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English Plum Cake
Take for this cake one pound of butter mixed to a cream with one pound of powdered sugar; nine fresh eggs (beaten in one at a time); one pound of sifted flour; one and one-half pounds of currants; flavoring of ground nutmeg and mace and a wine-glass of good brandy. Two ounces of blanched almonds, sliced, are sometimes added, and, if desired, shredded candied lemon or citron may be used. The cake should be baked in a plain round tin with a loose bottom. The tin should be lined with several thicknesses of paper. Two hours at least will be required for the baking. The cake should not be allowed to stand on the oven bottom but should be placed on an asbestos mat or an inverted pie tin. The oven should be quite hot when the cake is put in; it must be carefully watched and, if these is any danger of burning at the top, covered with a sheet of paper.
FRUIT-CAKE-One pound of flour; one pound of brown sugar; fourteen ounces of butter; ten eggs, three pounds of raisins; three pounds of currants; three pounds of citron; one wine-glass of wine; one of brandy; one of milk; one tablespoon of molasses; and one of cinnamon (ground); one teaspoon of saleratus; one teaspoon of cloves; onefourth ounce of mace or one nutmeg. Cream the sugar and butter, beat the eggs to a stiff froth and stir them in. Mix the flour gradually with the butter and sugar, then add the molasses and spice. Dissolve the soda in the milk, strain it and mix with the brandy and wine to curdle. Stir the whole into the cake. Just before baking add the fruit gradually, a handful of each alternately. If baked in thick loaves, it will require from two and one-half to three hours.
Two related cakes: a pound-cake-style English plum cake leavened only by creamed butter and eggs, and a much larger, spiced fruit cake below it. Both are old-fashioned keeping cakes, and both need a far cooler oven than the text implies.
- Oven temperature"Quite hot" applied to a wood- or coal-fired range that was fired up beforehand and then lost heat steadily over a two-hour bake; the book gives no figure. For a cake of this density something in the region of 325F for the plum cake and 300F for the thick fruit loaves is a safer modern reading, and expect the stated two to three hours.
- Do not use asbestosThe asbestos mat was standard insulation in period kitchens and is a known carcinogen. The inverted pie tin does the same job; a heavy rimmed baking sheet or a second cake pan underneath works equally well.
- A wine-glassAbout 2 fluid ounces, roughly a quarter cup. The fruit cake calls for three of them -- one wine, one brandy, one milk -- so roughly 6 ounces of liquid in total.
- SaleratusBaking soda, in the fruit cake only. The instruction to mix the dissolved soda with wine and brandy "to curdle" is the acid activation step, and the batter should go into the oven promptly afterwards.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, small black raisins, not fresh red or black currants. One and a half pounds is about four and a half cups.
- Lining the tin"Several thicknesses of paper" is the whole insurance policy on a two-hour bake. Line the base and sides with a double layer of parchment standing an inch above the rim, and cover the top loosely with foil or paper once the surface has browned, as the recipe advises.
- The loose-bottomed tinA springform or a pan with a removable base, 9 to 10 inches for the plum cake. A cake this heavy is hard to turn out of a solid pan without damaging it.
- Scale of the fruit cakeNine pounds of fruit against one pound of flour gives something near twelve pounds of finished cake. Divide it among several loaf pans rather than attempting one mass, and consider quartering the recipe unless you are baking for a household.
- KeepingNeither cake is meant to be eaten warm. Cool completely, wrap in parchment then foil, and let it sit at least a week; the brandy and the fruit sugars need that time to settle.
"Plum cake" in English usage rarely contains plums: plum was a general term for dried fruit, chiefly raisins and currants, and survives in the same sense in plum pudding. The style descends from the enriched fruited breads of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which lost their yeast as cooks learned to lift heavy batters with well-beaten eggs and, later, chemical leaveners. That transition is visible on this page: the English plum cake relies on nine eggs and long creaming alone, while the fruit cake printed beneath it reaches for saleratus curdled with wine. Butterick published cook books as an extension of its pattern and magazine business, and cakes like these were improved by keeping.