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Fruit Cake for Two Loaves
1½ cups sugar 1 cup molasses 1/2 cup butter little lard if needed 1½ cups milk pinch of salt 1 tsp. soda dissolved in cold milk 1/2 tsp. Slade's cloves 1/2 tsp. Slade's nutmeg 1/2 tsp. Slade's cinnamon 1/2 tsp. Slade's allspice 1 lb. currants 1 lb. raisins 1/2 lb. citron 1/2 lb. orange peal 2 eggs 2 c. flour or more Mix and bake in slow oven, 1½ hours.
A dark, molasses-sweetened fruit cake of the plain church-supper type, with three pounds of fruit carried by very little flour. The original assumes you know what the batter should look like, so most of the work of modernising it is judging consistency.
- Flour is the open question"2 c. flour or more" is the only vague measurement, and it matters: three pounds of fruit and peel need enough batter to suspend them. Add flour until the mixture is stiff enough that a spoon stands up in it briefly — appreciably more than 2 cups will be needed, though how much is a matter of judgement.
- Slow ovenConventionally taken as about 300F. At that temperature a loaf this dense may need longer than the stated 1 1/2 hours; start testing at 90 minutes with a skewer.
- Slade's spicesD. & L. Slade Co. of Boston was a familiar spice and gelatine brand in New England cookbooks of this period. Any ground cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice will do; use them fresh, since 1/2 teaspoon each is a light hand for this much fruit.
- Soda in cold milkThe soda is the only leavening and it reacts with the acid in the molasses. Dissolve it in the cold milk as directed and get the cake into the oven promptly rather than letting the batter stand.
- Citron and orange peelBoth mean candied peel, sold in blocks then and usually diced now. Toss the currants, raisins and peel with a little of the measured flour before folding them in so they do not settle to the bottom.
- "Little lard if needed"Probably a frugal stretch of the half cup of butter. Use the full half cup of butter and skip the lard; nothing is lost.
- Pans and liningTwo standard loaf pans, greased and lined with parchment on the bottom and sides. At 300F for two hours the outside of an unlined pan will darken well before the centre sets.
- Yield and keepingTwo substantial loaves. Undecorated and unspirited, it keeps a week or more wrapped tightly, and the spice improves after a day or two.
This is the everyday New England fruit cake rather than the wedding sort: sweetened largely with molasses, raised with soda rather than a long-beaten batter, and containing no brandy at all. The Philathea classes were young women's Bible-study groups, originating in a Baptist Sunday school and spreading widely in the early twentieth century, and their fundraising cookbooks are often associated with temperance habits. The naming of Slade's spices is a small period detail worth noting: D. & L. Slade Co. of Boston was a regional name of the sort contributors to community cookbooks would specify by habit.