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Fruit Cake
Carefully pick one ounce currants and remove seeds from an ounce raisins, finely chop two dried figs, six preserved cherries, two slices fresh or preserved pineapple, the rind of a candied citron, an ounce peeled almonds and one preserved apricot. Place in a bowl with juice of half an orange, two tablespoon brandy, one tablespoon each rum, sherry and kirsch. Mix all well together and let stand on one side in a cool place till required. Place in a basin three ounces each butter and sugar. Sharply mix with spatula for three minutes, add one egg, sharply mix for a minute, crack in another egg, mix a minute again, add another egg and briskly beat for three minutes longer. Add a half saltspoon salt, two ounces sifted flour and half teaspoon baking powder, sharply stir until well thickened, then add the fruits. Season with half saltspoon each grated nutmeg, mace, cinnamon and ginger, and mix the whole well together. Lightly butter a cake pan, line it with buttered paper, drop in preparation and set in oven to bake for one hour and a half. Remove, let cool off, turn the cake on table, remove the paper, dress the cake on a dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A small, very rich fruit cake — barely two ounces of flour holding together three eggs and half a pound of soaked fruit. The measurements are by weight and the oven temperature is missing entirely, which are the two things to settle before starting.
- Macerate aheadThe fruit sitting in orange juice, brandy, rum, sherry and kirsch is the whole point of the recipe; "till required" can reasonably mean overnight or several days in a covered jar. An hour will wet the fruit but will not flavour it.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A cake this dense and sugary baking for an hour and a half wants a slow oven, 300–325F; hotter and the outside sets and darkens long before the centre is done. Test with a skewer at the 70-minute mark.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. That gives a quarter teaspoon each of nutmeg, mace, cinnamon and ginger — assertive, but correct for the style.
- Weights, not volumesThe solids are given by weight: 3 oz butter is about 6 tablespoons, 3 oz sugar a scant half cup, 2 oz flour a scant half cup. The liquids, spices and fruit are given in spoons, saltspoons and counts. Use a scale, since the flour-to-egg ratio has almost no margin.
- Basin and spatulaA basin is a mixing bowl; the spatula is a stiff wooden paddle or spoon. The repeated "sharply mix" instructions are creaming and emulsifying by hand — a stand mixer on medium does the same work in less time, and the eggs should still go in one at a time.
- CitronThe rind of a candied citron means candied citron peel, chopped; the recipe gives no weight for it. It is still sold at holiday baking counters, and candied lemon peel is the nearest substitute.
- Pan sizeThis batter fills a small loaf tin or a 6-inch round pan, no more. Line it with buttered parchment as directed, and expect the cake to release cleanly only once fully cool.
- Yield and keepingSix to eight small slices. Cakes of this type generally improve after a few days wrapped tightly; the sugar, fat and alcohol all help it keep.
The International Cook Book belongs to the era when a professional kitchen's repertoire was being written down for domestic readers, and this fruit cake shows the professional habit clearly: precise ounce weights, an instruction to beat for a stated number of minutes, and a finish that treats the cake as a plated dessert "dressed on a dish with a folded napkin" rather than something cut at the table. The dish itself descends from the enriched spiced cakes of early modern Europe, which grew steadily richer as sugar, candied citrus peel and dried tropical fruit became cheaper through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; by 1900 a cake like this one — figs, pineapple, apricot, citron, cherries, four spices and four spirits — was less a household economy than a display of what a well-stocked larder could produce. The small scale is worth noticing. This is not the ten-pound wedding cake of the period but a single rich cake for a few servings, the kind of thing a restaurant or a cook with one good pan would turn out in an afternoon.</history>}<answer>{