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Bride's Cake
1½ pounds butter 1¾ pounds sugar 2 pounds eggs (18) beaten separately 4 pounds raisins (seeded and chopped) 5 pounds currants (well washed) 1 pound citron (cut fine) 1 pound almonds (blanched and chopped fine) 2 pounds Five Roses flour (sifted) 2 nutmegs Mace (same bulk as nutmegs) ½ 1/2 pint alcohol 1 teaspoon lemon essence (dissolved in the alcohol) 1 teaspoon soda Weigh your butter and cut in pieces.
Soften, but do not melt. Stir to a cream, then add the sugar and work until white.
Beat the yolks of eggs and add. Beat again. Beat the whites to a stiff froth and also add. Sift the flour over the fruit, Mix well, then add to the other ingredients. Last of all, put in the citron and nuts and also a teaspoon soda dissolved in a little water. This makes a 3-story cake. Would cost $12 in a confectioner's —costs about $3.00. Lower story 1 foot in diameter.
See note appended to Groom's Cake recipe. ½ cup butter
This is a full-scale Edwardian wedding fruitcake — close to eighteen pounds of batter before baking, built as three tiers with a twelve-inch base. The original assumes you know how to bake a rich fruitcake, so the two things it never says are the two things that matter most: low heat and long time.
- Oven and timingNo temperature or time is given at all, as is common in books of this kind. Bake at 250-275F, no hotter; a cake of this density needs roughly 4 to 6 hours for the twelve-inch tier and proportionally less for the smaller ones. Test with a skewer rather than by the clock, and tent the tops with paper once they have set.
- Scale down firstThe full quantity is about 11 pounds of dried fruit and nuts against 2 pounds of flour, and it fills three tiers. Quartering the recipe gives one manageable 8-inch cake; a third of the batter still needs a very large bowl and, realistically, a stand mixer or a clean pair of hands.
- Pan preparationLine the tins with a double thickness of parchment on the base and sides, standing an inch above the rim. At this baking time an unlined tin will scorch the fruit against the metal long before the centre is done.
- The half-pint of alcoholThat is one cup. What "alcohol" meant here is not certain: in period recipes it can mean high-proof grain spirit (which is what the lemon essence would be dissolved in) or simply a drinking spirit such as brandy, rum or whisky. It acts as flavour carrier and preservative; brandy or dark rum is the safe modern reading, and grain alcohol is not a sensible substitute at this volume.
- SpicesTwo whole nutmegs grated come to about 4 to 5 teaspoons, and "mace same bulk as nutmegs" means an equal volume of ground mace, not two blades. Grate the nutmeg fresh; pre-ground has lost most of what justifies this much of it.
- The soda is not leaveningOne teaspoon of soda against 2 pounds of flour will not lift anything. In a cake this heavy the beaten whites and the long slow bake do the work; the soda mainly darkens the crumb. Do not increase it.
- Currants and citron"Well washed" reflects dried Zante currants that arrived dusty and sometimes sanded; modern packaged currants need only a rinse and a thorough drying, or the wet fruit will sink. Candied citron peel is still sold at Christmas and by mail order — candied mixed peel is the usual stand-in.
- Eggs by weightTwo pounds of eggs is given as 18, which works out at about 1.8 ounces each; the recipe does not say whether that is in the shell or shelled. Either way, 16 to 18 modern large eggs is the practical equivalent, and weighing is more reliable than counting.
- Curing and yieldCool completely in the tins, then wrap in spirit-moistened cloth and foil and keep at least two weeks — a month or more is better — feeding with a spoonful of brandy weekly. The full three tiers serve well over a hundred in the thin slices such cake is meant to be cut into.
The Five Roses Cook Book was issued by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to promote its Five Roses brand flour, and was compiled from recipes contributed by Canadian home cooks — which is why this entry reads as a household's own working note, complete with a comparison of what the cake would cost from a confectioner. In the British and Canadian tradition the bride's cake was the dark, spirit-soaked fruitcake, iced in white almond paste and royal icing and stacked in tiers; the groom's cake, cross-referenced here, was its companion, and by custom slices were boxed for guests to take home, though sources differ on which cake was boxed. Keeping the top tier for the christening or the first anniversary is the piece of custom that explains the alcohol and the fruit: at these proportions the cake will keep for a long time in a tin. The costing note is the most revealing line on the page: at $12 from a confectioner against about $3 at home, the household undercuts the bakery by four to one.