Kettle Cake
Have a large, nice brass kettle ready. Set it on a few warm embers, not with any fire; put into the kettle: 12 eggs. 1 pound sugar. 1 pound butter. A light pound of flour. 1 teaspoonful of mace. Rind and juice of a large lemon. Stir all the materials rapidly, and with a strong, large iron spoon or a long butter-ladle. When it is light, which will be in about three-quarters of an hour, put it in a mould and bake as common pound cake. It is good with 2 pounds currants. 2 pounds raisins. 1/2 pounds citron. 1 glass of brandy.--Mrs. M.C.C.
A hand-beaten pound cake from the era before chemical leavening, scaled for a household with strong arms and a large hearth. The instructions assume knowledge that has since disappeared from most kitchens.
- The hinge: air is the only leaveningThere is no baking powder or soda here, and no separate whipping of whites. The three-quarters of an hour of hard stirring is what makes the cake rise, and the warm embers exist only to keep the butter soft enough to hold air. A stand mixer with the paddle will do the same work in 12-15 minutes; cream butter and sugar first, then beat in the eggs one at a time, then fold in the flour by hand.
- Do not use the brass kettleUnlined brass and copper react with acid, and this batter carries the juice of a whole lemon. Antique kettles may also have been repaired with lead solder. Use a large stainless bowl set over a pan of warm (not simmering) water if you want the gentle heat the recipe intends.
- "A light pound of flour"A scant pound, roughly 15 oz or about 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose. The looseness is deliberate: this cake is meant to be rich rather than bready.
- Twelve eggs is a lot of eggPeriod eggs ran smaller than today's large. Twelve modern large eggs weigh roughly 21 oz shelled, still well over the pound of butter and pound of sugar. Ten is closer to the intended balance if you want the classic equal-weight pound cake.
- MaceThe lacy outer covering of nutmeg, warmer and less sharp than the seed itself. Ground mace loses its scent quickly; if the jar in the cupboard is more than a year old, replace it or the teaspoonful will register as nothing.
- "Bake as common pound cake"325F, in a deep tube or well-buttered loaf pans lined with paper. With the fruit added this is a very heavy batter and will need 1 1/2 to 2 hours; tent with foil once the top has browned and pull it at an internal temperature of 205-210F.
- The fruit version is a second cake entirelyTwo pounds currants, two pounds raisins and half a pound citron add roughly 4 1/2 lb to a batter that already weighs about 5 lb. Divide between two or three pans rather than one. Toss the fruit with a few spoonfuls of the measured flour so it does not sink.
- "1 glass of brandy"An unfixed measure in this period, but a wine glass was commonly reckoned at about 1/4 cup, occasionally up to 1/2. Start at 1/4 cup; more will slacken the batter noticeably.
- YieldThe plain version fills a 10-inch tube pan and serves 16-20. With fruit, expect something closer to 9 lb of finished cake, best kept wrapped for a week before cutting.
Kettle cake belongs to the long transition between hearth and stove. Before reliable ovens and before baking powder was widely available in American kitchens in the second half of the nineteenth century, a rich cake could be made light entirely by beating, and the beating went easier if the butter was held near blood heat. A brass kettle set over spent embers, well away from live fire, was one warm vessel used for the job. Marion Cabell Tyree's Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878) collected contributions from some 250 Virginia housewives, which may be why the recipe carries only the initials Mrs. M.C.C. and why it assumes the reader already knows what "common pound cake" means. The optional four and a half pounds of dried fruit and the glass of brandy turn it into something close to what the period would have called a black cake, the kind kept for Christmas and weddings, where the alcohol and sugar together served as preservative.