Hi Glen. My Nana was from Durham which is very close to Newcastle and she often baked this cake. She baked it in a loaf tin - this gives a higher narrower cake. She would cut then slices from the caked like sliced bread. Then each slice was buttered. Buttered cake was served with tea as a tea loaf. Perfect!
Here in Denmark we have a cake called "Beer cake" where we do the same. Its basically a spice cake (cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, brown sugar flour and beer as the only liquid). It's really nice with butter
My Sunday routine: Wake up early, make a pot of coffee, wash the Jeep while I drink the pot of coffee, come back inside to sit in my leather recliner and watch the “Old Cookbook Show” My day. Can go on. Thanks, Glen (and Jules).
My mum (from Yorkshire) taught me that cake mixture was the correct consistency if you could lift up a wooden spoon of batter up in the air, turn the spoon and say “1, 2, 3, PLOP” with the mixture falling into the bowl on the ”plop”. It’s a highly consistent method, and one I would recommend if you ever come across a recipe that says “some milk”.
Hi, Glen. Susan from Shelburne, ON here. I'm a recent subscriber, and I'm enjoying your channel. I, too, collect old cookbooks and recipes (I especially love old church cookbooks, as everyone puts in their best recipes, and it reflects on the times and regions of the country). I was catching up on your previous videos and the carrot pudding episode caught my eye. I have been carrying on the tradition of carrot pudding started by (or perhaps continued by) my great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Railton of Glasgow. She emigrated to Montreal with her family in 1883. I was fortunate enough to have her daughter in my life until I was 28, and it is she who taught me to make it. My copy is actually from my dad's mother handwritten book, who asked for the recipe in 1960. The page is yellowed and stained, and altered to reflect changes included (like measurements!). Ours includes currants, a tablespoon of molasses and candied fruit and cherries, and I have added cinnamon and nutmeg. We still have to make at least 2 sauces to satisfy all tastes (lemon sauce and hard sauce for my English husband). My daughters and nieces are the 6th generation to use this recipe, and we still use the same bowl as my GGgrandmother, and the steamer from my great-grandmother. Finally, to keep my husband content, we wrap a shilling in tinfoil and hide it in the pudding. Looking forward to future videos! (sorry for the epistle, but no one I work with had even heard of carrot pudding!)
I make a carrot pudding just like my mom and her mom did. I'm in my 70's, so it goes back a good bit. It has carrot and potato and a little chocolate, cloves and cinnamon and walnuts. And we love it drenched with lemon sauce. That part of the family came from England in the early 1800's, but I don't know when we got this a bit more simplified recipe.
Sounds very good with cinnamon, nutmeg, cherries, currants & candied fruits. Would like to try your family recipe if you're ok with sharing, along with the lemon sauce & hard sauce. It really sounds good. Thanks for your time
Hi Glen, this is a recipe that I found online from 'The Glasgow School of Cookery Book’ 1910. It’s very easy cake to bake and fits any shape of tin, square, round and loaf. St. George’s Hall Cake 1/4 pound / 110g - butter 1/4 pound / 110g - sugar 2 - eggs 1/2 pound / 225g - plain flour 1 teaspoon - baking powder A little salt 1/4 pound / 110g - currants 2 ounces / 50g - candid peel 1/2 cup - milk Work the butter to a cream. Add the sugar and beat well together. Add the eggs (well beaten), flour, baking powder, salt, currants, candid peel and milk. Beat well for 5 minutes. Bake in a warm oven for 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours. (325F, Mark 3, 170C)
@@samiam619 That refers to "Gas Mark", which is a scale used on many ovens in UK and surrounding regions. Gas Mark 1 is 275 degrees F, and increases 25 degrees for each +1 mark above that. So a Gas Mark 3 (or Mark 3) would 275+50 or 325 degrees.
@@samiam619 ... The Gas Mark is a temperature scale used on gas ovens and cookers in the United Kingdom, Ireland and some Commonwealth of Nations countries.
I love your channel. I favorite missing ingredient is about a family recipe. We asked my grandmother for years for her Irish soda bread recipe. She finally wrote it down and gave it to my cousin Lorna. Lorna didn’t make the bread until the St. Patrick’s Day after my grandmother died. Lo and behold- no liquid. We could all hear grandmother say, well of course you should add milk. You should know that!
