Thanksgiving Cake
INGREDIENTS for large cake.-1 lb. each of butter, flour and sifted sugar, 1/2 lb. of currants, 2 oz. of candied-peel, 8 eggs, 2 oz. of almonds, blanched and chopped, flavouring of nutmeg and spice, a little salt. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 9d.
Beat the butter and sugar to a cream; add the eggs well beaten, mix in the flour, and add the other ingredients. Beat all thoroughly together, and bake 2 hours in a moderate oven.
TIME.-2 hours.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A plain pound cake enriched with dried fruit, peel and almonds — the proportions are the classic equal-weight formula, so it scales up or down cleanly. A few of the original's conventions need translating.
- Oven temperature"A moderate oven" in Beeton's terms is 325-350F (160-180C). For a cake this large, 325F is the safer choice; two hours at 350F will darken the crust well before the centre sets.
- Pan and liningOne pound each of butter, flour and sugar plus eight eggs, fruit, peel and almonds gives roughly 5 lb of batter. Use a 9-10 in round deep tin, lined with a double thickness of paper on the sides and base, and a loose paper cap over the top for the last hour.
- Currant quantityThe weight of currants has dropped out of the ingredient line; the text reads only "lb. of currants", so a fraction has been lost. For a cake built on 1 lb of flour, somewhere between 8 oz and 1 lb is a reasonable guess; 12 oz if you want the crumb to hold.
- "Sifted sugar"Sugar of the period came in loaves and was pounded or crushed fine and passed through a sieve before use. It is not icing sugar; caster sugar is the closest modern equivalent and creams well with the butter.
- Candied peelTwo ounces of candied peel, sold in solid pieces, needed chopping by hand. Modern chopped mixed peel can be used as-is, though the bought diced kind tends to be sweeter and softer than the Victorian article. The recipe does not say which peel is meant.
- "Spice"Unqualified "spice" in an English cake of this date means mixed spice — a blend leaning on allspice, coriander, cinnamon and a little clove. Reckon on 1 to 2 teaspoons of mixed spice plus a whole grated nutmeg's worth for a cake this size.
- Preventing curdlingEight eggs beaten into 1 lb of butter will split the mixture unless the eggs are at room temperature and added a little at a time. A spoonful of the weighed flour with each addition keeps it together.
- Testing and yieldTwo hours is a starting point, not a guarantee; a skewer into the centre should come out clean and the cake should have stopped singing. Expect 20 to 24 slices, and better flavour after a day or two wrapped.
Beeton's cake catalogue includes a number of variations on the English pound cake, and this is one of them: equal weights of butter, flour and sugar, lightened only by thoroughly beaten eggs, with fruit, peel and spice added at the end. The American Thanksgiving name is a curiosity in a British book, though spiced fruit cakes were the standard festive baking of both countries. The note "seasonable at any time" suggests that the name is a label of convenience rather than a description of a fixed tradition: dried currants, candied peel and blanched almonds were pantry staples available year-round, unlike the fresh fruit that governed the seasons of other recipes in the book.