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Fruit Cake (Mrs Ira Metcalf One pound)
Mrs. Ira Metcalf. ㅏ One pound butter, one pound brown sugar, one cup molasses, nine eggs, half a pint brandy, one pound flour one-half pound mace, three pounds raisins, three pounds currants, one pound citron, nutmeg and cloves to taste ; rub one-half pound flour with fruit; steam two hours in a dish, then bake one hour.
A full-sized Victorian fruit cake built on pound-cake proportions, steamed first and then baked. The quantities are generous even by the standards of the genre, and one of them is almost certainly a misprint.
- The mace is wrongHalf a pound of mace would be inedible against this quantity of batter and fruit. Almost certainly half an ounce was meant, about two tablespoons ground, which sits comfortably beside the nutmeg and cloves.
- Scale and pansThis makes well over ten pounds of cake. Expect three 8-inch round tins or two 9-inch square ones, all lined with a double thickness of parchment and, in the old manner, wrapped outside with brown paper or foil to protect the edges over the long bake.
- Steam then bakeThe two hours of steaming is the hinge. A covered dish set over or in simmering water cooks the dense centre gently without setting a crust, so the fruit does not scorch; the final hour in the oven dries and colours the surface.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given because the book assumes a wood range. For the finishing hour use a slow oven, 300°F, and test with a skewer at the centre.
- Half a pint of brandyRead as an American half pint this is one cup; measured imperially it is nearer 10 fl oz. In this period it functions as flavour, moisture and preservative at once - a cake meant to keep for months, not weeks.
- Flouring the fruitThe half pound of flour rubbed into the fruit may be additional to the pound in the batter, or may be taken from it; the text does not say. Either way its job is to keep six pounds of raisins and currants in suspension rather than sunk to the bottom.
- No leaveningThere is none, and none is wanted. The lift comes entirely from creaming the butter and sugar and from nine well-beaten eggs. Eggs of the period may have run smaller than today's large ones, so a slightly reduced count is worth considering.
- Citron and currantsCitron here is candied citron peel, sold in blocks and diced at home — chop it yourself rather than using mixed "candied peel," which is mostly orange. Currants are dried Zante grapes, not fresh red currants.
- KeepingCool completely, wrap in brandy-dampened cloth and then in paper, and store in a tin in a cool place. It improves for at least a month and will hold far longer.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Toronto in the 1870s by "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada," one of the earliest and most successful of the North American charity cookbooks, sold to raise money for the Hospital for Sick Children. Recipes came in signed by name, which is why this one carries Mrs. Ira Metcalf's - a contributor's cake, printed as she wrote it, apparent misprint and all. The dish itself descends from the English plum cake, the rich fruited butter cake that by the nineteenth century had become a standard Christmas and wedding cake on both sides of the Atlantic; the "one pound" heading points to its pound-cake ancestry, a pound each of butter, sugar and flour, then loaded with more than twice that weight in dried fruit. The steaming step was a practical answer to ranges whose ovens could not be trusted to hold a low heat for hours on end.