Judging by "traditional" styles of cake you get in the UK today, I wonder if it's intended to be baked as a loaf then sliced and served spread with butter. It would explain the longer cooking time and you might need the dryness for it to hold together in that form. But it's the sort of thing you'd have alongside tea in the museum tea rooms at national trust sites/royal palaces etc.
These were our thoughts (from Wales in the UK) - and came here to make the same comment. It looks like something my mum calls “cut and come cake” and would always be in a loaf tin and sliced and buttered. A less fancy bara brith.
Yes! Want to see how you both like the cake with cheese (aged cheddar?) and the aged brandy-blessed cake. What delightful suggestions each of you arrived at so quickly!
I vote for sampling for Groundhog Day. Long story short, a weird tradition started when I was at university was to celebrate Groundhog Day with alcohol-soaked fruit cake. It starts before Christmas collecting all the unappreciated fruit cake, then soak with whatever alcohol available, usually anejo rum (we had a virtually unlimited supply), but also used sherry, port, scotch and brandy. Groundhog Day is an underappreciated holiday. It marks the end of the darkest 1/4 of the year. Eating alcohol-soaked fruit cake represents consuming the last of the preserved winter bread.
I did a quick google search (this is May 2023) to see if they had any pics and they did. your cake turned out very similar in appearance. Love the show. Jim
I view “A little Milk” as a loose measure based on the moisture content of the flour and dried fruits. It would also allow for the flexibility of how much milk the baker had at the time, and the density of the milk based on the type of animal and the fat content of the milk. All of the variables would have an effect on the moisture content of the cake.
You're right. We normally have below 15% relative humidity. On the rare occasions it rises above 40%, my flour based recipes require enormous adjustment in liquid volume.
I think with many of the cooks of the period baking was mainly done by feel and experience. Both my mother and grandmother (B:1920s, D:1990s) both work/worked on feel and would add a little milk and mix it adding more until the consistency of the cake batter looked and felt right. I thought Glen's batter looked a little dry and I would have added a little more milk and/or soaked the currants in cold tea first which would have led to the currants releasing the additional liquid during the mixing and bake.
Exactly! Precise measurements of flour and liquid are rarely possible. Usually one or both have to be adjusted give weather, moisture, etc. But, as Glen noted, these adjustments are tricky to make when you don't know what the batter or dough is supposed to look like.
I live in Michigan where we can get nearly 100% humidity in the summertime and practically 0% humidity in the winter and depending on the weather coming through it can fluctuate more than 20% in an average day. I honestly never thought about this before! Thank you so much
this is how my moms fruit cale was done, with egg whites folded in. her batter was dark, it had jam in it. very tasty, not dry. everyone i know hates fruitcake but hers is a different animal, delicious.
Came across an interesting post on a blog called 'Grandma Abson' explaining that the namesake of this cake is a building in Liverpool, where there was also a culinary institute. As for Jules' suggestion of cheese, serving fruit cake with a slice of cheese on top, particularly a white crumbly one such as Wensleydale, has long been popular in the North of England. Goes great with a cup of strong tea of a winter afternoon.
Hey Glen, this is Paul in Anchorage, AK. I've been a long time subscriber to the show and always enjoy your Sunday Old Cookbook Show. I was thinking that the other reason the cake would be so dry is to allow it a longer shelf-life. Keeping the amount of perishables in the cake to only a splash of milk and three eggs would potentially extend the life of the cake for a few more days, since a lower class family in the English Midlands at the turn of the century would be unlikely to have an icebox. Hence why a lot of cakes and loaves like this would be soaked in alcohol (as you're planning to do with the other half of the cake!), which further extends the shelf-life of that loaf and lets working families get more out of expensive foodstuffs like sugar and currants. Keep in mind, currants and sugar both had to be imported; sugar from Cuba and the Caribbean, while currants would have been imported from either the US, southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc.), or an overseas colony with a climate to grow currants. Those would still be relatively expensive ingredients and you'd want to get as much out of them as possible; especially working class families with only a little spending money for luxuries like this kind of cake. Even more reason to keep perishables to a minimum in the recipe and extend shelf-life! Cheers! -Paul
Glen, I never tire of your videos. Thank you for this and all the others. I always look forward to them! And your airplane hanger ones too! You're the best!
I'm stuck in the US. Grew up in Germany and Italy. They think Cheese in a Can is extra-fancy around these parts. Would you please stop talking about real cheeses? Please? I'd kill for a decent slice of Altgouda.
