Currant Cake
1 cup butter. 2 cups sugar. 1/2 cup sweet milk. 5 eggs. 4 cups flour. 1/2 a nutmeg. 3 teaspoonfuls baking powder.
One pound currants washed, dried, and rolled in the flour.--Mrs. W. L. H.
A pound-cake variant with the proportions written out as cups rather than pounds. The method is assumed rather than stated, as it is throughout this book: cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, then alternate flour and milk before folding in the fruit.
- CurrantsThese are dried Zante currants, small seedless raisins, not fresh red currants from the bush. A pound is roughly 3 cups. Washing and drying them is worth doing, and the flour coating keeps them suspended rather than settling into a band at the bottom.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh unsoured milk, specified to distinguish it from the buttermilk and clabbered milk also kept in the pantry. Whole milk is the right substitute.
- FlourSouthern soft winter wheat flour was the household standard here and is markedly lower in protein than modern all-purpose. Cake flour, or all-purpose with a couple of tablespoons per cup replaced by cornstarch, comes closer to the intended tenderness.
- NutmegHalf a nutmeg grated fresh is about a teaspoon to a teaspoon and a half of ground spice, which is assertive. Grating it yourself matters more here than in most recipes, since it is the only flavouring besides the fruit.
- Oven and panNo temperature is given because the wood stove had no thermostat to set. Bake at 325F in a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan, or two loaf pans, for roughly 1 to 1 1/2 hours until a skewer comes out clean. The batter is heavy and will scorch before the centre sets if the oven runs hot.
- YieldAround 4 to 4 1/2 pounds of batter: one large tube cake, or two 9-inch loaves, serving 16 to 20. It keeps well wrapped for a week and slices more cleanly on the second day.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1879, gathered contributions from a network of Virginia housewives, which is why so many entries close with initials rather than a name. This cake belongs to the pound-cake family that dominated American baking before layer cakes took over: butter, sugar, eggs and flour in near-equal weight, here loosened slightly with milk and lifted with chemical baking powder, commercially available for some two decades by this date, rather than by beating alone. The currants are Zante currants, dried grapes shipped from Greece and sold by the pound in general stores; they were among the cheapest imported dried fruits and appear constantly in nineteenth-century American baking.