Citron Cake
12 ounces flour. 12 ounces butter. 10 eggs. 1 pound sugar. 1 pound citron, cut in thin slices. Mix like a pound cake.--Mrs. C. L. T. Citron Cake. 4 large coffeecups sifted flour. 2 1/2 cupfuls powdered sugar. 1 cupful butter. Whites of 10 eggs, beaten to a stiff froth. Add two tablespoonfuls rose water.
Butter a cake pan, and put alternate layers of batter and citron sliced in long, thin slices.--Mrs. McG.
Citron Cake. 1 pound flour. 1 pound sugar. 3/4 pound butter. 12 eggs. 2 pounds citron. 2 pounds grated cocoanut. 2 pounds almonds. 1 teaspoonful mace.--Mrs. M. E. Citron Cake. 1 pound of flour. 1/2 pound of sugar. 3/4 pound of butter. 10 or 12 eggs. 2 pounds of citron. 1 cocoanut, grated.
Fruit to be put in last.--Mrs. Dr. S.
Four contributors' versions of the same idea: a pound cake carrying candied citron. None gives an oven temperature, a time, or a pan, because in 1877 all of that was assumed knowledge. Here is what the assumptions were.
- "Mix like a pound cake""Mix like a pound cake" is Mrs. C. L. T.'s direction, and the other three assume much the same handling. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and light, beat in the eggs a little at a time, then fold in the sifted flour by hand; Mrs. McG's, built on whites beaten to a stiff froth, is folded rather than beaten. There is no chemical leavening in any of these formulas, so the only lift comes from air beaten into the fat and eggs. Rush the creaming and you get a dense, greasy loaf.
- Weights to cupsA pound of flour is roughly 3 1/2 to 4 cups depending on whether it is sifted or scooped; a pound of granulated sugar is about 2 1/4 cups; a pound of butter is four sticks, and 12 ounces is three. Working by weight, as the original does, gives far better results with a batter this rich.
- The coffeecup measureMrs. McG's "4 large coffeecups" is genuinely imprecise. Period coffee cups were commonly reckoned at somewhere around three-quarters of a cup to a full cup, and usage varied from book to book, so her flour could be anywhere from roughly 3 to 4 cups. Treat her version as a white pound cake and add flour until the batter just holds a ribbon rather than following the number.
- CitronCandied peel of Citrus medica, sold in blocks or diced tubs at holiday time and in Middle Eastern groceries year round. It is not lemon peel and not the melon-based "citron" of some old preserve recipes. Two pounds in a one-pound-flour cake, as Mrs. M. E. and Mrs. Dr. S. specify, is closer to a fruitcake than a butter cake; a half pound is plenty if you want cake with fruit in it rather than fruit held together by cake.
- Cocoanut and almonds"1 cocoanut, grated" means a fresh nut cracked, pared and grated, which yields roughly 3 to 4 cups and carries its own moisture. Unsweetened desiccated coconut is the nearest substitute but is much drier. The two pounds of almonds in Mrs. M. E.'s version were most likely blanched and pounded in a mortar rather than chopped, as period cake recipes generally direct, though this one does not say.
- OvenA rich pound cake of this size wants a slow oven, 300 to 325F, for an hour and a half to two hours in a deep tube pan or two loaf pans, all lined with buttered paper. Higher heat sets and browns the crust long before the centre cooks.
- Rose waterStill sold, and still the correct flavouring here rather than vanilla. Modern rose waters vary enormously in strength; two tablespoons of a concentrated one will taste of soap, so start with one and judge the batter.
- Keeping and layeringMrs. McG's method of alternating batter and long slices of citron produces visible ribbons of fruit through the crumb and is worth following. Cakes this rich generally improve after two or three days wrapped tightly, and Mrs. M. E.'s fruit-and-nut version should keep considerably longer.
- YieldA pound of flour and a dozen eggs make a very large cake, on the order of 4 pounds of batter before fruit. Expect 20 or more thin slices.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1877, gathered contributions from some 250 Virginia housekeepers, which is why the same cake appears four times over with only initials to distinguish the hands behind it. Citron, the thick candied rind of Citrus medica, reached American kitchens as an import, much of it from Leghorn and Corsica, and it was expensive enough that a cake built around two pounds of it announced a household with money and an occasion worth marking. Pound cake, named for the old equal-weight formula of a pound each of flour, butter, sugar and eggs, was a mainstay of Southern entertaining, and it is often said that this owed something to its needing no yeast and no chemical leaven, only patient beating, and to its keeping well in a climate that ruined lighter cakes. The variations here show the formula loosening in practice: one cook drops to three-quarters of a pound of butter, another goes to whites only for a white cake, a third loads in coconut and almonds until the thing is effectively a fruitcake.