@@ethelryan257 . Try Satori Montamore, a cheddar from Wisconsin that blew away the competition at a blind tasting in France. Or Maytag Blue,; again, an international award winner. Try being more than a petty bigot.
I am from Yorkshire and have always had cheese with fruit cake. My husband and brother in law really pushed the boundaries one Christmas when they had cheese and pickled onions with their Christmas pudding much to my mum's displeasure, it has still not been forgotten 40 some years later
You are my go to for Sunday morning sitting with my cup of tea and my doggo at my feet! Love watching how these recipes turn out and your taste testing with Jules!! I'm all in with the rum or brandy!!
What strikes me the most about this recipe is the wide range of English/Yorkshire fruit cakes out there. I'm thinking of more modern interpretations of fruit cake, but also the Parkin you made a while back, plus a few others if memory serves. It would be a fun though doubtlessly futile exercise to try and systematize them all by method, ingredients, and perceived or presumed posh-ness.
When you were cutting it, by thought was "You might want to take that milk back out. Looks like you will need something to wash it down with" BTW, when I was in Scouts in the 90's, my Scout Handbook at some recipes at the back, including one for Chocolate Chip Cookies. I tried to make them one day, and did not really read it all the way through first. Discovered after mixing everything together that they had forgotten an oven temp. Just the ingredients list, how to mix it, and then "put in the oven for 10 minutes" or whatever the time was. Managed to fine another recipe that gave me a guideline, and finished the recipe. They were some of the best cookies that I have ever had. They were so soft that you could eat them frozen.
The cake looks good, but my personal preference would be to add more milk and sub the caraway for cardamom, since it's a fave of mine. Thanks to you Glen and Jules for really nicely shot, well-informed and entertaining videos!
I love the combination of currants, orange and caraway, and have been adding them to pancake batter, as I lack a working oven. I like them best cold with a light slather of butter. Saves time and energy, but not my waistline! ;)
I was thinking on how you check temperatures for old recipes. My grandparents were still living off-grid in the old ranch house when i was a youngster. She still cooked in a wood stove. She taught me to check the temperature with drops of water. You dipped your finger in a glass of water, and then put a drop of water on the pan. If it bounced and skittered around it was right for pancakes, and if it sizzled and moved around the pan it was right for frying eggs. To check her oven she opened the door, and did the drop onto the inside of the door. My mom had an old cook book with a table in the front which defined the temperatures using that method. I think, (hope) my niece ended up with it. My brothers wife threw a lot of things away.
I enjoy watching you try these ancient recipes. This one is off to a good start hope you show does a follow up. Maybe a little kind of leveler. I have to try thanks
Glen, I can vouch that compiling a cook book is a difficult exercise having produced one myself and I am now working on another one. I am sending you a signed copy because I know full well you will appreciate it.
When I saw the finished cake, I had the same thought as Glen of soaking it in brandy or rum for a,few weeks before he even said it. And serve it with a hard sauce.
Aha I'm from Northumberland and live in Newcastle. There's often a few old cookbooks floating around second hand book shops. If I ever find one I'll pick it up and forward it on
Through your searches, gifts and luck you certainly have acquired an awesome library of cook books and cocktail recipes. Thanks for another interesting, intriguing and entertaining video.
Wonderful cake recipe. My grandmother would have served this (and did, or one very much like it) thinly sliced, spread with butter, next to a cup of tea.
Reminds me of the 1st time I ate Mama's homemade molasses gingerbread. Delicious but different as well. Seems like she put a thin powdered sugar lemon flavored glaze over it.
Looks good to me. I have some of my Grandmothers old cook books and some of the recipes are pretty vague. Go with your gut and stick with the method is the only thing you can do
Gotta love those old cookbooks! They are so specific about some ingredients, teaspoon and tablespoon measures, yet "add a little milk". It would have helped if it indicated batter consistency, but you hit it out of the park anyway! 😉
That’s how my grandmother cooked and baked. No recipes. All by feel. And everything was always delicious. On occasion, her bismarcks would be a little dark and she considered that a failure but they were still wonderful.
One of my favorite quarantine pastimes has been watching your old cookbook show, and then trying to find the one you used online. So far, this one has stumped me.
