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Richest Fruit Cake-Black Cake
Prepare the fruit first. 2 1/2 pounds of seedless raisins. 2 1/2 pounds of clean dry currants. 1 1/2 pounds of citron, shred fine. 2 ounces of mixed ground spices-cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and mace. 1 small cupful of strong black coffee. 1 small cupful of reboiled molasses. 1 small cupful of brandy. 1 tablespoonful of extract of lemon.
A small addition of almonds, nuts, candy, or cut figs can be made if wished. Then mix the cake batter: 14 ounces of sugar. 14 ounces of butter. 11 eggs. 18 ounces of flour. Mix up same as pound cake, after the flour is all in add the 2 ounces of spice, then the coffee, molasses, brandy and lemon extract. The batter will then be quite thin. Dust the fruit well with flour and and mix it in. Line two cake molds with buttered paper and divide the mixture into them. Set the molds in the middle of a sheet or two of greased paper, gather it up around them and tie with twine, thus wrapping the molds in paper to shield them from too much heat and avoid burning the fruit. Bake from 2 to 2 1/2 hours in a slack oven.
The black cake above should be at least 2 or 3 days old before it is cut. The amount of cake batter only serves to hold the fruit together, but, it ought to be mentioned, the quantity of the pound cake mixture in it may be doubled and all the other ingredients remain the same and it will still be a very rich black cake.
A true black cake in the old proportion: roughly seven pounds of fruit held together by about three pounds of batter. Everything here is weighed, so a scale is not optional.
- Slack oven"Slack oven" is conventionally reckoned at somewhere around 275-300F, the coolest working heat in a wood or coal range. At that sort of heat the stated 2 to 2 1/2 hours is realistic for cakes this dense; a hotter oven scorches the sugar in the fruit long before the centre sets.
- The paper wrappingLining the molds with buttered paper and then bundling them in a further sheet of greased paper is insulation, not decoration. Parchment inside and a collar of parchment or brown paper tied outside does the same job in a modern oven, where the bottom heat is still fierce enough to burn currants.
- "A small cupful"Genuinely imprecise. A cup of the period is usually taken as about 8 fluid ounces, and "small" suggests somewhat less; the three liquid cups together are meant to thin the batter to a pourable state, so judge by that rather than by an exact figure.
- Reboiled molassesMolasses simmered down again to concentrate it and drive off water, which darkens the crumb and deepens the flavour. Modern blackstrap or a good dark unsulphured molasses gives much the same colour and bitterness without the extra step.
- Currants and citronCurrants here are dried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. Citron is candied citron peel, sold in blocks or diced; it is still available at holiday season but a mix of candied peels is a reasonable substitute.
- Two ounces of spiceThat is around half a cup of ground cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and mace combined, which reads as extreme until you weigh the fruit against it. Clove and mace dominate quickly, so weight the blend toward cinnamon.
- Flouring the fruitDusting six and a half pounds of fruit with flour keeps it suspended in a batter the recipe itself calls thin. Take the dusting flour from the 18 ounces rather than adding extra, or the crumb tightens.
- Yield and pansSomething over ten pounds of finished cake. Two 9- or 10-inch round pans at least 3 inches deep, or two large loaf pans, filled no more than two-thirds. Test with a skewer at the centre, and expect the surface to stay dark and slightly tacky.
- AgeingThe recipe asks for at least two or three days before cutting; longer keeping, wrapped in brandy-dampened cloth in a tin, is often described for cakes of this kind. The alcohol and sugar do the preserving, and the crumb slices cleanly only once it has settled.
Black cake belongs to the long line of British plum cakes that crossed the Atlantic and grew heavier and darker on the way, the colour coming from molasses, burnt sugar or long-macerated fruit rather than from chocolate. The same lineage produced the rum-soaked black cakes still central to Caribbean celebration baking. The professional voice here is telling: the weighing in pounds and ounces, the thinking in terms of two molds at a time, and the closing note that the batter may be doubled while the fruit stays the same all suggest a writer accustomed to working at scale rather than in a domestic kitchen. That last remark also reveals the period's measure of quality, in which the less cake there is relative to fruit, the richer the cake is understood to be.