ENGLISH WEDDING CAKE

Besides the quote from Emma, this recipe inspired me to create a blog about historic food. This and my enormous love of history, of course.

Alexandre Dumas-père was a notorious gourmet and, when it came to food, he did not bear grudge against France's rivals. In fact, his Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine (1873) featured several English recipes besides the wedding cake. The French version of Cake (or Kake, in Middle English) was probably the Gâteau. There was a separate entry for the French cakes in the Dictionary but the English ones were also called gâteaux.

 

An English Merrymaking a Hundred Years Ago by William Powell Frith (1847)

 

Dumas had learned about the English habit of sharing enormous cakes with guests at their children's weddings from novels by Charles Dickens. The recipe he shared in the Dictionary used almonds, raisins & candied fruit peel, like the ones by Hannah Glasse (1747) and Elizabeth Raffald (1769) although the icing was omitted.

"CAKE ou KAKE (gâteau anglais). - Lorsqu'en Anglettere on marie ses enfants, on fait, comme on peut le voire dans Dickens, un énorme gâteau dont on distribue un morceau à chaqun des conviés. Voici de quelle façon se fait ce gâteau. Vous prenez 2 kilogrammes de belle farine, 2 kilog. de beurre frais, 1 kilog. de sucre passé fin, 7 grammes de muscade; pour chaque livre de farine, il faut 8 oeufs; lavez et triez 2 kilog. de raisins de Corinthe que vous faites sécher devant le feu; vous prenez 500 grammes d'amandes douces que vous faites blanchir, dont vous ôtez la peau et que vous coupez en morceaux très-minces; ajoutez-y 500 grammes de citrons confits, 500 grammes d'oranges confites, un demi-litre d'eau-de-vie, écrasez entre vos mains le beurre et battez-le avec le sucre pendant un quart d'heure, battez le blanc de vos oeufs, mêlez-les avec votre beurre et votre sucre, metez ensuite votre farine et votre muscade et battez le tout ensemble en y mélant bien les raisins et les amandes; faites trois couches en alternant avec oranges et citrons que vous mettez dans une moule et que vous placez au four, couvrez-le d'un papier et laissez-le jusqu'à parfaite cuisson."

Two points are unclear: a) Should we or should we not put egg yolks in the batter? and b) Was the eau-de-vie a brandy or a cordial? The answer is left to you.

 

 

 

 

ENGLISH WEDDING CAKE

This is the original recipe, divided by four. It's slightly adapted, using whole eggs and caster sugar.

I n g r e d i e n t s

500g plain flour, sifted

1/4tsp nutmeg, grated

500g butter, at room temperature

250g caster sugar

8 eggs, separated

125ml brandy

500g raisins, washed and dried

125g almonds, blanched

250g candied fruit peel

M e t h o d

1. Preheat the oven to 180oC. Grease and flour a large baking tin. 2. Cream the butter with the sugar and yolks in another, mixing at intervals with flour and brandy. 3. Prepare the meringue and fold into the cake batter. 4. Stir in the almonds, raisins and candied fruit peel. 5. Fill the baking tin and bake the cake in the middle of the oven for an hour or so.

N o t e

If you want to ice the cake, mix 150g powdered sugar with 1tbsp lemon juice and the pasteurized white of an egg. Make this before the cake is done and brush its top and sides while it's hot.