My Great Grandparents were from the southern edge of Scotland, Sinclairhill. I fell quit sure my Great Aunts and Grandmother made this cake. Thanks Suzanne Perkins Ozarksflipper
I wonder whether this has the unspoken assumption that the currents (raisins) would have soaked for some time in a liquid? The cake seems really familiar to something I had as a child in Italy, but that was moister. I love your approach to terms such as 'moderate oven'. Nothing is more frustrating than people who try to nail down every aspect of baking to Vulcan Science Academy levels of exactness. At my altitude, anything calling for a 'moderate' oven gets thrown in the big pressure canner to steam at 121C for not quite the time given, than finished to brown in the oven at 125C. Works about as well as anything else.
I grew up in Denver, and my grandmother always had to adapt recipes for altitude. But she never steamed things, so now I am curious about what the altitude is where you live.
@@samiam619 I have a set of small measuring spoons consisting of a smidgen, pinch and dash. Since there is no standard for those measurements I wanted to see what these particular spoons would equal, but my kitchen scales weren’t that accurate. By comparing them against my standard measuring spoons I found that a dash equals half of a 1/4 tsp (1/8 tsp), a pinch is half of a dash (1/16 tsp.) and a smidgen is half a pinch (1/32 tsp). I also did an internet search and found that these amounts are fairly common on many sites.
Just soak it in Brandy, or rum. Glen, you have the best ideas! You were exxxplaining things again for the people who make the stupid comments of 'you did this wrong'. Don't let them bother you please, some people think they know everything better. You allways do your research so you actually do know better haha!
We make tea buns by rubbing fat into flour, and stirring in eggs and milk before baking. I'm wondering if I can modify my tea bun recipe by adding those spices and some candied peel to it...? It already has the baking powder, raisins and sugar. Mmm...Christmas tea buns!
First, I am amazed that a person was expected to maintain an even temperature in a wood burning stove for three hours. I also wonder if this cake is dry because it is intended as a dunking cake. A couple of dousings in coffee with cream and sugar might put it over the top. Kind of sad that people don't dunk anymore.
This is very similar to my grandmother's Christmas cake recipe (suet instead of dripping). Pre-soaking the currants and peel in alcohol may be the way to go! A tall, round cake tin will reduce drying in the oven. Then, of course, storing and 'feeding the cake with brandy for a good while... Some ginger, cinnamon or coriander may make it extra yum. The other way to go is to, do the 'tea loaf' thing and cut it thinly. I would still soak the fruit (maybe in cold tea).
I laughed so hard at 9:06 😂😂 can you imagine!? telling your wife the stove is ready for cooking 😂😂 while your arm is about burnt to a crisp over a fruit cake
re: cutting butter into flour: I'll cube the butter & scatter in a stand mixer bowl that has the flour already measured in it; use a balloon whisk attachment on VERY LOW/ lowest setting for about 3-6 minutes; stop & check by the feel of it (grasp /pinch some, see how it flakes/holds or doesn't). about 6-7 minutes was spot-on for pie crust recipes, consistent results. ** hope that's helpful to someone!.
Reminds me of a panettone recipe. I would suggest more milk because Pannetone takes five eggs and this took three. Thanks for this looks delicious. I’m going to give it a try.
“It was a little dry”. You think? I definitely would have gone with about 250 ml / 1/2C of milk! But hey another great video. Even your so so recipes are a joy to watch. Cheers from Ottawa 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
I just love the conversation during the tasting. So fun. Hey, did you ever let us know how the Brandy soaked version tasted? Is it on the channel somewhere?
I think if you had added more milk to get a stiff dropping consistency you would then have been able to fold in the egg whites and the cake would have turned out moister. The use of lard was common when I grew up, particularly for pastry, which, to this day, I make with half lard and half butter. Lard was and still is much cheaper than butter, of course, but it also “shortens” better.
I found another recipe for this cake on a blog called grandmaabson. The proportions are all different, more flour and sugar, and there only butter, no lard. The amount of milk called for was a half a cup, and It was baked at 3:25 for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.
I'm going to guess "a little more milk". My main reasoning is the lack of leavener (unless I missed it). I've got to think that was the role of the whisked egg whites. In order for them to fulfill that role, they need a bit more liquid in order to hold their air. But, I've got to say that what you made is a pretty decent "tea cake" and I don't think it's wrong.
I love your video, they are live test of old recipe and seeing your genuine reaction to the first taste is always nice. How much do you prep for those type of videos ? Do you try to make the recipes beforehand ?
