Fruit Cake
2 lbs. seeded raisins. 1/2 lb. citron. 1/2 lb. dates. 1/2 cup plum jelly. 1/2 cup strawberry preserves. 1/2 cup cherries. 1/2 cup sherry. 1/2 cup brandy. 1/2 lb. butter. 3/4 lb. flour, browned and sifted with-- 1 teaspoon baking powder. 8 eggs.
Mrs. Wilson gives proportions only, with no method, no pan size and no oven temperature — the assumption being that any cook of 1920 knew how a fruit cake was assembled. The quantities are sound; what follows is what the page leaves out.
- Total weight and yieldThe batter comes to something like six and a half to seven pounds. That is enough to fill two 9x5-inch loaf pans, and more than a single 10-inch tube pan will comfortably hold.
- Browned flourBrowning flour means spreading it in a dry pan or a low oven and stirring until it colours to pale tan, which deepens the flavour and darkens the crumb. It also weakens the gluten slightly, so the cake will be tender rather than springy. Cool it completely before sifting with the baking powder; browned flour is also generally said to take up rather less liquid than raw.
- Weights in cupsThree-quarters pound of flour is about 3 cups sifted; half a pound of butter is 2 sticks. The fruit is measured by weight for good reason here — volume varies wildly with how sticky the raisins are.
- "Seeded" raisinsSeeded meant the seeds had been picked out, usually of large muscatels, not that the grapes were seedless by variety. Modern dark raisins or a mix of raisins and currants stands in directly.
- Citron and datesCitron is the candied rind of a thick-skinned citrus, sold in cubes near the holidays and easily replaced with candied orange peel. Chop the citron fine and cut the dates in quarters, tossing both with a spoonful of the measured flour so they do not sink.
- AssemblyCream the butter, beat in the eggs a few at a time, then add the jelly, preserves, cherries and half the liquor. Fold in the flour and baking powder, then the floured fruit last. The eight eggs, not the single teaspoon of baking powder, do most of the lifting, so beat them in thoroughly.
- BakingThe page gives no temperature. By modern practice a cake this dense and sugary wants a low oven — 275 to 300F — with the pan lined in parchment and, if you like, set in a shallow pan of water. Expect two and a half to three and a half hours for loaves. It is done when a skewer comes out clean, at an internal temperature of roughly 200 to 210F.
- The sherry and brandyHalf of the cup of liquor can go into the batter and half be spooned over the hot cake as it cools. Wrapped in soaked cloth and foil, the cake keeps for weeks and improves for the first two or three.
Rich fruit cakes of this type descend from the boiled plum puddings and "great cakes" of English tradition, in which dried fruit, spirits and a great many eggs helped the cake keep through months of storage — sugar, alcohol and low moisture all working against spoilage before refrigeration. Mrs. Wilson's version leans on jelly, preserves and cherries in place of some of the sugar and liquid, a thrifty habit common in American cookery writing just after the First World War, when sugar conservation campaigns had encouraged households to use put-up fruit. Browning flour is an older touch, often said to have been a way of darkening cakes and gravies. Mrs. Wilson wrote for the Philadelphia Public Ledger and was associated with wartime food-conservation work, which may account for the terseness here: she gives the proportions and leaves the rest to the reader.