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Ribbon Fruit Cake (No. 2)
LIGHT PART 1½ cups white sugar ½ cup butter ½ cup sweet milk 2 cups Five Roses flour Whites of 4 eggs ½ teaspoon soda 1 teaspoon cream of tartar DARK PART 1 cup brown sugar ½ cup butter ½ cup sweet milk Yolks of 4 eggs 1 square grated chocolate Flavor with cinnamon Cloves and nutmeg 2 cups Five Roses flour Mix and bake in two layers. Put lemon cheese between. 4 eggs
A two-batter ribbon cake from the era before boxed baking powder was universal. The recipe as printed is compressed to the point of ambiguity in two places, so read the notes before you start creaming butter.
- The trailing "4 eggs"The line at the end appears to be a leftover from the ingredient tally rather than an additional four eggs, since the two parts between them already account for the whites and yolks of four. Read that way, the cake uses four eggs in total: whites in the light batter, yolks in the dark.
- Leavening for the dark partThe dark batter is given no soda or cream of tartar, which is almost certainly a printing omission. Match the light part with ½ teaspoon soda and 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, or use 1½ teaspoons baking powder in each batter.
- Soda and cream of tartarThis pairing is homemade baking powder in the proportions of the day. Sift it thoroughly through the flour and get the cake into the oven promptly, since the acid begins reacting the moment the milk goes in.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh whole milk, specified to distinguish it from the sour milk or buttermilk that soda-raised cakes often used.
- One square grated chocolateAn ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate. Grating was necessary because it went in dry; melting it and cooling it slightly works better with modern chocolate.
- Spices, unmeasured"Flavor with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg" leaves the amounts to you. A teaspoon of cinnamon, half a teaspoon of nutmeg and a quarter teaspoon of cloves in the dark batter is in the period range.
- Two layers or fourAs written, one layer light and one dark. Other ribbon cakes were baked as three or four thin layers alternating in colour; if you split each batter between two 8-inch pans you get the stripes the name promises.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven guidance. Bake at 350F: thick single layers need 25 to 30 minutes; thin ones 18 to 22. Test with a skewer at the centre.
- Lemon cheeseLemon curd, thick enough to hold between layers. It must be fully cold before assembly or it will run out of the sides.
- YieldRoughly a nine- to twelve-serving cake, depending on how many layers you divide the batters into.
Ribbon cake was a standard of North American baking from the later nineteenth century onward, and the point of it was display: two batters made from nearly the same ingredients, one whitened with egg whites and one darkened with brown sugar, chocolate and spice, then stacked so the cut slice showed bands. It belongs to the same impulse as marble cake and the harlequin cakes of the period, and it had the practical virtue of using up a whole egg without waste, whites in one bowl and yolks in the other. The Five Roses Cook Book was published by Lake of the Woods Milling Company, whose head office was in Montreal, and distributed to buyers of its flour, which is why the brand name is written into the ingredient list; the recipes were largely contributed by Canadian housewives, and the terse style here, with its spices left to the cook's judgment, is typical of a collection assembled from handwritten cards. "Lemon cheese" for lemon curd is a British usage that persisted in Canadian kitchens.