Good day Glen I'm curious could the amount of milk have been a replacement for the volume of the whites? That typically is 2 tablespoons per white, so a 1/3 of a US cup.
How thoroughly you rub in the fat makes a big difference to how much liquid you need in the recipe. The more you rub it in, the less free flour you have, the more liquid you need.
Hi Glen. My Nana was from Durham which is very close to Newcastle and she often baked this cake. She baked it in a loaf tin - this gives a higher narrower cake. She would cut then slices from the caked like sliced bread. Then each slice was buttered. Buttered cake was served with tea as a tea loaf. Perfect!
that makes a lot of sense
Here in Denmark we have a cake called "Beer cake" where we do the same. Its basically a spice cake (cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, brown sugar flour and beer as the only liquid). It's really nice with butter
I'm from North Yorkshire, and same here - loaf tin, slices and butter. Wensleydale cheese at Christmas.
Great to know!
My Sunday routine: Wake up early, make a pot of coffee, wash the Jeep while I drink the pot of coffee, come back inside to sit in my leather recliner and watch the “Old Cookbook Show”
My day.
Can go on.
Thanks, Glen (and Jules).
You’re more motivated than me lol get up make coffee get back in bed and have my visit with Glen and Jules lol
@@phyllisalfieri9625🎯
My mum (from Yorkshire) taught me that cake mixture was the correct consistency if you could lift up a wooden spoon of batter up in the air, turn the spoon and say “1, 2, 3, PLOP” with the mixture falling into the bowl on the ”plop”. It’s a highly consistent method, and one I would recommend if you ever come across a recipe that says “some milk”.
Great tip!
Hi, Glen. Susan from Shelburne, ON here. I'm a recent subscriber, and I'm enjoying your channel. I, too, collect old cookbooks and recipes (I especially love old church cookbooks, as everyone puts in their best recipes, and it reflects on the times and regions of the country). I was catching up on your previous videos and the carrot pudding episode caught my eye. I have been carrying on the tradition of carrot pudding started by (or perhaps continued by) my great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Railton of Glasgow. She emigrated to Montreal with her family in 1883. I was fortunate enough to have her daughter in my life until I was 28, and it is she who taught me to make it. My copy is actually from my dad's mother handwritten book, who asked for the recipe in 1960. The page is yellowed and stained, and altered to reflect changes included (like measurements!). Ours includes currants, a tablespoon of molasses and candied fruit and cherries, and I have added cinnamon and nutmeg. We still have to make at least 2 sauces to satisfy all tastes (lemon sauce and hard sauce for my English husband). My daughters and nieces are the 6th generation to use this recipe, and we still use the same bowl as my GGgrandmother, and the steamer from my great-grandmother. Finally, to keep my husband content, we wrap a shilling in tinfoil and hide it in the pudding. Looking forward to future videos! (sorry for the epistle, but no one I work with had even heard of carrot pudding!)
I make a carrot pudding just like my mom and her mom did. I'm in my 70's, so it goes back a good bit. It has carrot and potato and a little chocolate, cloves and cinnamon and walnuts. And we love it drenched with lemon sauce. That part of the family came from England in the early 1800's, but I don't know when we got this a bit more simplified recipe.
Sounds very good with cinnamon, nutmeg, cherries, currants & candied fruits. Would like to try your family recipe if you're ok with sharing, along with the lemon sauce & hard sauce. It really sounds good. Thanks for your time
"It was done by sticking your arm in and saying, ya that's pretty good" haha I love Glen and his videos. Absolutely hilarious!
That makes me think about how I check temperature on microwave reheated food.
If it steams up my glasses or feels warm enough on my face it’s okay.
and sweetness. a sweet man
@@seanlavoie2🤣
"A little milk" - Glen is really feeling the Townsends' pain today.
Hi Glen, this is a recipe that I found online from 'The Glasgow School of Cookery Book’ 1910. It’s very easy cake to bake and fits any shape of tin, square, round and loaf.
St. George’s Hall Cake
1/4 pound / 110g - butter
1/4 pound / 110g - sugar
2 - eggs
1/2 pound / 225g - plain flour
1 teaspoon - baking powder
A little salt
1/4 pound / 110g - currants
2 ounces / 50g - candid peel
1/2 cup - milk
Work the butter to a cream.
Add the sugar and beat well together.
Add the eggs (well beaten), flour, baking powder, salt, currants, candid peel and milk.
