Black Cake Recipe

One pound of flour, one of sugar, fourteen ounces of butter, ten eggs,

three pounds of seeded raisins, three pounds of Zante currants, and one

pound of citron, a wine glass of wine, one of brandy, and one of milk, a

tea-spoonful of saleratus, a table-spoonful of molasses, a

table-spoonful of cinnamon, a tea-spoonful of cloves, a quarter of an

ounce of mace, or one nutmeg. The sugar should be the brown kind, and

stirred a few minutes with the butter, then the eggs beaten to a froth,

and stirred in. Brown the flour in a pan, over a few coals--stir it

constantly to prevent its burning. It should be done before you commence

making the cake, so as to have it get cold. Stir it into the butter and

sugar gradually, then add the molasses and spice. Dissolve the saleratus

in the milk, then strain it, and mix it with the brandy and wine, to

curdle them--stir the whole into the cake. Just before you put it into

the cake pans, stir in the fruit gradually, a handful of each

alternately. When well mixed in, put it into cake pans, and bake it

immediately. If baked in thick loaves, it takes from two hours and a

half to three hours to bake it sufficiently. The oven should not be of a

furious heat. Black cake cuts the best when three or four weeks old.