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Christmas Fruit Cake
One cup of sugar, one cup of shortening, one cup molasses, one cup boiling water, one cup raisins, one cup citron, one cup currants, one teaspoon each or lemon, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and allspice, one rounding teaspoon of soda, pinch of salt, four cups of flour. Bake slowly three-quarters of an hour.
An eggless, one-bowl fruit cake of the type that got made by the dozen in December and kept in a tin. The proportions are workable, but the baking instruction needs interpreting.
- Slow ovenRead "bake slowly" as 300-325F. Molasses and dried fruit both scorch, and this batter has no eggs to set it quickly, so the low heat is doing real work.
- The 45 minutes is for small pansFour cups of flour plus three cups of fruit will not bake through in three-quarters of an hour in one large tin. Divide between two loaf pans and start testing at 45 minutes; a single deep pan will want an hour and a half or more.
- ShorteningIn a book of this vintage this means lard, or butter, or a mix. Modern vegetable shortening works and gives a softer crumb; butter gives more flavour and a firmer cake.
- Boiling water and sodaThe hot water melts the fat and draws out the spices, and the soda reacts with the acid in the molasses. Let the mixture cool to warm before the flour goes in, and get it into the oven promptly once the soda is stirred through.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in tubs at Christmas and increasingly hard to find. Candied orange or lemon peel substitutes cleanly; measure it chopped, not in whole slices.
- Lemon and vanilla"One teaspoon each of lemon" means lemon extract, not juice or zest. Six teaspoons of flavouring in total is assertive by modern taste; halving the cloves and allspice is defensible.
- Flour the fruitToss the raisins, currants and citron with a few spoonfuls of the measured flour before folding them in, or they sink into the bottom third of the loaf.
- Yield and keepingAbout two 8x4-inch loaves. With no eggs and plenty of molasses and sugar it keeps well wrapped for a week or two, and improves after the first day.
This is the plainest branch of the Christmas cake family: no eggs, no brandy, no long-fed maturation, just molasses, spice and whatever dried fruit the house had. Cakes built on boiling water and soda rather than eggs and creamed butter appear in American community cookbooks from the late nineteenth century onward, and recipes of this type circulated widely during the First World War, when eggs and butter were scarce; similar formulas are often filed under names like "boiled raisin cake" or "war cake." The citron is the one touch of expense, a candied peel bought specially for the season.