml) of brandy in Victorian kitchen usage. It is flavouring, not liquid structure, so do not increase it to loosen a stiff batter.
- Lining the tinsOiled or buttered paper is simply Victorian parchment. Baking parchment cut to fit does the same job, and matters here because the high sugar and fruit will catch.
- Rubbing in with this much butterThree-quarters of a pound rubbed into a pound of flour is a very high fat ratio. Keep the butter cool and the hands light, or it will smear into a paste rather than crumb.
- Fruit and peelHalf an ounce of peel is a whisper — about a tablespoon chopped fine. Toss the currants in a little of the weighed flour so they do not sink.
- YieldFour shallow cakes, as the recipe states. Wrapped, they will keep a few days.
"Maizena" was a proprietary name for refined corn starch, sold in Britain in the Victorian period alongside rivals such as Brown & Polson's cornflour — North American maize starch in an otherwise conventional English fruit cake. The recipe belongs to the family of egg-raised cakes that predate reliable chemical leavening and survived in cookbooks well after baking powder was common, giving a fine, close crumb through long beating. Cassell's habit of quoting a probable cost, here 2s. 6d. for four cakes, marks it as a book written for households keeping accounts: eight eggs, three-quarters of a pound of butter and a glass of brandy made this a cake for company rather than everyday tea.