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Queen Cakes
Ingredients.
Quarter pound of Butter.
Quarter pound of Castor Sugar.
Quarter pound of Currants or dried Cherries. Two ounces of Candied Peel.
Six ounces of fine Flour.
The Rind of two Lemons (grated).
This is the ingredient list for a small rich pound-cake batter, baked in little tins. The book gives no method with it, and no eggs either, so the proportions need reading with a practised eye.
- The missing eggsVictorian and Edwardian queen cake recipes generally cream butter and sugar, then beat in eggs before the flour. With 4 oz butter and 6 oz flour, two to three eggs would be a usual proportion; as written, with no eggs and no liquid, the listed ingredients will not form a batter.
- Weights in plain termsA quarter pound is 4 oz (115 g), so equal weights of butter, sugar and fruit, against 6 oz (170 g) flour and 2 oz (55 g) peel.
- Castor sugarCaster or superfine sugar, finer than granulated but not powdered. It dissolves into the butter during creaming, which is the whole point in a cake with no chemical raising agent.
- Fine flourPlain soft white flour, sifted, and nothing added. If your flour is strong bread flour the crumb will be tough; ordinary all-purpose, sifted twice, is closer to the intent.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. Wash and dry them, and dust with a little of the weighed flour so they do not sink.
- Candied peelWhole candied citron or orange peel in this period, bought in slabs and chopped fine at home. Supermarket mixed peel works; chop it smaller than it comes.
- Tins and ovenNo tin, oven or timing is given here. Queen cakes were commonly baked in small fluted or patty tins (heart-shaped ones are often associated with them), well buttered. As a modern working equivalent, a moderate oven of about 350F (175C) for 15 to 20 minutes; they are small and dry out quickly past that.
- YieldThis quantity fills roughly 18 small patty tins, or 12 standard muffin cups filled two-thirds.
Queen cakes appear in English cookery books from the eighteenth century onward and are close to a pound cake in miniature, baked in small tins so that each cake has a crust all round. The name has traditionally been linked to an English queen, but no documented origin survives, and by the nineteenth century it simply denoted a small rich fruited cake. Small individual cakes that could be lifted with the fingers suited the late-Victorian and Edwardian tea table. That this entry lists little more than weights suggests the creaming method and the tins were assumed to be already familiar.