Why This 1889 Carry Cake Bypasses Modern Fruitcake Expectations
In short: Discover a forgotten 1889 recipe for Carry Cake, a brandy-soaked fruit cake that defies modern expectations by omitting spices entirely. This experiment explores the challenge of deciphering historical instructions that rely on archaic measurements and techniques.
Featured in the 1889 publication The Confectioner’s Recipe Book and Pastry Cook’s & Housewife’s Guide, Carry Cake stands out from contemporary fruitcakes due to its lack of spices. Instead, the cake uses whipped egg whites for leavening, a technique suggesting the recipe originated well before the book's late 19th-century printing.
The process requires precise preparation: beating one pound of butter to a cream, incorporating eight to nine eggs, and adding a noggin of brandy. Key ingredients like currants, raisins, dried citron, and sweet almonds are folded in immediately before baking. The source highlights the blend of professional pastry methods and household utility found in the original text, which even included profit margins for those selling their bakes.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: A Brandy-Soaked Mystery Cake from the 1800s
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