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Black Cake
Mrs. G. F., DeForrest.
Two pounds of flour, two pounds sugar, two pounds butter, eight pounds raisins four pounds currants, one pint brandy, two pounds citron, twenty-four eggs, two ounces nutmeg, two teaspoons of cloves; add a little molasses to make it more moist and black. This makes two very large loaves, baked in tin pans or hoops. For weddings. Splendid.
This is a wedding fruitcake at full nineteenth-century scale — roughly twenty-two pounds of batter before the brandy. Everything about it, from the fruit ratio to the oven, follows from that size.
- Scale it down firstThe full recipe fills two very large loaves and needs a very large mixing vessel. Quartering it is the practical starting point; every ingredient divides cleanly (8 oz flour, 6 eggs, half a cup of brandy), and the batter will want more than a single 9-inch pan.
- The fruit outnumbers the batterFourteen pounds of dried fruit and citron against two pounds of flour means the flour is little more than mortar. Toss the fruit with a few spoonfuls of the measured flour before folding it in, or it will sink and knit into a solid layer.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given; oven management is left to the cook. Bake at 275–300°F, no hotter — at 350°F the sugar and molasses at the edges will scorch long before the centre sets.
- TimeA quarter recipe in a 9-inch pan needs roughly 2½ to 3 hours; the full-size loaves described here run 4 to 5. Test with a skewer in the centre, and expect it to come out sticky from fruit rather than raw batter.
- Line the pans heavily"Hoops" are bottomless cake rings set on a lined baking sheet. Whether you use hoops or tins, line with a double thickness of parchment standing above the rim, and tie a collar of brown paper around the outside to shield the sides during the long bake.
- Two ounces of nutmegThat is about half a cup of freshly grated nutmeg for the full batch — assertive but deliberate in a cake this large. If you find it excessive, an ounce is defensible; nutmeg loses aroma quickly, so grate it whole rather than using pre-ground.
- Currants and citronCurrants here are dried Zante grapes, not fresh redcurrants. Citron is candied citron peel, sold in blocks or diced; it is not the same as mixed candied peel, though a mix will serve. Rinse and dry any fruit packed in heavy syrup.
- The brandyA pint goes into the batter. Traditionally the fruit is soaked in it overnight first, which the recipe leaves unsaid; either way, hold back a few spoonfuls to brush over the cooled cake.
- KeepingCool completely in the pan, then wrap in brandy-dampened cloth and foil. This cake improves for weeks and will keep for months — which is the point of a cake baked well ahead of a wedding.
"Black cake" is the American and Caribbean name for the dark, spirit-soaked plum cake that British households had baked for christenings and weddings since the seventeenth century, when dried fruit and sugar were still luxury imports and a cake stiff with both announced what a family could afford. The colour comes from the molasses and the sheer density of raisins and currants; in Caribbean versions the fruit is macerated in rum for months and often burnt sugar is added, while northern American cookbooks like this one reach for brandy and a spoonful of molasses to the same end. The Home Cook Book was compiled from contributions by named subscribers, which is why the entry reads as a boast as much as a method — Mrs. DeForrest is vouching for a cake she has served, and "For weddings. Splendid." is the whole of her argument. Cakes of this size were rarely eaten fresh: they were baked weeks ahead, fed with spirits, and cut in thin slices, with pieces sent home in boxes for guests to keep.