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Excellent Fruit Cake
One and a half pounds raisins, one and a fourth pounds currants, three-fourths pound citron, pound butter, pound sugar, one and a fourth pounds flour, ten eggs, two table-spoons lemon, two tea-spoons yeast powder; mix a fourth pound of the flour in the fruit. Mrs. J. W. Grubbs,
A pound-cake batter carrying nearly three and a half pounds of dried fruit, written in the shorthand of a cook who already knew the method. The proportions are sound; what is missing is the pan, the heat and the time.
- Yeast powderNineteenth-century American usage for baking powder. Two teaspoons is modest for this quantity of flour, though a batter this rich and this heavily fruited rises mostly by the air beaten into the butter and eggs.
- The lemon is ambiguous"Two table-spoons lemon" could mean juice, grated rind, or lemon extract. Two tablespoons of extract would be aggressive by modern standards; juice or zest is the safer reading, and period fruit cakes commonly used both rind and juice.
- Flour on the fruitThis is the hinge. Tossing a quarter pound of the measured flour through the raisins, currants and citron keeps the fruit suspended rather than sunk into a band at the bottom. It comes out of the total flour, not in addition to it.
- Method the recipe assumesCream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs a few at a time, fold in the remaining flour sifted with the baking powder, then the floured fruit last. Ten eggs is a great deal of liquid; add them slowly or the batter will curdle.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks or diced tubs around the winter holidays and stocked year-round by baking suppliers. Candied orange and lemon peel substitute directly if citron proves hard to find.
- Pan and yieldSomething over seven pounds of batter, once fruit, butter, sugar, flour and ten eggs are added up. Three 9x5-inch loaf pans or one large tube pan, lined with parchment and the sides wrapped in a damp towel or newspaper collar to slow the outside. Roughly 40 generous slices.
- OvenA cake this dense wants a slow oven, 300–325F. Expect two and a half to three and a half hours depending on pan depth; cover the top with foil once it colours, and test with a skewer at the centre.
- KeepingFruit cake improves for weeks. Cool completely, wrap tightly, and store in a tin; brushing with brandy or sherry every week or so is the traditional treatment and helps preservation.
The Dixie Cook Book belongs to the great wave of late nineteenth-century American compilations built from contributed recipes, each signed with the donor's name — here Mrs. J. W. Grubbs — which functioned as both credit and warranty. The cake itself is the standard English rich fruit cake carried into Southern kitchens: a pound of butter, a pound of sugar and one and a quarter pounds of flour, an extravagant number of eggs, and more fruit by weight than batter. Citron and currants were imported goods, so a cake like this announced a household with money and a cook with time, which is why it clusters in the books around Christmas, weddings and christenings. "Yeast powder" for baking powder is a period tell; the chemical leaveners were still new enough that their names had not settled.