Home › Cake › Butternut Fruit Cake
Butternut Fruit Cake
2 1/2 cups Gold Medal flour 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup sour cream 1 cup chopped raisins 1 cup chopped butternuts 1/4 lb. citron, cut very fine 2 tablespoons molasses 1/4 cup butter 2 eggs 1 teaspoon soda 1 teaspoon (each) cinnamon, cloves the nutmeg
The book gives ingredients only, in the usual Gold Medal shorthand of the period, and assumes the cook knows how a spiced sour-cream loaf goes together. The proportions are sound; the method and the oven are left to you.
- Assembling itCream the butter with the brown sugar, beat in the eggs and molasses, then add the sour cream alternately with the flour, soda and spices sifted together. Fold the fruit and nuts in last, dredged in a little of the measured flour so they do not sink.
- ButternutsJuglans cinerea, the white walnut, once common in the Upper Midwest and gathered rather than bought. The tree has been largely destroyed by butternut canker and the nuts are now a specialty item. English walnuts are the closest substitute in texture; pecans give a sweeter, less resinous result.
- Sour creamThe original meant naturally soured cream, thinner and more variable in acidity than the modern tub. Full-fat cultured sour cream works, but it is thick enough that the batter may need a spoonful or two of milk to drop from the spoon.
- SodaOne teaspoon of baking soda is the entire leavening, and it depends on the acid in the sour cream and molasses. Use fresh soda and get the cake into the oven promptly once it is mixed.
- CitronCandied citron peel, cut very fine as the recipe directs. A quarter pound is about 4 oz, roughly 3/4 cup once cut fine. Candied orange or lemon peel substitutes directly if citron is hard to find.
- "The nutmeg"Apparently a slip for "nutmeg" in the list of spices taken one teaspoon each: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg. Freshly grated nutmeg is markedly better than pre-ground here, since the spice carries most of the aroma.
- FlourDepending on whether the flour is sifted or scooped, 2 1/2 cups runs to roughly 10 1/2-12 1/2 oz (300-355 g). If you weigh, err on the lower side; this is a heavy, fruit-laden batter and extra flour makes it dry.
- Oven and panNo temperature is given. A moderate oven, 350F, in a greased and paper-lined 9x5-inch loaf pan, 55-70 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. If the top colours early, lay a sheet of foil over it. Yields one loaf, about 12 slices, and it improves after a day wrapped.
This is a "fruit cake" of the everyday American kind rather than the brandied Christmas sort: no soaking, no aging, no liquor, just raisins, citron and nuts stirred into a spiced sour-cream batter and baked as a loaf. The butternut places it geographically. Washburn-Crosby, which milled Gold Medal flour in Minneapolis, issued cookbooks under a nationally advertised brand, and butternut trees grew wild across much of the northern country, where the nuts were gathered in autumn and cracked through the winter -- a free ingredient in a cake whose only bought luxuries were the citron and the raisins. Recipes of this type also reflect the farm dairy: sour cream was a by-product of skimming, and pairing it with saleratus or soda was the standard way to leaven before baking powder became universal in home kitchens. The butternut itself has since become scarce, its populations reduced across most of the native range by butternut canker, so a cake named for it now reads as a record of a nut that has largely disappeared from the kitchen.