Beat well for 5 minutes.
Bake in a warm oven for 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours. (325F, Mark 3, 170C)
Gotta love a bit of candid peel!
@@samiam619 That refers to "Gas Mark", which is a scale used on many ovens in UK and surrounding regions. Gas Mark 1 is 275 degrees F, and increases 25 degrees for each +1 mark above that.
So a Gas Mark 3 (or Mark 3) would 275+50 or 325 degrees.
@@samiam619 Some gas stoves use Mark 1, Mark 2, etc. instead of temperatures.
@@samiam619 ... The Gas Mark is a temperature scale used on gas ovens and cookers in the United Kingdom, Ireland and some Commonwealth of Nations countries.
@@symetryrtemys2101 😄
I love your channel. I favorite missing ingredient is about a family recipe. We asked my grandmother for years for her Irish soda bread recipe. She finally wrote it down and gave it to my cousin Lorna. Lorna didn’t make the bread until the St. Patrick’s Day after my grandmother died. Lo and behold- no liquid. We could all hear grandmother say, well of course you should add milk. You should know that!
Judging by "traditional" styles of cake you get in the UK today, I wonder if it's intended to be baked as a loaf then sliced and served spread with butter. It would explain the longer cooking time and you might need the dryness for it to hold together in that form. But it's the sort of thing you'd have alongside tea in the museum tea rooms at national trust sites/royal palaces etc.
These were our thoughts (from Wales in the UK) - and came here to make the same comment. It looks like something my mum calls “cut and come cake” and would always be in a loaf tin and sliced and buttered. A less fancy bara brith.
Can't wait to see how the brandy half turns out.
Me too!
Agree
It's gonna take a few weeks lol
Yes! Want to see how you both like the cake with cheese (aged cheddar?) and the aged brandy-blessed cake. What delightful suggestions each of you arrived at so quickly!
I vote for sampling for Groundhog Day. Long story short, a weird tradition started when I was at university was to celebrate Groundhog Day with alcohol-soaked fruit cake. It starts before Christmas collecting all the unappreciated fruit cake, then soak with whatever alcohol available, usually anejo rum (we had a virtually unlimited supply), but also used sherry, port, scotch and brandy. Groundhog Day is an underappreciated holiday. It marks the end of the darkest 1/4 of the year. Eating alcohol-soaked fruit cake represents consuming the last of the preserved winter bread.
I did a quick google search (this is May 2023) to see if they had any pics and they did. your cake turned out very similar in appearance. Love the show. Jim
I view “A little Milk” as a loose measure based on the moisture content of the flour and dried fruits. It would also allow for the flexibility of how much milk the baker had at the time, and the density of the milk based on the type of animal and the fat content of the milk. All of the variables would have an effect on the moisture content of the cake.
You're right. We normally have below 15% relative humidity. On the rare occasions it rises above 40%, my flour based recipes require enormous adjustment in liquid volume.
In addition back then the milk was always full fat. These days 2-3% is less fat and obviously affects the results!
I think with many of the cooks of the period baking was mainly done by feel and experience. Both my mother and grandmother (B:1920s, D:1990s) both work/worked on feel and would add a little milk and mix it adding more until the consistency of the cake batter looked and felt right. I thought Glen's batter looked a little dry and I would have added a little more milk and/or soaked the currants in cold tea first which would have led to the currants releasing the additional liquid during the mixing and bake.
Exactly! Precise measurements of flour and liquid are rarely possible. Usually one or both have to be adjusted give weather, moisture, etc. But, as Glen noted, these adjustments are tricky to make when you don't know what the batter or dough is supposed to look like.
I live in Michigan where we can get nearly 100% humidity in the summertime and practically 0% humidity in the winter and depending on the weather coming through it can fluctuate more than 20% in an average day. I honestly never thought about this before! Thank you so much
Wow. Newcastle England? That’s my city!
Aye. No fun if we can’t second guess you !!! We don’t tell you. We just watch and be happy! Thank you!
Look forward to these videos EVERY Sunday my friend! Thank you for dedication!
Me too but my dog doesn’t like Glenn’s voice. He starts shaking when he hears Glenn
@@scottanderson2807 awwwww!
@@scottanderson2807 my dogs hate the beeps from his stove surface!
this is how my moms fruit cale was done, with egg whites folded in. her batter was dark, it had jam in it. very tasty, not dry. everyone i know hates fruitcake but hers is a different animal, delicious.
