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Rich Fruit Cake
1 quart of sifted flour. 1 pound of fresh butter, cut up in 1 pound powdered sugar. 12 eggs. 3 pounds of bloom raisins. 1 1/2 pounds of Zante currants. 3/4 pound of sliced citron. 1 tablespoonful each of mace and cinnamon. 2 nutmegs 1 large wineglassful Madeira wine. 1 large wineglassful French brandy mixed with the spices.
Beat the butter and sugar together--eggs separately. Flour the fruit well, and add the flour and other ingredients, putting the fruit in last. Bake in a straight side mould, as it turns out easier. One pound of blanched almonds will improve this recipe. Bake until thoroughly done, then ice while warm.--Mrs. L.
Fruit Cake. 1 pound sugar. 1 pound flour. 1 pound butter. 2 pounds raisins. 2 pounds currants. 1 pound citron. 2 tablespoonfuls of mace and cinnamon. 2 nutmegs, powdered. 1/2 pint of brandy and wine, mixed.
Bake in a slow oven. Seedless raisins are best for cake.--Mrs. F. C. W.
Two versions of the same cake from two contributors, both scaled for a large household and both written for cooks who knew that a fruit cake is leavened by eggs alone. The first is the fuller set of instructions; the second is a shorthand variant.
- The hinge: creaming and egg volumeThere is no baking powder or soda here. All the lift comes from air beaten into the butter and sugar and from the eggs, which the recipe directs be beaten "separately" -- it does not say whether that means separately from the butter and sugar or whites apart from yolks. If the butter and sugar are not creamed pale and light, the cake will be dense and greasy.
- A quart of sifted flourRoughly 4 cups, on the order of 14-16 oz by weight when sifted. The second recipe simply says a pound of flour, which is close to the same quantity by the old rule of thumb.
- A wineglassfulAbout 2 fluid ounces by the usual reckoning, so the first recipe uses roughly 1/4 cup Madeira and 1/4 cup brandy. The half pint of mixed brandy and wine in the second version is a full cup, poured into a batter of broadly similar size -- though the second recipe lists no eggs at all.
- Bloom raisins and Zante currants"Bloom" raisins were large raisins sold with their whitish bloom intact, and generally still had to be seeded by hand; the second cook's preference for seedless may reflect that labour. Zante currants are the small dried black Corinth grapes, not fresh currants and not the same as ordinary raisins.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks and sliced thin. It is still available at holiday time; mixed candied peel is the usual substitute, though it is sweeter and softer.
- Flouring the fruitTossing the fruit in some of the measured flour before it goes in keeps it suspended rather than sinking to the bottom. Add it last and fold only until distributed.
- Oven and timeA "slow" oven in period usage falls somewhere around 250-300F, and a cake of this mass wants the lower end of that for three to four hours. Line the mould with buttered parchment, tent the top with foil once it has coloured, and test the centre with a skewer; the interior should read about 205-210F.
- Icing while warmA stiff egg-white-and-sugar icing spread on a barely warm cake sets hard and seals it, which is the likely intent here, though the recipe does not say which icing was meant. Modern practice is to cool the cake fully and use a cooked or meringue-powder icing if raw white is a concern.
- YieldThe first version comes to roughly 9-10 lb of batter and the second somewhat less, enough for one very large tube or straight-sided mould or several smaller pans. Wrapped in brandy-dampened cloth and kept in a tin, it improves for weeks.
Rich fruit cake of this weight - a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a dozen eggs and six pounds of dried fruit - is the direct descendant of the English plum cake, and in Virginia households it is often said to have been the cake of Christmas, weddings and christenings rather than everyday baking. The proportions are essentially a pound cake carrying as much fruit as the batter will hold. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named and initialled housekeepers of Virginia and her sister states, prints several versions side by side precisely because each family kept its own; the attributions to "Mrs. L." and "Mrs. F. C. W." are the book's way of preserving that. The Madeira is worth noting: it was the fortified wine of the American South well into the nineteenth century, kept in quantity in Virginia cellars and used as freely in the kitchen as at table.