Home › Cake-Making › Groom's Cake
Groom's Cake
Ten eggs beaten separately, one pound butter, one of white sugar, one of flour, two of almonds blanched and chopped fine, one of seeded raisins, half pound citron, shaved fine; beat butter to a cream, add sugar gradually, then the well-beaten yolks; stir all till very light, and add the chopped almonds; beat the whites stiff and add gently with the flour; take a little more flour and sprinkle over the raisins and citron, then put in the cake-pan, first a layer of cake patter, then a layer or raisins and citron, then cake, and so on t all is used, finishing off with a layer of cake. Bake in a moderate oven two hours. - Mary Wilcox, Dalton.
A pound-cake batter carrying nearly four pounds of fruit and nuts, layered rather than folded in. The method is the point: alternating batter and fruit keeps the heavy pieces from sinking to the bottom in a two-hour bake.
- Weights in cupsOne pound of butter is four sticks; one pound of white sugar is about 2 1/4 cups; one pound of flour is about 3 1/2 cups measured lightly. Weighing is far more reliable here, since the whole structure depends on the flour-to-egg-to-butter balance.
- Two pounds of almonds is not a typoRich wedding cakes of this era carried large quantities of nuts and fruit — the almonds, raisins and citron together come to three and a half pounds, close to the weight of the batter itself. Expect something closer to a dense fruit-and-nut loaf than a light cake.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 325-350F. At the lower end you have more insurance against the top scorching before a cake this dense and this deep is set through.
- Pan and yieldThe batter and fruit together come to roughly eight pounds. Split it between two 9-inch round pans of good depth, or use a 10-inch tube pan; a single shallow pan will overflow. It will serve thirty or more in the thin slices such cakes were usually cut into.
- Line and shieldButter the pan and line the bottom and sides with parchment. If the top is browning hard before the first hour is out, lay a sheet of foil or paper loosely over it — two hours is a long time for citron and almonds at the surface.
- The hinge: foldingOnce the stiff whites and the flour go in, work gently and stop as soon as the flour disappears. This is the only lift the cake has, and beating it in at that stage gives a heavy, tough crumb.
- Flouring the fruitThe "little more flour" sprinkled over the raisins and citron is a small amount; the recipe does not make clear whether it comes from the pound already measured or is extra. Either way it keeps the pieces from clumping and sliding through the batter.
- Test rather than trust the clockTwo hours is a fair estimate, but check from 1 hour 45 minutes with a long skewer in the centre. Fruit-heavy batter stays moist, so look for clean crumb rather than a bone-dry skewer, and cool in the pan for at least half an hour before turning out.
In nineteenth-century American weddings, and especially in the South, the bride's cake and the groom's cake were two different things: the bride's cake pale, almond-scented and white-iced, the groom's darker, denser and loaded with fruit and nuts, often cut into small squares and boxed for guests to carry home. The Dixie Cook Book, generally credited to the compiler Estelle Woods Wilcox — who assembled the closely related Buckeye Cookery — was built from contributed recipes signed with a name and a town, and this one carries her surname.