Well, it’s no longer the holidays (why, oh why, does the Christmas season zip by so quickly? Why??), but my eye was arrested by the heading ”Good Holiday Cake” in Household Management as I flicked through it in a post-holiday funk. If I can’t be on holiday, I thought, then maybe a cake would be just the thing to perk things up.
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INGREDIENTS – 1–1/2d. worth of Borwick’s German baking-powder, 2 lbs. of flour, 6 oz. of butter, 1/4 lb. of lard, 1 lb. of currants, 1/2 lb. of stoned and cut raisins, 1/4 lb. of mixed candied peel, 1/2 lb. of moist sugar, 3 eggs, 3/4 pint of cold milk.
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I don’t think Borwick’s still exists in Germany (at least, it’s not a brand I’ve seen on the shelves here, although I intend to do some research about that today), but I found an alternative German backpulver readily enough from my local organic supermarkt. I substituted ”lard” for extra butter, and regular sugar for ”moist sugar” (what is ”moist sugar”, anyway?).
The original recipe called for it to be baked “in a good oven” for between 2 1/4 and 2 3/4 hours. In a modern oven at 180 or so degrees C, I found that 45 minutes was perfectly fine.
The cake was a little on the dry side – I don’t know if 45 minutes was too long, or the ”moist sugar” was supposed to provide more moisture. Next time, I’d probably increase the amount of milk to see if that does the trick.
Either way, it’s a nice cake – nothing madly exciting, but pleasant enough with a cup of tea or coffee. Which is precisely what I did as soon as it had cooled sufficiently – the candied peel (in this case, orange) gave it a very tempting aroma.
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Holiday Cake recipe (Recipe 1763): http://www.mrsbeeton.com/35-chapter35.html