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Wedding Cake
2 pounds sugar 2 pounds butter 5 pounds raisins 5 pounds currants 1 pound dates No. 2 1 pound mixed peel 1½ pounds almonds (blanched and chopped) 2 nutmegs 1 teaspoon mace 2 teaspoons cinnamon 2 teaspoons soda 1 pint rich cream Five Roses flour to thicken..
Note-Rose water may be added, if desired.
This is a contributor's shorthand for a full-size Edwardian bride's cake, and it assumes a cook who has made one before. Two things need settling before you start: how much flour, and how slowly to bake it.
- "Flour to thicken"The original gives no quantity, and there is no honest conversion to offer. Some comparable dark fruitcakes of the period run near a pound of flour for each pound of butter and sugar, which would put this in the neighbourhood of 4 pounds; in practice, add it until the batter is stiff enough to hold the fruit in suspension rather than let it sink.
- The scaleFruit and nuts alone come to about 13½ pounds, and the finished batter will be somewhere above 20 pounds depending on how much flour goes in. That is several tiers, or a dozen loaf pans. Halving or quartering the recipe is reasonable; mix in a dishpan, not a stand mixer bowl.
- No eggsMany wedding cake recipes of this era call for a dozen eggs or more, so their absence here is striking. As written, the batter binds with a pint of cream and the flour alone, which gives a denser, closer crumb. Whether eggs dropped out in transcription cannot be established from the page; taken as printed, expect a heavy cake.
- Soda and creamA teaspoon of soda per pound of sugar only works if there is acid present. Farm and dairy cream of the period could arrive slightly soured, which would have supplied it; modern pasteurized cream will not, and without an acid the soda can leave a soapy taste.
- "Dates No. 2"The designation is unclear; it most likely refers to a commercial grade or pack of the day rather than a variety you can buy now. Read it simply as one pound of pitted dates, chopped.
- Mixed peel and currantsMixed peel is candied citron, orange and lemon peel, sold in tubs at Christmas. Currants here are dried Zante currants, a small raisin — not fresh red or black currants.
- Nutmeg and maceTwo whole nutmegs, freshly grated, come to roughly 1½ tablespoons. Mace is the lacy covering of the same seed and is milder and more floral; the two are not interchangeable by volume.
- Oven and timeThe original gives no oven direction at all. A cake this rich wants a slow oven, in the range of 250-275F. Line the pans with two or three thicknesses of buttered paper and allow several hours for a large tier -- 4 to 6 is a fair expectation -- testing with a skewer. If the top colours early, lay paper over it.
- KeepingCool completely in the pan, then wrap in cloth and store airtight for at least a month before icing. The recipe gives no instruction on this, but a wedding cake of this kind was baked well ahead and improved by waiting.
- Rose waterA tablespoon or two is enough for a batch this size. It was a standard cake flavouring long before vanilla extract was cheap, and it goes bitter and perfumy if overdone.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Winnipeg and Montreal, and its contents were largely solicited from Canadian housewives who baked with the company's flour — which is why entries like this one read as notes passed between cooks rather than tested formulas. A cake of this kind, dark with currants and peel and matured for weeks, was the standard bride's cake across the British world by the late nineteenth century; the top tier was traditionally kept back, sometimes for a first christening. The rose water in the note is the older flavouring, a survival from a time when distilled flower waters did the work that vanilla and almond extracts took over. Quantities on this scale reflect a wedding as a community event: a cake feeding a hundred or more, cut thin and often sent home in boxes.