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Yorkshire Fruit Loaves
2 lbs. flour. 3/4 cupful Crisco. 1 teaspoonful salt. 2 cupfuls milk. 1 yeast cake. 1 cupful sugar. 1 cupful sultana raisins 1 cupful currants ½ cupful seeded raisins 碧 ½ cupful chopped candied citron peel 1 teaspoonful powdered ginger ½ teaspoonful powdered mace Heat Crisco in milk, then cool and add yeast cake mixed with a little sugar; stir in flour and salt, and allow to rise four hours. Mix sugar, fruit, peel, and spices into risen dough. Let rise again then divide into two Criscoed loaf tins. Allow to rise fifteen minutes, then bake in moderate oven one and a half hours.
Sufficient for two medium-sized loaves.
A yeast-raised fruit bread rather than a cake, of the type sold in Yorkshire bakeries as "fruit loaf" or "spice loaf." The method is sound but the quantities for the dough itself have not survived intact, so treat the fruit and spice list as a guide to flavour and use a familiar enriched-dough formula as the base.
- Moderate ovenBake at 350F. An hour and a half at that heat is right for a densely fruited loaf in a standard 9x5-inch tin; tent the top with foil if it colours before the centre is set, and pull the loaves at 195-200F internal..
- CriscoThe book's own product, a hydrogenated vegetable shortening introduced in 1911. Any solid vegetable shortening works, as does butter, which will give more flavour and a slightly softer crumb.
- Yeast cakeOne compressed cake of the period is roughly equivalent to 2 1/4 teaspoons of active dry or instant yeast. Compressed cakes are still sold in some markets but weigh about 0.6 oz each.
- Milk temperatureThe instruction to heat the shortening in the milk and then cool it matters: milk hot enough to melt shortening will kill yeast. Bring it back to about 105F before the yeast goes in.
- Four hours to riseThis is a slow, cool sponge rise typical of an unheated kitchen. In a modern 70F room the first rise will be done well short of four hours; judge by doubling in bulk, not the clock.
- Adding fruit after the first riseThe hinge of the recipe. Sugar and heavy dried fruit slow yeast badly, so both are held back until the dough has strength. Work them in gently and expect the dough to feel stiff and sticky.
- Fifteen minutes in the tinsToo short by modern standards. A fruited dough this heavy needs a proper final proof, usually 45-90 minutes, until it has risen visibly above the rim.
- Candied citronCitron peel is now sold mainly in winter alongside other candied fruit. Mixed candied peel or candied orange and lemon peel substitute directly.
- YieldTwo medium loaves, as stated. Fruit loaf of this kind slices better on the second day and keeps well wrapped for a week.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was a promotional cookbook published by Procter and Gamble to teach American cooks what to do with a wholly new product: a shortening made from cottonseed oil, hardened by hydrogenation, that behaved like lard but came from no animal. Its recipe collection ranged widely, and English regional baking is among the traditions it drew on. Yorkshire fruit loaf belongs to the north of England tradition of enriched yeast breads studded with dried fruit and warm spice, cousins to Yorkshire teacakes and the spice loaves eaten at Christmas and, in some districts, with cheese. Ginger and mace here suggest an older English spicing rather than the cinnamon more common in later American baking, and the long unhurried rises suit a kitchen with no proofing box.