On adapting a cake

[john_amend_all]

By way of a change, I had a go at making a cake using a recipe in the 1907 edition of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. It seemed to work all right.

3403. — RAISIN CAKES.

Ingredients. — 1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of fine flour, 1 lb. of castor sugar, 6 eggs, 1 liqueur-glassful of brandy, 1 teaspoonful of nutmeg, ½ a teaspoonful of baking-powder, 1 lb. of stoned raisins.

Method. — Beat the butter to a cream, then add the sugar, the brandy and nutmeg, and well beat. Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well with each addition of eggs, and when all are in, add the flour, with the baking-powder sifted in. Then mix in the stoned and chopped raisins. Bake in a paper-lined, greased tin for 1¼ hours in a moderate oven.

Time. — 1¼ hours. Average Cost, 3s. Sufficient for 1 medium-sized cake.

I think a cake where you measure ingredients by the pound is only 'medium-sized' if you're the housekeeper of Downton Abbey. So I halved the quantities; even so, the cake ended up bigger than the ones I'm accustomed to cook. I also used self-raising flour (so no need for baking powder) and margarine rather than butter:

Revised ingredients. — 8oz margarine, 8oz self-raising flour, 8oz caster sugar, 3 eggs, 3 teaspoons brandy, ½ teaspoonful of nutmeg, 8oz stoned raisins.

Method required no particular changes. I translated 'Moderate oven' to 140°C on my fan oven, and the cooking time was the same.