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Raisin Layer Cake
1 cup brown sugar ½ cup butter 3 eggs 2 tablespoons syrup 2 cups chopped raisins ½ teaspoon cloves ½ teaspoon cinnamon Little nutmeg ½ cup sour milk 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 1 teaspoon soda (scald the soda) 1½ cups Five Roses flour.
Bake in 2 layers.
A spice cake in the old style: brown sugar, sour milk, and more chopped raisins by volume than flour. The instructions assume a cook who already knows how to mix a butter cake, so most of the work here is filling in what was left unsaid.
- Scald the sodaThis is the one instruction likely to trip you up. It is generally taken to mean dissolving the teaspoon of baking soda in a tablespoon or two of boiling water and adding it to the batter last, so it disperses evenly rather than leaving bitter streaks. Get the pans in the oven promptly once it goes in.
- Leavening, and why there is so muchTwo teaspoons cream of tartar plus one teaspoon soda plus sour milk is a large amount of lift for 1 1/2 cups flour, but it is carrying two cups of heavy fruit. If you substitute modern baking powder, expect a slightly different crumb.
- Sour milkNot spoiled milk. Use buttermilk, or stir about 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon juice or vinegar into 1/2 cup whole milk and let it stand five minutes. Its acid is part of the chemistry, so do not swap in plain milk.
- SyrupThe recipe does not say which. Corn syrup, golden syrup, or molasses would all suit. Molasses will darken the cake and push the spicing toward gingerbread; corn syrup keeps it mild and adds moisture.
- Oven and pansThe recipe gives no temperature; 350F works. Two 8-inch round pans, greased and lined, for 20 to 25 minutes; the layers will be shallow, since 1 1/2 cups of flour is a modest batter. Test with a skewer at the centre.
- Handling the raisinsChop them by hand rather than in a processor, which turns them to paste, and toss the chopped fruit with a spoonful of the measured flour so it does not sink to the bottom of each layer.
- The missing fillingThe book tells you to bake in two layers and stops there. A boiled or seven-minute white icing between and over the top is the period-appropriate choice, and its sweetness balances the cloves and cinnamon. Cream cheese frosting works but is anachronistic.
- YieldTwo thin 8-inch layers, cutting into 8 to 10 slices. Like most heavily fruited spice cakes it improves on the second day, wrapped.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to promote its Five Roses flour, and it collected recipes contributed by home cooks across Canada — which is why the instructions are so telegraphic, addressed to readers who already knew the method. This cake belongs to a large family of turn-of-the-century sour-milk spice cakes: brown sugar, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and raisins were the pantry staples of a household without year-round fresh fruit, and dried raisins carried both sweetness and moisture. The cream of tartar and soda pairing, rather than commercial baking powder, points to an older habit that persisted well after packaged baking powder was widely sold.