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Christmas Cake
1 pound sugar 1½ pounds flour 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon cloves 2/3 teaspoon allspice 1 pound citron 1 pound currants 2 pounds seeded raisins 1 pound butter 12 eggs 2/3 cup currant jelly 1½ teaspoons soda 1 cup molasses 1 teaspoon salt Dash of red pepper Divide the flour into two parts; into one half put the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice, and into the other mix the fruit. Cream the butter and sugar; add the eggs, well beaten, then the soda, dissolved in a little warm water and mixed with the molasses, salt and pepper. Put in round buttered pans and bake between two moderately hot radiators for two hours. 3/4 cup lard 1 cup sugar 3 eggs 1 cup molasses 1 tablespoon cloves
A full-sized dark fruitcake dropped into the fireless-cookery chapter, where the heat source is a pair of preheated soapstone or iron discs rather than an oven. The printed method is also incomplete, so read the whole thing before you start.
- The instructions are missing a stepNowhere does the recipe tell you to combine the two portions of flour with the creamed mixture, and the 2/3 cup currant jelly is listed but never used. Fold in the spiced flour first, then the fruited flour, and beat the jelly in with the molasses.
- The trailing ingredients belong elsewhereThe final run of "3/4 cup lard, 1 cup sugar, 3 eggs, 1 cup molasses, 1 tablespoon cloves" appears to be the opening ingredients of a separate recipe, run together with this one in the printed text. Ignore it here.
- Weights to volumes1 pound granulated sugar is about 2 1/4 cups; 1 1/2 pounds flour is roughly 5 1/2 cups, spooned and levelled; 1 pound butter is four sticks. The fruit stays in pounds: 4 pounds of citron, currants and raisins against 1 1/2 pounds of flour makes this a very fruit-heavy batter that will sit close to the pan sides.
- CitronThis is candied citron peel, not the lemon-like fresh fruit. It is still sold in tubs at Christmas; candied orange or lemon peel substitutes without much loss.
- Soda and molassesThe baking soda is dissolved in warm water and stirred into the molasses, whose acidity reacts with it. There is no baking powder here, so the only chemical leavening is 1 1/2 teaspoons of soda, with the twelve well-beaten eggs doing the rest; the crumb is meant to be dense.
- Dash of red pepperCayenne, and about 1/8 teaspoon. It reads as warmth rather than heat against 4 pounds of dried fruit.
- Forget the radiators"Between two moderately hot radiators" means the preheated metal or soapstone discs of a fireless cooker, whose temperature falls steadily from the moment the lid closes. That is unreliable for a cake this heavy. Bake at 300F instead, in the lower third of the oven.
- Time and donenessTwo hours will not finish this quantity in a conventional oven. Expect 3 to 3 1/2 hours for deep pans; go by a centre reading of 205 to 210F rather than the clock, and tent with foil once the top has coloured.
- Yield and pansThe batter runs to roughly 9 to 10 pounds. Divide it among three 9x5-inch loaf pans or two 9-inch tube pans, lined and buttered. Cooled, wrapped in cloth and foil, it keeps for weeks and slices better after a few days.
Fireless cookery was a serious domestic movement in the first quarter of the twentieth century: an insulated box, a pair of iron or soapstone discs heated red on the range, and a promise of fuel saved and a kitchen kept cool. Baking in one was always the hardest case, since a cake wants sustained heat and a fireless cooker only ever gives falling heat, and the presence of a twelve-egg Christmas fruitcake in this chapter says more about the enthusiasm of the method's advocates than about its results. The cake itself is thoroughly conventional for the period, descending from the boiled and baked English plum cakes that reached American Christmas tables by way of dried currants, candied citron and molasses; molasses and soda in place of some of the sugar and all of the baking powder mark it as an economical version rather than a wedding-cake formula. The dash of red pepper looks like a misprint to modern eyes.