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Emma's Wedding Cake
1 lb. Gold Medal flour 1 lb. butter 1 lb. citron 1 1/4 lb. dark brown sugar 1 lb. lemon and orange peel (1/2 lb. each) 2 lbs. currants 6 lbs. raisins 3 tablespoons cinnamon 2 tablespoons mace 2 tablespoons nutmeg 1 tablespoon ginger 1 tablespoon allspice 1 dessert spoon of cloves 1 cup molasses 1 pint brandy 12 eggs Bake slowly until a straw will come out clean. This is a very delicious cake and will keep indefinitely.
This is a full-scale nineteenth-century wedding fruitcake: about 15 lb of dried fruit carried by a single pound of flour. The original assumes a cook who already knows how a rich cake is put together, so almost all the working detail has to be supplied.
- Scale firstThe finished batter weighs somewhere around 16 to 17 lb: about 13 1/4 lb of listed dry ingredients plus molasses, brandy and a dozen eggs. No domestic mixer or bowl will hold it; divide into two or three batches, and plan on four or five loaf or deep round tins rather than one cake.
- Method, which the original omitsCream the butter with the brown sugar, beat in the eggs a few at a time, then the molasses, then the flour and spices. Toss the fruit and peel with a little of the flour before folding it in so it stays suspended. The brandy goes in last, or is partly reserved for feeding the baked cake.
- "Bake slowly" means 250-275F"Bake slowly" -- the original gives no temperature; for a cake this dense and this sweet a slow oven of roughly 250-275F is the usual modern equivalent, since it scorches long before the centre sets. Line the tins with a double thickness of parchment, and expect something like 3 to 5 hours depending on tin size. The straw test the recipe gives is still the right one.
- No leavening, and that is correctTwelve eggs and thorough creaming are the only lift. Do not add baking powder; the structure here comes from egg and fruit, and the cake is meant to be close-grained.
- Dessert spoonTwo teaspoons, i.e. between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. With 1 lb of butter this is a genuinely heavy hand of cloves, so measure rather than eyeball.
- Citron and candied peelCitron is the candied rind of a thick-skinned citrus, sold in blocks or diced in the baking aisle around the holidays. Supermarket "mixed peel" is a reasonable substitute for the lemon and orange, though it is usually finer-cut and less bitter.
- Raisins in 1900Raisins -- raisins of this period were commonly sold still containing their seeds, and had to be seeded before use. Buy seedless, and choose a mix of dark raisins and sultanas if you want the fruit to read as more than one flavour.
- "Will keep indefinitely"The sugar, molasses and brandy do the preserving. Cool completely, wrap in brandy-dampened cloth, then in foil, and keep in a tin somewhere cool; brush with more brandy every few weeks. A month of ageing makes a noticeable difference.
- Yield and servingA cake of this size will serve a large crowd; figure very roughly on 60 to 80 portions or more from the full quantity. Wedding fruitcake is cut in thin slivers, not wedges.
Fruitcake of this kind is the direct descendant of the British "great cake" or plum cake, which by the eighteenth century was the standard cake for weddings and christenings because its sugar, candied peel and spirits let it be baked weeks ahead and carried, posted or kept for an anniversary. The ratio here tells the story: one pound of flour to ten pounds of fruit, a proportion that only makes sense if the cake is understood as preserved fruit held together by batter rather than as a cake with fruit in it. Its appearance in a flour-company cookbook under a woman's given name is consistent with the way such books were often assembled, from recipes contributed by customers and home economists and printed with little editing, which would explain why the instructions assume so much and specify so little. The habit of saving a tier for the couple's first anniversary, and of sending slices home with guests, is generally traced to this same keeping quality.