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TWELFTH CAKE (another way)
The following is an old recipe. Seven pounds of fine flour, two pounds and a half of the freshest butter, seven pounds of currants prepared as before directed, two large nutmegs, grated, half an ounce of mace and a quarter of an ounce of cloves pounded to fine powder, a pound of sifted lump sugar, the yolks of sixteen and the whites of twelve eggs, and a pint and a half of the very best distiller's yeast. Warm as much cream as will wet this mass, and add as much sweet malmsey or mountain wine as will give it the consistency of batter. Beat, not too fine, a pound of sweet almonds bleached; rub them with some of the sweet wine and orange-flower water; then add, and beat also, half a pound each of candied lemon, citron, and orange peel. Let the whole be well mixed, and put the cake into a hoop with a thick paste of flour and water under it in order to preserve the bottom from scorching. Ice it the moment it is drawn from the oven.
This is a yeast-raised fruit cake of banquet proportions, and Cassell's prints it as a historical curiosity rather than a working formula. Read it as a document first; if you want to bake from it, scale it hard and fill in the steps the original assumes you know.
- The hinge: it is bread, not cakeThe hinge: it is leavened like bread -- There is no chemical leavening here, only distiller's yeast, so the mass must be set to rise in a warm place until visibly puffed before it goes near the oven. The recipe never says so, presumably because the step was taken for granted. Bake it unproved and you get a dense, damp result.
- ScaleSeven pounds of flour and seven pounds of currants makes something on the order of 20 to 25 pounds of finished cake, a centrepiece for a large household party. Dividing by six or eight gives a cake that fits a domestic oven and tin.
- Distiller's yeastThis was liquid barm skimmed from brewing or distilling, active but weak and often bitter. A pint and a half of it does not convert by volume to modern yeast; reckon on ordinary bread yeast at the rate you would use for the same weight of flour, and expect a much longer rise than a bread dough because of the fat, sugar and fruit.
- Malmsey and mountainMalmsey is the sweetest style of Madeira; "mountain" was the period name for sweet Malaga wine from the hills behind that city. A sweet Madeira, Malaga or cream sherry stands in for either. The wine is doing flavour work and adding liquid, so add it gradually to reach batter consistency rather than measuring blind.
- Sifted lump sugarLoaf or lump sugar crushed and sieved gives roughly what we buy as caster sugar. Use caster, weight for weight.
- Bleached almonds"Bleached" means blanched, that is, skinned in hot water. Beaten "not too fine" with wine and orange-flower water they should stay slightly gritty, which is the point; a smooth paste loses the texture.
- Hoop and the flour pasteA hoop is a bottomless band set on a baking sheet, so the flour-and-water paste beneath acts as a sacrificial heat shield. In a modern deep tin the same job is done by lining the base and sides with a double thickness of parchment and standing the tin on a sheet or two of newspaper or an inverted tray.
- OvenThe recipe gives neither temperature nor time. A cake of this richness and depth wants a slow oven; for a scaled-down version something in the region of 275 to 300F for several hours is a reasonable starting point, and the full-sized original would have needed many hours in a falling oven. Cover the top with paper once it has coloured and test with a skewer rather than by clock.
- Icing it hotIce "the moment it is drawn from the oven" refers to the old practice of flooding the hot surface with a royal icing of egg white and sugar, which dries hard and glassy on the residual heat.
Twelfth Cake belonged to Twelfth Night, the eve of Epiphany on 5 January, which until the mid-nineteenth century was the noisier and more festive end of the Christmas season. The cake was cut with a bean or a pea baked inside to choose a mock king and queen of the revels, a custom generally traced back through medieval Europe to Roman midwinter feasts; by the Georgian period London confectioners' windows were famous for elaborate iced and gilded Twelfth Cakes on display. The yeast-raised, wine-soaked, currant-heavy formula printed here is the older style, before baking powder and a heavy hand with eggs made such cakes lighter and quicker. Cassell's calls it "an old recipe" for good reason: by the time this dictionary was compiled, Twelfth Night celebration had faded and its cake had largely migrated to Christmas, which is where the rich iced fruit cake stayed.