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Fruit Loaf Cake
One cup butter, two of brown sugar, one of New Orleans molasses, one of sweet milk, three eggs, five cups sifted flour, two teaspoons cream tartar in the flour, tea-spoon soda in the milk, tablespoon cinnamon, one nutmeg, one pound raisins, one of currants, quarter pound citron (citron may be omitted, and half the quantity of raisins and currants will do). Put flour in a large crock, mix well with cream tartar, make a well in the center, put in other ingredients, having warmed the butter and molasses a little; mix well together with the hands, putting in the fruit last after it has been floured; bake two hours in a moderate oven. This will make two common-sized loaves. - Mrs. N. S. Long.
A rich molasses fruit cake in loaf form, leavened with the cream of tartar and soda pairing that home bakers used before commercial baking powder. The instructions assume a stiff, hand-mixed batter and a long, gentle bake.
- The hinge: temperature, not timeThe recipe says only "a moderate oven," which is conventionally taken to mean something around 350F. Two hours at that heat risks scorching the outside of a molasses-and-fruit loaf before the center sets. Bake at 325F and judge by a skewer coming out clean, or an internal temperature of 200-210F, checking from 75 minutes on.
- Pans and lining"Common-sized loaves" is not defined; two standard modern loaf pans (about 9x5 inches) are a workable stand-in, though period loaf tins were often smaller. Line them with parchment up the sides; the sugar and dried fruit make this batter prone to sticking and to over-browning at the edges.
- The crockSimply a large mixing bowl. The well-in-the-center method allows the flour and cream of tartar to be thoroughly combined before any liquid arrives, and the recipe directs mixing with the hands rather than a spoon.
- LeaveningTwo teaspoons cream of tartar with one of soda works out to roughly 3 to 4 teaspoons of baking powder, with the molasses supplying further acid. Dissolve the soda in the milk as directed and get the loaves into the oven promptly, since the acid-base reaction begins at once.
- New Orleans molassesA comparatively mild, light-bodied cane molasses; unsulphured mild or light molasses is the nearest modern equivalent. Do not use blackstrap, which is bitter and far more assertive than this cake expects. Sweet milk simply means fresh whole milk, as opposed to soured.
- One nutmegA whole nutmeg grated yields about 2 to 3 teaspoons. Combined with a full tablespoon of cinnamon this is a heavily spiced cake; scale the nutmeg back to a teaspoon if that seems too much.
- Flouring the fruitTossing the raisins, currants and citron in a little of the measured flour keeps them suspended rather than sinking. Fold them in at the very end, as written, so the batter is not overworked.
- CitronCandied citron peel, still sold at holiday baking counters and by online spice merchants. The recipe's own note allowing its omission, with the raisins and currants halved, produces a lighter and less sweet loaf.
- KeepingWrapped well, these loaves improve over several days and will keep for a week or more in a cool place. Each loaf cuts into a dozen or so thin slices.
Cake-making sections of nineteenth-century American cookbooks distinguished carefully between "cup" or "loaf" cakes and the far richer "black" or wedding cakes; this one sits in between, a fruited loaf cheap enough for ordinary weeks because molasses and brown sugar stand in for a full measure of refined white sugar. The cream of tartar and soda combination points to a household that mixed its own leavening rather than buying it prepared, a practice that lingered well after packaged baking powder came on the market in the late 1850s and 1860s and became common in the decades that followed. "New Orleans molasses" was a grade name in the trade, understood to mean the lighter, sweeter product of Louisiana cane rather than the dark residue of sugar refining. The recipe carries a contributor's name, reflecting the compiled-from-subscribers method that produced so many regional American cookbooks of the period.