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Fruit Cake (One pound of flour one pound)
One pound of flour, one pound of sugar, three-quarters of a pound of butter, two pounds raisins, two pounds currants, one pound mixed peel, one-quarter pound almonds, two ounces mace, ten eggs, rose water and brandy.
This is a formula rather than a method: the book gives proportions and assumes the cook knows what to do with them. It is a very large, very rich cake, and two of the quantities need attention before you begin.
- Two ounces of maceTwo ounces of ground mace is well over half a cup, far more than this batter can carry. It may be that the whole blades before grinding are meant, or that the figure is an error; 2 to 3 teaspoons of ground mace suits this volume of batter.
- Scale and yieldThe fruit and flour alone come to about six pounds. Expect enough batter for two 9-inch loaf pans plus a small one, or a single 10-inch round tin filled deep. Line the tins with buttered paper, and wrap the outside in a double band of paper or foil to protect the edges over a long bake.
- OvenA cake this dense needs a slow oven, 275-300F, for 3 to 4 hours. Test with a skewer in the centre; the top will colour long before the middle sets, so cover loosely with paper once it is browned.
- CurrantsThese are Zante currants, small dried grapes, not fresh red or black currants. Two pounds of them is correct for the style. Rinse and dry both raisins and currants if they are dusty, and toss the lot with a spoonful of the weighed flour to keep the fruit suspended.
- Mixed peelA pound of candied citron, orange and lemon peel. Modern chopped mixed peel is generally cut finer than whole candied peel; if you can get whole candied peel, dice it yourself for better texture.
- AlmondsA quarter pound, blanched and either chopped or pounded. Slivered almonds work; ground almonds will disappear into the crumb rather than give the intended bite.
- Rose water and brandyNo quantity is given. For this size, a tablespoon or two of rose water and about half a cup of brandy is in keeping. Rose water in older baking is a background note, not a floral perfume, so err low.
- Method impliedCream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs a few at a time, fold in the flour and spice, then the floured fruit, peel, almonds and liquids last. Ten eggs is a lot of liquid to hold in suspension, so add them slowly and stop if the batter threatens to split.
- KeepingRich fruit cake improves for weeks. Cool completely, wrap in paper then foil or a tin, and brush with a little brandy every week or two if you intend to keep it past a month.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Toronto in the 1870s from contributions by local households, with proceeds going to the Hospital for Sick Children, and its fruit cake recipes read like family formulas copied out of a memorandum book: weights, no instructions, because the writer expected the reader to have made one before. The proportions descend from the English plum cake, itself an outgrowth of enriched bread dough, which by the eighteenth century had shed its yeast and relied on eggs and beaten butter for lift. The framework is often traced to the old pound cake, though the proportions here are not strictly a pound of each—the butter is three-quarters of a pound—and it is expanded with four pounds of dried fruit and a pound of candied peel until the batter is barely more than mortar holding the fruit together. Rose water sits in the ingredient list as a survival from a much older tradition of perfumed baking, common in Georgian receipts and already growing old-fashioned by the time this book was printed; the brandy served both as flavour and as a preservative for a cake that was expected to sit in a tin until Christmas or a wedding.