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Mace (Each lbs raisins seeded)
1 lb. sugar Allspice } 3/4 teaspoon 1/2 teaspoon clove each 3 lbs. raisins, seeded and cut in pieces 1 lb. currants 1 lb. citron, thinly sliced and cut in strips 1 lb. figs, finely chopped 1/4 cup brandy 2 tablespoons lemon juice Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and beat thoroughly. Separate yolks from whites of eggs, beat yolks until thick and lemon-colored, whites until stiff and dry, and add to first mixture. Add flour (excepting one-third cup, which should be reserved to dredge fruit) mixed and sifted with spices, brandy, and lemon juice. Then add fruit, except citron, dredged with reserved flour. Dredge citron with flour and put in layers between cake mixture when putting in the pan. Bake same as English Fruit Cake. 1 lb. butter 1. lb. brown sugar 12 eggs 1 cup molasses 1 lb. flour
A full-scale Victorian black fruit cake: roughly six pounds of dried fruit bound with a pound each of butter, sugar and flour and a dozen eggs. Everything about it assumes a long, slow bake and a cool larder to ripen it in.
- Bake it slow"Bake same as English Fruit Cake" sends you to another recipe rather than giving a temperature; the book works in slow/moderate ovens rather than degrees. In a modern oven that means something like 275-300F for three to four hours for a deep pan, tested with a skewer rather than by the clock. Much hotter and the sugar, molasses and fruit scorch at the edges long before the centre sets.
- Line the pansDeep pans should be lined with buttered paper, sides and bottom, and the top of the cake covered loosely with paper for the first half of the baking. This is the standard precaution of the period and it still works better than lowering the heat further.
- Spice quantitiesThe ingredient list as printed does not give amounts for the spices the method calls for (the page heading mentions mace). For a batter of this size, a scant tablespoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon or two each of mace, cloves and nutmeg would be plausible; adjust to taste.
- Dredging the fruitReserving a third of a cup of flour to coat the raisins, currants and figs keeps them suspended instead of sinking. Do it just before folding the fruit in, or the flour draws moisture and clumps.
- Citron in layersCitron is heavier and stickier than the other fruit, so it is floured separately and laid in strata as the pan is filled. Candied citron peel is still sold at holiday time; candied orange or lemon peel substitutes acceptably by weight.
- The eggsTwelve eggs beaten separately, whites stiff, is the only leavening here — there is no baking powder or soda. Fold the whites in rather than beating them down, and get the cake into the oven without delay.
- Scale and yieldThis comes to eleven pounds of batter or more, and will fill two large loaf or tube pans, or one very deep pan plus a small one. Halving it is straightforward if you do not want a cake that serves thirty or more.
- KeepingA cake this rich improves for weeks. Cool completely, wrap in paper, and store in a tin in a cool place; the quarter cup of brandy in the batter helps, and periodic brushing with more is traditional.
Dark fruit cakes of this type — pounds of raisins, currants, citron and figs held together with molasses, brown sugar and brandy — descend from the English plum cakes of the eighteenth century, and by the end of the nineteenth century cakes of this kind were common for American weddings and Christmas. The book appears to be one of the Boston Cooking-School line, whose cake chapter gives several graded versions, from a modest "fruit cake" to this sort of full-dress black cake, and cross-references their baking to the English Fruit Cake so the instructions need not be repeated. The scale suits a household that baked once for the season: fruit cake was made weeks or months ahead, wrapped, and cut down slowly, which is part of why it carried spirits and so much sugar. Citron, a citrus grown chiefly for its thick rind and candied for baking, is now largely a holiday-only item.