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Fruit Cake (One cup butter one of brown)
One cup butter, one of brown sugar, half pint molasses, two eggs, cup sour milk, tea-spoon soda, pound of flour, one of currants, one and a half pounds raisins. Flavor to taste. This has been thoroughly tested, and is a great favorite. - Mrs. M. E. Nicely.
A dark, molasses-heavy fruit cake of the plainer American type — no brandy, no nuts, and only two eggs, with the sour milk and soda doing the lifting. The measurements are given by weight where it counts, which makes it easier to reproduce than most cakes of this vintage.
- Translate the units firstHalf a pint of molasses is 1 cup. A pound of flour is roughly 3 1/2 to 4 cups sifted all-purpose; weigh it at 450 g if you can, since the batter is stiff and a cup too much will make it dry. Butter and brown sugar are 1 cup each, about 225 g and 200 g.
- Sour milk means buttermilkNineteenth-century sour milk was raw milk left to clabber. Use cultured buttermilk, or 1 cup milk with a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice stirred in and left ten minutes. The acid is not optional — it is what the teaspoon of soda reacts with, along with the molasses.
- The soda is the whole leaveningOne level teaspoon for a pound of flour is modest, so mix only until the flour disappears and get the cake into the oven promptly. There is no baking powder to give a second lift in the heat.
- Flour the fruitTwo and a half pounds of currants and raisins against a pound of flour is a heavy load. Toss the fruit with a few spoonfuls of the measured flour before folding it in, or it will settle to the bottom. Modern raisins are softer than the dried-hard fruit of the period; no soaking is needed.
- "Flavor to taste"The recipe leaves this open. For a molasses fruit cake, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and mace are the usual choices; 2 teaspoons cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon each of the others is a reasonable starting point, and a grating of lemon zest is in keeping.
- Oven and timeThe recipe gives no baking directions, so this is modern reconstruction: bake slow, 300-325F. Divide between two 9x5-inch loaf pans, lined, and expect 1 1/2 to 2 hours; a single large tube or 10-inch round pan will want 2 1/2 hours or more. Tent with foil once the top is dark, and test with a skewer in the centre.
- Yield and keepingThe batter comes to something under six pounds -- two generous loaves, twenty-plus slices. Wrapped tight, it improves for a week and keeps for a month; the molasses and fruit sugar do the preserving here, since there is no spirit in it.
This is the everyday end of the fruit cake tradition — what old cookbooks sometimes distinguish as "common" or "plain" fruit cake, against the "rich" or "black" version built on a dozen eggs, a pound of butter, candied citron and a glass of brandy. Molasses and sour milk stand in for that expense, and the result is closer to a spiced gingerbread carrying fruit than to a wedding cake. Sour milk cakes were presumably a practical solution in a household that kept a cow: milk turned before it could be drunk, and soda would turn the loss into leavening. The Dixie Cook Book, like most of the community compilations of its era, is assembled from contributed and signed receipts, and the line "this has been thoroughly tested, and is a great favorite" is Mrs. Nicely's warranty.