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Yeast Cake
Put three-quarters of a pound of flour into a bowl, and mix with it a pinch of salt. Dissolve a quarter of a pound of butter in a quarter of a pint of hot milk. Let the mixture cool a little, and when it is new-milk warm, stir it into the flour. Add a small table-spoonful of fresh yeast and two well-beaten eggs, and knead the preparation till it forms a smooth dough. Make two or three gashes across the surface with a knife, cover the bowl with a cloth, and set the dough in a warm place to rise. When sufficiently light, knead it again with six ounces of currants picked and dried, four ounces of powdered white sugar, one ounce of candied peel cut into thin strips, and a little grated nutmeg. Line a good-sized cake-tin with buttered paper, and let the paper rise four or six inches above the tin. Pour the mixture into it, let the cake rise half an hour longer, and bake in a well-heated oven. Protect the surface of the cake with a sheet of paper whilst it is being baked. Time to bake the cake, about an hour and a half. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient to make a moderate-sized cake.
A yeast-raised fruit cake rather than a chemically leavened one, so it behaves more like an enriched bread dough than a batter. Two things decide whether it works: the temperature of the milk-and-butter mixture, and keeping the crust from setting before the crumb has finished rising.
- The hinge: "new-milk warm"This means blood heat, roughly 98-100F, the temperature of milk fresh from the cow. Butter melted into hot milk will be far above that; let it cool until it feels neither warm nor cool on the inside of the wrist before the yeast goes in, or the yeast is killed and the cake will never lift.
- Weights and measuresThree-quarters of a pound of flour is about 340g, or roughly 2¾ to 3 cups. A quarter-pound of butter is 115g. A quarter of an imperial pint of milk is 5 imperial fl oz, about 140ml — a little over half a US cup, and more than a US quarter-pint (118ml).
- Fresh yeastA small tablespoonful of fresh compressed yeast is roughly 15-20g. Substitute about 2 teaspoons of instant dried yeast, or about 2½ teaspoons of active dry proofed in a little of the warm milk.
- "A well-heated oven"No temperature is given, and coal-range heat was judged by feel rather than degrees. For an hour and a half of baking on a fruited, sugared dough, start at about 375F and drop to 325-350F after the first twenty minutes, or the outside will be dark long before the centre sets.
- The paper collar and coverThe buttered paper standing four to six inches above the tin supports the dough as it rises above the rim; the loose sheet laid over the top shields the currants and sugar from scorching. Both are still the right technique — parchment does the job, and the top sheet can be added once the cake has coloured.
- Second rise and the gashesThe recipe does not say why the cuts are made; the usual explanation is that they serve as a gauge, the dough being "sufficiently light" when the cuts have opened and closed over and the bulk has roughly doubled. The half-hour final proof in the tin is a minimum; in a cool kitchen the fruit and sugar slow the yeast considerably, so wait for visible lift instead.
- Fruit and sugar go in secondCurrants and sugar are kneaded in after the first rise for good reason — sugar and dried fruit both retard yeast. Toss the currants in a little of the flour so they distribute rather than sink.
- Yield and doneness"A moderate-sized cake" is not defined; something in the region of a 7-inch round tin would suit the quantities. It is done when a skewer comes out clean and the internal temperature reaches about 200F; cool in the tin for ten minutes, then on a rack.
Before baking powder became widely available in the second half of the nineteenth century, many large English "cakes" were raised with ale yeast or barm, and the line between a rich bread and a cake was blurred — this recipe sits squarely on it, a close relation of Sally Lunn, Welsh bara brith and the spiced yeast tea cakes of the north of England. The currants, candied peel and nutmeg mark it as festive rather than everyday, though the stated cost of a shilling puts it well within reach of a modest late-Victorian household.