Overseas Christmas Cake

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 388, 29 November 1946, Page 27

Overseas Christmas Cake

Eight ounces of butter; 80z. of sugar; 5 eggs; 1002. of flour; 1 dessertspoon: of golden syrup; 21b. of fruit (20z. can be peel); 1 good teaspoon each of mixed spice, cinnamon, and ground nutmeg; a pinch of salt; 1 teaspoon of vanilla; 1 teaspoon of almond and 1 teaspoon of lemon essence; and NO RISING. Method: Cream the butter and sugar, add the spices, essences and syrup. Cream this for 10 minutes. Beat the eggs with an egg beater for 10 minutes. Add 1 heaped tablespoon of flour to the butter and sugar to prevent curdling, then add the beaten eggs and flour alternately. Mixture should then be thick enough to hold the beater upright in the middle of the bowl. Then fold in the fruit, and bake 5 hours in a slow oven. With gas: Start with the regulo at 3 or 4 for 14° hour, then bring down to regulo 1. For electric: Start at 275 or not more than 300 with the top off, bottom low. I have only a coal range, so I heat the oven well, and let the first ome" go off before I put the cake in. I leave the cake bf the tin about five minutes after it is done, then retnove from the tin, strip off the paper, and leave it right side up on a wire cooler. I scald the tin, dry in the oven, then line with clean greaseproof paper, and next day or a day later put in the cake, cover with more greaseproof paper, and seal the tin with sticking plaster. You can add 1 tablespoon of sherry or brandy

to the beaten eggs if the cake is for overseas. I am told by an expert that the main thing in making cakes for overseas is to use no milk in the recipe. Best wishes. From a Timaru Link.