Queen Cakes
INGREDIENTS for 18 cakes.-1 lb. of flour, 1/2 lb. of butter, 1/2 lb. of pounded loaf sugar, 3 eggs, 1 teacupful of cream, 1/2 lb. of currants, 1 teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, essence of lemon or almonds to taste. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 8d.
Work the butter to a cream; dredge in the flour, add the sugar and currants, and mix the ingredients well together. Whisk the eggs, mix them with the cream and flavouring and stir these to the flour; add the carbonate of soda, beat the paste well for 10 minutes, put it into small buttered pans and bake the cakes from to hour.
Grated lemon-rind may be substituted for the lemon or almond flavouring, which will make the cakes equally nice.
TIME. to hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
QUEEN MAB PUDDING.
A plain currant butter cake baked in small tins — an ancestor of the modern fairy cake. The quantities are generous and easily halved.
- Oven and timeThe stated baking time has not survived legibly. Small cakes of this size and richness take 18-25 minutes at 350F/180C; bake until a skewer comes out clean and the tops spring back.
- Pounded loaf sugarLoaf sugar was a hard cone of refined sugar broken and pounded to a powder. Caster sugar is the direct equivalent — 8 oz.
- Carbonate of sodaThis is bicarbonate of soda (baking soda). It needs acid to work; the cream here is the only acidic ingredient, and modern pasteurised cream is barely acidic at all. Soured cream, buttermilk, or 2 teaspoons of baking powder in place of the soda will give a better rise.
- A teacupfulVictorian teacups ran small — reckon 5 to 6 fl oz, about 2/3 cup. Add it gradually; the paste should be a thick dropping batter, not pourable.
- Order of mixingThe instruction to dredge flour into creamed butter before the eggs is unusual but works: it produces a close, short crumb rather than a light sponge. If you would rather have a lighter cake, cream butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, then fold in flour and currants.
- The ten-minute beatingTen minutes was hand work. Three to four minutes with an electric mixer is ample, and stop as soon as the soda goes in — prolonged beating after that wastes the gas.
- FlavouringUse almond extract; a scant 1/2 teaspoon is enough for this quantity, or use the grated rind of one lemon as the recipe suggests.
- Tins"Small buttered pans" means patty pans or bun tins. Paper cases work, though the sides will not brown. The batter should fill them about two-thirds.
- YieldEighteen cakes as written, each about the size of a modern cupcake. They keep three or four days in a tin and improve on the second day.
Queen cakes appear in English cookery books from the early eighteenth century onward, when small tin moulds — often heart-shaped, sometimes fluted — became cheap enough for ordinary kitchens. They are essentially a pound-cake batter with currants, divided into single portions, and they mark the point at which the great communal fruit cake began to give way to individual cakes for the tea table. By Mrs Beeton's day the type had become a standby of the household repertoire: cheap at 1s. 8d. for eighteen, "seasonable at any time" because it depends on nothing fresh, and the direct forerunner of the fairy cake and the cupcake.