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Christmas Coffee Cake with Cardamon
1 quart milk 1/2 cup shortening 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1/3 cup water, lukewarm 1 yeast cake flour 1 teaspoon ground cardamon seed 1 cup seedless raisins 1/2 cup citron, cut fine Heat milk and add shortening, sugar and salt. Cool to lukewarm, then add yeast which has been dissolved in the lukewarm water. Add sufficient flour to make a thick batter. Set aside in a bowl, in a warm place, to rise. When very light, add more flour to make a stiff dough, adding also cardamon seed, raisins and citron. Knead and bake like bread. This makes four loaves.
A sponge-method sweet bread scaled for a large household: a full quart of milk yields four loaves. Nothing here is difficult, but the flour is left to the baker's judgement and the leavening needs translating.
- Yeast cakeOne compressed yeast cake of this era is equivalent to one packet of active dry yeast, about 2 1/4 teaspoons. Dissolve it in the 1/3 cup lukewarm water as directed; the water should be around 105F, no hotter.
- Flour is unmeasuredThe original gives no quantity, only "sufficient" for a thick batter and then "more" for a stiff dough. For a quart of milk expect somewhere in the region of 10 to 12 cups of all-purpose flour in total, added by feel rather than by cup.
- Cool the milk properlyThe scalded milk must come down to lukewarm before the yeast goes in. Milk much hotter than about 120F will begin to damage the yeast, and above roughly 130 to 140F it is killed; with 1 1/2 cups of sugar in the dough the rise is already slow.
- ShorteningShortening here means any solid fat -- lard, vegetable shortening or butter all work. Butter gives the best flavour in a cardamom bread and melts into the hot milk without extra effort.
- CardamomA teaspoon of ground cardamom is modest for four loaves. Ground cardamom loses its perfume quickly, so crush green pods and grind the black seeds fresh if you can; use a generous teaspoon or two if the jar has been open a while.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in tubs at Christmas or year-round from baking suppliers. Chopped candied orange peel is the nearest substitute; ordinary mixed peel will do.
- "Bake like bread"Divide into four greased loaf pans, let rise until nearly doubled, and bake at 350F for 35 to 45 minutes, until the loaves sound hollow and register about 190F inside. Sweet, fruited doughs brown fast -- tent with foil if the tops darken before the centres set.
- Two rises, both slowThe batter sponge should be "very light" -- bubbled and domed -- before the fruit and remaining flour go in. Sugar at this level retards fermentation, so allow considerably longer than for a plain white loaf at each stage.
- Scaling downThe recipe halves cleanly for two loaves: 2 cups milk, 1/4 cup shortening, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, the same single packet of yeast, and half the fruit and spice.
Cardamom-scented Christmas bread came to American kitchens with Scandinavian immigrants; in Norway such a loaf is known as julekake (also spelled julekaka), while the Swedish sweet wheat bread is vetebröd -- an enriched wheat dough with raisins and candied citron, spiced with cardamom rather than cinnamon. Cardamom reached the Nordic countries through northern European spice trade and is an everyday baking spice there. The quart-of-milk, four-loaf scale suits a large household, and "coffee cake" is the usual American label for a sweet yeast bread of this kind.