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Luncheon Cake Made from Dough
Take two pounds of dough just ready for the oven, rub into it two ounces of fresh butter, a quarter of a pound of currants, washed, picked, and dried thoroughly, half a pound of moist sugar, and half a large nutmeg, grated, with a little sliced candied lemon, if liked. These ingredients should be rubbed into the dough very lightly. Put the mixture into a basin, cover it with a cloth, and let it stand in a warm place to rise. Then knead the dough, butter some tins, three-parts fill them with the cake, let it again rise for a few minutes, and bake in a moderate oven. If bread is not made at home, a little dough may be procured from the baker's. Time to bake, about an hour and a half. Probable cost, 1s.
A dough cake: risen bread dough enriched with butter, sugar and fruit rather than a batter raised with eggs or chemical leavening. The whole thing hinges on the second rise, which will be far slower than the recipe suggests.
- The doughTwo pounds of plain white bread dough at the point of going into the oven, i.e. fully proved. If you are making your own, that is roughly the dough from a pound or so of flour with water, salt and yeast. The instruction to buy some from the baker indicates that raw dough could be had from bakeries; a bread-machine dough cycle or a lean, no-oil pizza dough is the practical substitute.
- Moist sugarVictorian "moist sugar" is unrefined or partly refined soft sugar, close to today's light brown sugar. Half a pound is a generous cup packed, and it is a large amount against 2 lb of dough.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. "Washed, picked, and dried" refers to rinsing off packing grit and pulling out stalks; modern packaged currants need only a check for stems.
- NutmegHalf a large nutmeg grated is about 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons, which is assertive by current taste. Grate it fresh; pre-ground nutmeg at that quantity tastes dusty.
- Expect a very slow riseSugar and fat at these proportions draw water from the yeast and slow it badly. The first rise after enriching will take two to three hours in a warm place, not the vague interval implied, and the "few minutes" in the tins should be read as 45 to 90 minutes, until the dough has visibly domed. Under-proving is the usual cause of a heavy, close dough cake.
- Rubbing in lightlyThe point of rubbing rather than kneading at this stage is to avoid tearing the gluten network already built. Work the butter, sugar and fruit in with fingertips until roughly distributed; full incorporation happens during the knead that follows the rise.
- Tins and ovenThree-parts filling suggests three 1 lb loaf tins from this quantity, which is over 3 lb of enriched dough. A moderate oven is usually read as 350F/175C, and the recipe's hour and a half fits tins of that size. The crust darkens early because of the sugar, so tent with foil once it colours and judge doneness by an internal temperature of 195-200F.
- Yield and servingTwo or three loaves depending on tin size. It is a bread-textured cake, best fresh, sliced and buttered. Stale slices toast well. The "probable cost, 1s" is a shilling, the book's standard note of household expense.
Cakes built on bread dough are older and more widespread in Britain than the creamed-butter cakes that displaced them, and they survive regionally as dough cake, lardy cake and Yorkshire spice loaf. The logic is domestic economy: on baking day a household already had risen dough on the table, and enriching a couple of pounds of it with sugar, fruit and spice produced something festive without a separate leavening or a second heating of the oven. The note that dough "may be procured from the baker's" is a reminder that raw dough, as well as finished loaves, could be had from a commercial bakehouse. Cassell's files the recipe under luncheon cake.