GREAT CAKE

A GREAT CAKE - 250 year old recipe

So reads the legend in my old Cornish Recipes book and fourth [and last] in the fruit cake mini series! This cake originates from St Mawgan on the north coast and is culled from an old recipe book dated 1763, so is over 250 years old.  Believe it or not, I have divided the quantities by 10!! The old recipe started off by telling you to take 5lb butter, brought to a cream. The tin and oven must have been HUGE!!

Of course, there is no given method, so I am winging it, as per.

8 oz butter

8 oz flour [must be plain?]

5 oz white sugar

1¼ lb currants

2/6d worth of perfume - well how do I divide that by 10!

Peel of ½ orange [zest?]

2 fl oz of Canary - this is an old sweet wine from the Canaries.

1 fl oz rosewater

4 - 5 eggs - “half ye whites”. The recipe says 43 eggs!!!!

2 oz citron

Where do I start? I think I will ditch the perfume :) and use a teaspoon of vanilla essence. Also replace the Canary with Madeira, a fortified wine that is rich and sweet so would be similar. I will use a creaming method and an 8” lined tin. I believe the separate egg whites would probably be whisked before adding [as a rising agent?]. Not the first cake [Seedy] using this method that I have baked from this book.

I creamed the butter and sugar then added 2 large beaten eggs, then the orange zest and flour and Madeira etc. The eggs I have are large, so I whisked to soft peaks a further 2 eggs, then folded them into the cake mix. Finally adding the currants and peel. I set my oven to 140 Deg C [a guess] and tipped the mix into the prepared tin with crossed fingers!

As I type, it is smelling wonderful! As stated in the recipe it has all the ingredients for a Great Cake - and very Cornish. Can’t wait.

I baked it for 2¼ hours, turning the oven down to 120 for the last 30 mins, then checked with the high tech knitting needle test. It was perfectly cooked. Not bad for a 251 year old recipe! It was a good cake - but could have done with fewer currants. I liked the lack of spices too, for a change. Nice texture and not too sweet. Could this be a forerunner of our fruit cakes today?

But how did they cook the monster original quantity? Their ovens, or ranges had little temperature control. How did they stop the outer edge getting black? I am so pleased I did not live in those days.

We return to savoury in a few days!