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Black Fruit Cake
Two pounds of butter; two pounds of sugar; two pounds of flour; seven pounds of raisins; five pounds of currants; one pound and one-quarter of a pound of citron. Weigh fruit after it is prepared for the cake. Three-fourths of an ounce of cinnamon; one-quarter of an ounce cloves; onehalf ounce of nutmeg; one cupful molasses; two cupfuls of French brandy or good brandy; eighteen eggs, beaten separately; teaspoonful soda. This keeps good for one year.
This is a wedding-scale cake: roughly 20 pounds of batter and fruit before baking. Read the proportions first and decide how far to divide them, because almost nothing about the method makes sense at full size in a domestic oven.
- Scale it downQuartering everything gives about 5 lb of cake, enough for two 8-inch round pans or one large loaf-shaped tin. A sixth or an eighth is more realistic if you only want a single cake to keep.
- Oven heatA cake this dense wants a slow oven, 275-300F. At higher heat the outside sets and darkens long before the centre is done.
- Baking timeThe original gives none. Expect roughly 3 hours for each 8-inch pan of a quartered batch, longer for anything bigger; a skewer in the centre should come out clean and the cake should smell baked rather than raw-sweet.
- Line the pansButter the tin, line it with a double thickness of parchment standing above the rim, and wrap the outside in newspaper or a folded towel tied with string. Without that insulation the sugar and molasses at the edges will scorch.
- CurrantsZante currants, which are small dried grapes, not fresh red or black currants. Look for them dried alongside the raisins.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks or diced at holiday time. It is firmer and less sweet than candied orange; chop it small and toss it with a little of the weighed flour so it does not sink.
- Eggs beaten separatelyYolks beaten into the butter and sugar, whites whipped and folded in last. Eighteen eggs is roughly 3 to 3 1/2 cups of whole egg, so scale accordingly; the whipped whites and the single teaspoon of soda are the only leavening.
- Soda and molassesThe soda works on the acid in the molasses, giving a small lift and part of the dark colour. Dissolve it in the molasses or a spoonful of warm water rather than adding it dry to the flour.
- Keeping it a yearThe claim is plausible only if the cake is thoroughly cooled, wrapped in brandy-dampened cloth, then in paper, and kept in a tin in a cool place. Re-moisten the cloth with brandy every few weeks; the alcohol and sugar are what do the preserving.
"Black" fruit cake takes its name from colour rather than any single ingredient: molasses, dark spices, and a heavy preponderance of fruit over flour produce a cake nearly the colour of the raisins in it. Recipes of this size belonged to occasions rather than to weeknights. Proportions of this kind are often associated with nineteenth-century American and British wedding cakes, though practice varied widely, and the same batter, baked in smaller tins, served as Christmas cake. The note that it "keeps good for one year" is the point of the whole exercise, and explains the brandy: a cake was often baked well ahead of the event, and in some households a tier of the wedding cake was kept back to be eaten at the first christening.