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Mocha Cake
1 cupful very strong coffee, 1 cupful butter, 2 cupfuls sugar, 3 eggs, 1 1/2 pints flour, 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls baking-powder, 1 cupful stoned raisins, cut in two, 1/2 cupful chopped citron, 10 drops each extract allspice and nutmeg, and 1/2 cupful milk. Rub the butter and sugar to a white cream; add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating three or four minutes after each. Sift together flour and powder, which add to the butter, etc., with the coffee, raisins, citron, milk, and extracts. Mix into a smooth batter.
A rich creamed-butter fruit cake flavoured with strong coffee rather than chocolate. The batter is thick and heavy with fruit, so the creaming stage does most of the work.
- The hinge: creaming"Rub the butter and sugar to a white cream" and the instruction to beat three or four minutes after each egg are not padding. With only 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder to lift roughly 3 cups of flour plus about half a pound of fruit, much of the lift comes from the air you beat in. Use softened, not melted, butter and a stand mixer on medium for 5 minutes before the eggs go in.
- Flour by the pint1 1/2 pints is 3 cups. Measure it sifted and spooned in lightly, around 12 to 13 oz; scooped straight from the bag it will be 15 oz or more and the cake will be dry.
- Butter and sugar1 cupful butter is 8 oz, two US sticks. 2 cupfuls sugar is about 14 oz granulated.
- "Very strong coffee"Brew at roughly double normal strength and cool it completely before adding, or it will loosen the creamed butter. A cup of cooled espresso topped up with water works. Instant dissolved at double strength is a fair substitute.
- Extract of allspice and nutmegThese were sold as spice extracts and oils in the period and are now specialist items. Substitute roughly 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice and 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg, added with the flour.
- CitronCandied citron peel, the thick-cut greenish-yellow kind found with baking supplies at Christmas. Candied mixed peel or chopped candied orange peel stands in without changing the character much.
- Flouring the fruitToss the halved raisins and chopped citron in a spoonful of the measured flour before folding them in, so they do not sink.
- Baking and yieldThe original gives no pan or oven. As a modern guess, a batter of this size suits a 10-inch tube pan or two 9x5-inch loaf pans; bake at around 350F, about 45 to 55 minutes for loaves and an hour or a little more for a tube pan, until a skewer comes out clean. It keeps for several days wrapped.