Fruit Cake
— Mrs. C. E. Cheney
One lb. fat salt pork, chopped very fine, 1 cup strong hot coffee, 2 cups brown sugar, 1 cup molasses, into which has been stirred 1 tsp. soda, 1 tsp. Slade's cloves, 1 tsp. Slade's cinnamon, 6 cups of flour, 1 lb. seeded raisins, 12 lb. currants; dates, citron or candied lemon peel, if you prefer. Mix fruit with cup of flour, to prevent settling. Bake in moderate oven. This will not dry up quickly, and improves with age.
— Mrs. G. B. Bellis
A boiled-cider-era "pork cake": salt pork supplies all the fat and there are no eggs, so the batter depends on molasses and soda for lift and on long, gentle baking for texture.
- The salt porkUse fat salt pork (side pork cured in brine), not smoked bacon, and trim away any lean streaks. Chop or grind it as finely as you can manage, then pour the cup of hot coffee over it and let it stand until the fat softens; the pieces should disappear into the crumb during baking, and coarse chunks will leave greasy pockets.
- SaltNo salt is listed because the pork carries it. If your salt pork is very heavily cured, rinse and pat it dry first, or the cake will taste savoury.
- Slade's cloves and cinnamonSlade's was a Boston spice brand of the period. Any good ground cloves and cinnamon serve; a teaspoon of each in this volume of batter is modest, and the spice can be doubled without harm.
- Molasses and sodaStir the teaspoon of soda into the molasses as directed and expect it to foam. That reaction is the only leavening in the cake, so get the batter into the pans and into the oven promptly.
- Currant quantityThe amount given for currants is not usable as printed; '12 lb' is almost certainly a mangled 1/2 lb. Half a pound against the pound of raisins is a sensible reading.
- OvenA moderate oven is usually taken today to mean somewhere around 350F, but a fruit-heavy loaf this size does better nearer 300-325F. Line the pans with greased parchment and reckon on roughly 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until a skewer comes out clean and the top springs back.
- YieldSix cups of flour plus a pound of pork and the fruit makes a very large batch -- on the order of three 9x5-inch loaves, or more smaller ones. Divide it rather than crowding one deep pan, which will scorch outside before the centre sets.
- KeepingThe claim that it improves with age holds. Cool completely, wrap in parchment and then foil or a tin, and keep it in a cool place; the pork fat and molasses keep it moist for weeks.
Pork cake was a New England thrift cake, common in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century community collections, and it exists because salt pork was the one fat almost every household had in the barrel year-round. Butter was seasonal and, it is often said, frequently sold for cash, and eggs were generally thought scarce in winter, while finely chopped fat pork scalded with hot coffee or boiling water would do the work of both: the fat shortens the crumb, the coffee and molasses supply liquid and colour. The instruction to dredge the fruit in a cup of the measured flour so it will not settle to the bottom is the standard fruitcake precaution of the era, and it still works.