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Black Cake (Two cups brown sugar one)
Two cups brown sugar, one and one-half cups of butter, six eggs, beaten separately, three cups flour (brown the flour), two tablespoons molasses, one of cinnamon, one tea-spoon mace, one of cloves, two cups sweet milk, two pounds raisins, two of currants, a half pound citron, one tea-spoon soda, two of cream tartar. Bake three hours. Mrs. Curtis, St. Louis, Mo.
A late-19th-century fruit cake of the plain American type, with no brandy and no long ageing. The recipe assumes a cook who knows her own oven, so the two things it omits are the temperature and the pan.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives none; a three-hour bake for a cake this heavy suggests a slow oven, around 300F, or 275F if your oven runs hot. Much higher and the outside risks setting and scorching before the mass of fruit heats through.
- Pan and liningThis is a very large batter, roughly five to six quarts. Use a 10-inch tube pan plus a loaf pan, or two 9-inch round pans with high sides, lined with buttered parchment. Test with a skewer at two and a half hours.
- Browning the flourSpread the flour in a dry pan and stir over moderate heat, or on a sheet in the oven, until it is the colour of light cinnamon, then cool it before mixing. It contributes to the colour and a faintly toasted flavour, and browned flour develops gluten less readily, so handle the batter gently.
- Soda and cream of tartarOne teaspoon soda with two of cream of tartar is homemade baking powder. Modern double-acting baking powder can stand in for it, though published equivalents for this quantity vary; a little free soda is wanted in any case to react with the molasses.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh whole milk, as opposed to the soured or buttermilk that appears elsewhere in the book. Do not substitute buttermilk here, since the leavening is already balanced.
- The spice measures"One of cinnamon" follows the two tablespoons of molasses, so read it as a tablespoon; mace and cloves are stated as teaspoons. Ground cloves at a full teaspoon will dominate, which was the period taste.
- FruitTwo pounds raisins, two of currants and a half pound of citron is four and a half pounds of fruit to three cups of flour. Toss the fruit with a few spoonfuls of the browned flour before folding it in so it stays suspended. Modern citron is candied peel sold in tubs; chop it fine.
- Eggs beaten separatelyYolks into the creamed butter and sugar, whites whipped and folded in last. Apart from the chemical leavening the whipped whites are the only lift in the cake, so do not deflate them.
- Yield and keepingA very large cake; the fruit alone is four and a half pounds and the finished weight will be several pounds more again, enough for a great many thin slices. Wrapped closely it keeps a week or two at room temperature and longer refrigerated; without spirits it will not keep for months the way a brandied black cake does.
"Black cake" was a common 19th-century American name for the darkest and richest of the fruit cakes, distinguished from the pale "white cake" or "bride's cake" served alongside it at weddings and Christmas. The colour came from brown sugar, molasses, dark spices and, as here, flour deliberately browned in a pan before mixing. Recipes of this kind circulated by contribution rather than authorship, and this one is printed over the name of Mrs. Curtis of St. Louis, one of many such credits in the book. The absence of liquor may reflect the temperance sentiment common in church and community cookbooks of the period, though the recipe itself says nothing on the point.