Christmas Cake

It's the Ft. Steilacoom Christmas Candlelight Tour, so here's a nice Christmas Cake for the young lads and lassies obeying my every command attending the dance.  This year, the event is set in 1863; the recipe is from an 1861 book (Beeton), and it looks delicious.  The cake, that it.  It would be weird to call an event "delicious".

CHRISTMAS CAKE.

1754. INGREDIENTS – 5 teacupfuls of flour, 1 teacupful of melted butter, 1 teacupful of cream, 1 teacupful of treacle, 1 teacupful of moist sugar, 2 eggs, 1/2 oz. of powdered ginger, 1/2 lb. of raisins, 1 teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, 1 tablespoonful of vinegar. 

Mode.—Make the butter sufficiently warm to melt it, but do not allow it to oil; put the flour into a basin; add to it the sugar, ginger, and raisins, which should be stoned and cut into small pieces. When these dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed, stir in the butter, cream, treacle, and well-whisked eggs, and beat the mixture for a few minutes. Dissolve the soda in the vinegar, add it to the dough, and be particular that these latter ingredients are well incorporated with the others; put the cake into a buttered mould or tin, place it in a moderate oven immediately, and bake it from 1–3/4 to 2–1/4 hours. 

Time.—1–3/4 to 2–1/4 hours. Average cost, 1s. 6d.

Remember, a teacup is approximately 4 oz of volume (ie, 1/2 cup in modern baking terms).  So, we're looking at 2.5 cups of flour, 1/2 cup melted butter, 1/2 cup cream, 1/2 cup treacle, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 eggs, a ton of 1/2 oz ginger, 8 oz raisins, 1 tsp carbonate of soda and 1 Tbsp vinegar. I went with 325F for the moderate oven, and the cake cooked in about 1.5 hours.

Christmas Cake

Beeton's doesn't say how to decorate the cake (marzipan? icing? flaming brandy? dry?), but other allusions to Christmas cake suggest that icing and sugarplums would not be inappropriate

In the end, I opted for a plain almond icing, with some "holly" for decoration.  It turned out quite tasty--slightly plainer than the 12th Night cake I've made before, but full of ginger and raisins. It was sweet, but not overly so; a little dense, as expected; and the almond icing really complemented the cake.

Finished Christmas Cake

*Another time, I'll have to try Eliza Warren's 1858 Christmas cake receipt, which calls for custard and sherry.