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Date Cake
1/2 lb. (1 cup) butter. 1/2 lb. (1 cup) sugar. 1 lb. dates, stoned and halved 1/2 lb. (I cup) butter 1/2 lb. (I cup) sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoonful baking soda 1 gill (1/2 cup) boiling water 1 lb. chopped walnut meats 2 cupfuls Sultana raisins 1/2 lb. (2 cups) flour 1 teaspoonful almond extract Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy, then add the eggs well beaten. Dissolve the soda in the boiling water, then add it with the nuts, fruit, extract, and flour. Mix thoroughly, turn into a buttered and floured fireproof dish, and bake in a moderate oven for one hour.
This is a fruitcake in all but name: two cups of flour carrying more than three pounds of fruit and nuts. Treat it accordingly and the hour in the oven becomes the least reliable instruction on the page.
- Moderate ovenSet the oven to 350F. Given the density of the batter, 325F is the safer choice for a deep dish, with a longer bake.
- A gillHalf a cup, as the recipe itself notes. Half-pound measures here follow the old convention of a pound of butter or sugar to two cups; two cups of modern all-purpose flour weighs closer to 9 oz than 8, so weigh if you can.
- The fireproof dishThe recipe calls for a fireproof dish, which in a casserole book generally means an earthenware or heatproof pot rather than a shallow tin. Bake this one uncovered, and expect earthenware to heat slowly and hold heat long after it leaves the oven.
- Bake far past the hourAn hour will not set this quantity of batter in a deep dish. Start testing at 90 minutes and expect up to two hours; a skewer should come out clean of batter, and the centre should read about 200F. Cover the top loosely with foil once it has browned.
- Soda without acidThere is no buttermilk, molasses or sour milk here, so the soda has nothing to react with beyond the fruit. It contributes little lift and can leave a soapy note if overdone. Level the teaspoon, and add 1/2 teaspoon salt, which the original omits entirely.
- Boiling water on the sodaDissolving soda in boiling water and adding it to a creamed butter mixture will soften the butter and may curdle it slightly. Let the water cool to warm first; the batter will come together more smoothly.
- Dates and SultanasThe recipe has the cook stone the dates, dates then commonly being sold with their pits in; pitted dates today are usually softer and stickier. Halve them and toss the fruit and nuts in a spoonful of the measured flour so they do not sink.
- Almond extractA teaspoon of modern extract is assertive. A half teaspoon is plenty against dates and walnuts unless you want it forward.
- Yield and keepingRoughly 4 lb of cake or a little more, enough for 16 to 20 slices. Cool completely in the dish, then wrap; like most heavy fruit cakes it slices better and tastes better on the second or third day.
Marion Harris Neil's casserole book belongs to a small wave of early twentieth-century cookery writing that grew up around a piece of equipment rather than a cuisine: the glazed earthenware or fireproof pot, newly affordable and newly promoted as a vessel that could go from oven to table. Including cakes and breads in such a book was a way of arguing that the casserole earned its place in the kitchen beyond stews. The cake itself is a cousin of the American date-and-nut loaves that multiplied in the early twentieth century. Sultanas, the pale seedless raisins whose name is generally traced to their Ottoman origin, were among the baking fruits of the period, and here boiling water serves simply to dissolve the soda.