Queen Cake
Made with the lady cake mixture, No. 5, except the milk. 1 pound of the greenest colored candied citron. 1/2 pound of almonds, blanched and split. 1/2 pound of sultana seedless raisins. 1/2 cup of sherry or maderia wine. The citron to be cut in fine shreds and floured together with the almonds and raisins before mixing in. This mixture also makes small queen cakes, baked in little patty-pans, and these frosted on top are among the finest possible. It is at these times they make the master of the house buy a cord of hickory wood and hire a man to saw it, because it makes such a nice steady heat to bake a cake with; and they send a boy on a horse to a friend's in the country to get some "right fresh eggs," because there are none in the whole town good enough. Then they have Julia to dry the flour, and Betsey to wash and pound the butter, and Susan and her little sister to beat the eggs, and it is bad for the poor cat if she gets in the way. We fellows who live in bakeries don't positively know that these things take place, but have picked up such impressions someway. But we do know how the cakes look when they get to the fair.
This is a variation rather than a standalone recipe: it assumes you have the book's lady cake batter (No. 5) in front of you, with the milk left out and wine standing in its place. Everything else is fruit and nuts.
- Read it as a formula, not a recipeYou need the lady cake mixture No. 5 to make this at all. Lady cakes of this period are generally rich creamed butter cakes leavened largely with beaten whites and flavoured with almond or rose, though the book's No. 5 is not given here; the fruit is added to that base. The milk is left out and a half cup of wine is the only liquid added in its place.
- Patty-pansSmall shallow tins, roughly the size of a modern muffin or cupcake cup, though older ones are wider and shallower. Line or grease and flour them well; this batter is heavy with fruit and clings.
- Oven heatThe recipe gives no oven direction whatever. A large fruited butter cake of this kind is usually baked slow to moderate and tested with a skewer; small cakes in patty-pans take far less time. The joke about a cord of hickory is about steady heat, which is what a rich egg-white cake needs and what a modern oven gives for nothing.
- Candied citronThe thick-rinded Citrus medica, candied in halves or quarters and once sold by the piece; the call for the "greenest colored" presumably points to fresher, better-looking stock. Today it comes diced in small tubs, often mixed into commercial candied peel. A pound is a great deal by modern standards and will dominate the cake, which appears to be the intention.
- Flouring the fruitThis is the instruction that decides whether the cake works. Tossing the shredded citron, split almonds and sultanas in a little of the measured flour keeps them suspended instead of sinking into a band at the bottom. Do it just before folding them in, and fold rather than beat so the whipped whites survive.
- AlmondsBlanched and split means skins slipped off in hot water, then halved along the natural seam rather than chopped. Split almonds hold their shape and give the sliced cake its look; blanched whole almonds split by hand are the closest packaged equivalent.
- Sultanas"sultana seedless raisins" correspond roughly to what is now sold as golden raisins. If they are dry they can be plumped briefly and drained before flouring.
- YieldA pound of citron plus a pound of almonds and raisins goes into the lady cake batter, but since the size of No. 5 is not given here the finished yield cannot be stated. Frosted, as suggested, the small cakes keep several days in a tin.
Queen cake is an English name of long standing, attested in English printed cookery from the early eighteenth century, used for a small rich butter cake baked in individual tins, often heart-shaped, and usually studded with currants. What this entry really records is the culture of the church fair and county exhibition cake, and the author, writing from the professional bakery side of the trade, is having fun at the expense of the amateur ritual around it: dried flour, washed and pounded butter to rid it of salt and buttermilk, eggs fetched from the country, and hickory rather than soft wood for a long even fire. Every one of those steps had a practical reason in a kitchen without reliable ingredients or thermostats, which is precisely why they read as fussy to a man with a bake oven that never went out.