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Farmers' Fruit Cake
INGREDIENTS for good-sized cake.-1 lb. of apples, 1 teacupful of golden syrup, 1 of sugar, a cupful of sour milk, 1/4 lb. of butter, 2 teaspoonfuls of cinnamon, 1 of soda, 1 of cloves, 1 egg, about 1 lb. of flour, or enough to make these ingredients into a smooth paste. AVERAGE COST, 18.
Peel, core and chop the apples fine, and let them simmer in the syrup till tender.
Work the butter into the flour, next the sugar and spices, mixing well, then add the milk, the egg and the syrup and apples before they are cold. Beat the cake well, and bake it in a buttered tin for 1/2 to 3/4 hour in a moderate oven.
TIME. to hour to bake the cake.
SEASONABLE at any time.
FEBRUARY, DINNERS FOR. 138 FEBRUARY, DINNERS FOR.
February-Dinner for Twelve Persons.
MENU. (English.) Quantity. Average Asparagus Soup.
Red Mullet.
Baked Sweetbreads. 8. d. 2 quarts 60 12 fish. 80 1 joint. 10 0 2 dishes. 66 Curried Chicken. 2 dishes. 46 Saddle of Mutton.
Potatoes.
Spinach. 4lbs.ea. 10 Larded Guinea Fowl. 3 birds. 10 6 Compâte of Fruit. 2 dishes. 36 Lemon Pudding. 1 20 Cheese Biscuits. 2 dishes. 10 £2 13 0 98 MENU. (French.) Potage aux Pointes d'Asperge.
Rougets.
Ris de Veau au Gratin.
Poulet au Kari.
Selle de Mouton.
Pommes de Terre. Epinards.
Pintade Lardée.
Compôte de Fruit.
Pouding de Citron.
Biscuits de Fromage.
February-Dinner for Ten Persons.
MENU. (English.) Quantity. Average MENU. (French.) Julienne.
Cod, Italian Sauce.
Croquettes of Chicken.
Mutton Cutlets.
Fillet of Veal.
Ham.
Potatoes. Brussels Sprouts.
Partridges.
Almond Pudding.
Liqueur Jelly. 8. d. 3 pints. 3 6 4 lbs. 20 2 turs. 10 1 dish. 26 1 dish. 30 1 joint. 60 1 70 4lbs.ea. 10 4 birds. 80 1 20 1 mould. 26 £1 18 6 Julienne.
Cabillaud, Sauce Italienne.
Croquettes de Volaille.
Cotelettes de Mouton.
Rouelle de Veau Rotie.
Jambon.
Pommes de Terre. Choux.
Perdreaux.
Pouding d'Amandes.
Gelée à la Marasquin.
February-Dinner for Eight Persons.
MENU. (English.) Quantity. Average Oysters.
Ox-Tail Soup.
Croquettes of Turkey.
Beef Olives.
Capon, Stuffed.
Ham.
Potatoes. Savoy.
Benedictine Cream.
Apricot Tartlets.
Cheese Straws. 8. d. 2 doz. 40 3 pints. 20 1 dish. 2.6 1 bird. 56 60 1 3lbs. 106 1 mould. 1 dish. 20 1 dish. £1 79 MENU: (French.) Huitres.
Potage de Queue de Bœuf.
Croquettes de Dinde.
Olives de Bœuf.
Chapon Farci.
Jambon.
Pommes de Terre. Choux.
Crême à la Penedictine.
Bouchées d'Abricots.
Pailles de Parmesan.
FEBRUARY, DINNERS FOR. 139 FEBRUARY, DINNERS FOR.
February-Dinners for from Six to Twelve Persons.
MEVIN E LA R Mock Turtle Soup.
Cod Cutlets, Tartare Sauce.
Lobster Croquettes.
Curried Fowl.
Mock Turtle Soup. Tartare Sauce. Leg of Mutton. Stewed Celery. Curried Fowl. Cod Cutlets, Rhubarb Tart. Potatoes. Cream. Leg of Mutton.
Potatoes.
Stewed Celery.
Rhubarb Tart.
Cream.
Blancmange.
MENU Meno Julienne Soup.
Stewed Carp.
Oyster Patties.
Fricandeau of Beef.
Potatoes. Brussels Sprouts.
Snipe.
Plum Pudding.
Compôte of Fruit.
Celery Salad.
MENU Oyster Soup.
Turbot, Lobster Sauce.
Curried Prawns.
Salmi of Wild Duck.
Sirloin of Beef.
Potatoes.
Hare Soup.
Brill, Oyster Sauce.
Stewed Pigeons.
Fillet of Beef, Horseradish Sauce.
Potatoes.
Sprouts.
Partridges.
Exeter Pudding.
Fruit Salad.
Sea-kale.
Wild Duck.
Coburg Pudding.
Creamed Apple Tart.
FEBRUARY, DINNERS FOR. 140 FEBRUARY, DINNER TABLE.
February-Plain Family Dinners for:
No. 1.
Sunday. Roast sirloin of beef, horseradish sauce, broccoli, potatoes. - Apple tart, custard pudding. -Cheese. -Dessert.
An apple-and-syrup cake leavened with sour milk and soda, of the sort a farm kitchen could build from the pantry. The transcription opens mid-sentence from the preceding entry and the page runs on into the February dinner menus; only the ingredient list and method belong to this cake.
- The hinge: add the apples warmThe instruction to add the syrup and apples "before they are cold" matters. The warm fruit loosens the butter-and-flour rub into a workable batter; once cold, the syrup stiffens and you will be tempted to add liquid you do not need.
- TeacupfulIn Beeton a teacupful is roughly a quarter of a pint, about 5 fl oz or 2/3 cup. So figure on about 2/3 cup golden syrup, 2/3 cup sugar, and a cup of sour milk.
- Flour "enough to make a smooth paste"The 1 lb of flour is deliberately approximate and the apples vary in juice. Aim for a thick, dropping batter rather than a pourable one; start with 12 oz and work up.
- Sour milk and sodaSour milk here means naturally soured raw milk, which pasteurised milk will not reliably become. Buttermilk is the direct substitute; the teaspoonful of soda is there to react with its acid, so do not swap in sweet milk without adding an acid or the cake will taste soapy.
- Golden syrupA pale cane refiner's syrup, still sold under that name in Britain and widely available elsewhere. Light corn syrup is not a flavour match; mild molasses is closer in character but darker and more assertive.
- Moderate ovenAbout 350F (175C). Butter the tin and line the base if it has a loose seam, since the syrup makes this a sticky batter.
- Baking timeHalf to three-quarters of an hour will only serve if the batter is spread shallow, in a large square tin or two loaf tins. A single deep "good-sized cake" of this quantity wants an hour or more; test with a skewer rather than the clock.
- YieldA large cake, as the "good-sized cake" of the ingredient heading implies. It keeps well and improves on the second day, as syrup cakes do.
"Fruit cake" in a Victorian household book does not always mean a dark cake stiff with currants and peel; here the fruit is a pound of fresh apples, stewed down in syrup and stirred in warm. Cakes of this type belong to the sour-milk-and-soda tradition that spread through farm and cottage baking in the second half of the nineteenth century, once bicarbonate of soda became cheap and reliable: a dairy household always had milk turning, and soda turned that waste into lift without the patience of yeast. Golden syrup, a by-product of cane refining sold commercially in Britain from the 1880s, does the same double duty, sweetening and keeping the crumb moist. The average cost of one shilling, printed beside many Beeton recipes, is the real signal of who this cake was for. "Seasonable at any time" is honest enough: stored apples, soured milk and a tin of syrup were available in February as readily as in September.