Came across an interesting post on a blog called 'Grandma Abson' explaining that the namesake of this cake is a building in Liverpool, where there was also a culinary institute. As for Jules' suggestion of cheese, serving fruit cake with a slice of cheese on top, particularly a white crumbly one such as Wensleydale, has long been popular in the North of England. Goes great with a cup of strong tea of a winter afternoon.
Hey Glen, this is Paul in Anchorage, AK. I've been a long time subscriber to the show and always enjoy your Sunday Old Cookbook Show. I was thinking that the other reason the cake would be so dry is to allow it a longer shelf-life. Keeping the amount of perishables in the cake to only a splash of milk and three eggs would potentially extend the life of the cake for a few more days, since a lower class family in the English Midlands at the turn of the century would be unlikely to have an icebox. Hence why a lot of cakes and loaves like this would be soaked in alcohol (as you're planning to do with the other half of the cake!), which further extends the shelf-life of that loaf and lets working families get more out of expensive foodstuffs like sugar and currants. Keep in mind, currants and sugar both had to be imported; sugar from Cuba and the Caribbean, while currants would have been imported from either the US, southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc.), or an overseas colony with a climate to grow currants. Those would still be relatively expensive ingredients and you'd want to get as much out of them as possible; especially working class families with only a little spending money for luxuries like this kind of cake. Even more reason to keep perishables to a minimum in the recipe and extend shelf-life!
Cheers!
-Paul
Glen, I never tire of your videos. Thank you for this and all the others. I always look forward to them! And your airplane hanger ones too! You're the best!
I feel so lucky to have found your channel! Love your take on these old recipes!
I look forward to your videos every week!! Love them!!!
So interesting…thank you ! 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
Fruit cake with cheese is pretty standard here in Yorkshire! Generally Wensleydale but I prefer Coverdale.
was going to say, my nan loves a piece of fruitcake and Wensleydale on a sunday
I'm stuck in the US. Grew up in Germany and Italy. They think Cheese in a Can is extra-fancy around these parts. Would you please stop talking about real cheeses? Please? I'd kill for a decent slice of Altgouda.
@@ethelryan257 . Try Satori Montamore, a cheddar from Wisconsin that blew away the competition at a blind tasting in France. Or Maytag Blue,; again, an international award winner. Try being more than a petty bigot.
I am from Yorkshire and have always had cheese with fruit cake. My husband and brother in law really pushed the boundaries one Christmas when they had cheese and pickled onions with their Christmas pudding much to my mum's displeasure, it has still not been forgotten 40 some years later
I would love to see the other books!
You are my go to for Sunday morning sitting with my cup of tea and my doggo at my feet! Love watching how these recipes turn out and your taste testing with Jules!! I'm all in with the rum or brandy!!
Reminds me I need to make a batch of my grandmother's fruitcake.
Thanks for the video.👍👍
Very much like my family's (from Newcastle) Christmas cake recipe - more fruit and we soak in sherry. Just made ours today!
What strikes me the most about this recipe is the wide range of English/Yorkshire fruit cakes out there. I'm thinking of more modern interpretations of fruit cake, but also the Parkin you made a while back, plus a few others if memory serves. It would be a fun though doubtlessly futile exercise to try and systematize them all by method, ingredients, and perceived or presumed posh-ness.
At 4:00, large bowl appears. "Now I'm going to put it into a larger bowl". Who hasn't been there? The struggle is real.
When you were cutting it, by thought was "You might want to take that milk back out. Looks like you will need something to wash it down with"
BTW, when I was in Scouts in the 90's, my Scout Handbook at some recipes at the back, including one for Chocolate Chip Cookies. I tried to make them one day, and did not really read it all the way through first. Discovered after mixing everything together that they had forgotten an oven temp. Just the ingredients list, how to mix it, and then "put in the oven for 10 minutes" or whatever the time was.
Managed to fine another recipe that gave me a guideline, and finished the recipe.
They were some of the best cookies that I have ever had. They were so soft that you could eat them frozen.
I was a boy scout leader when my boys were in and the oatmeal raisin cookie recipe in the handbook was surprisingly good and easy.
The cake looks good, but my personal preference would be to add more milk and sub the caraway for cardamom, since it's a fave of mine. Thanks to you Glen and Jules for really nicely shot, well-informed and entertaining videos!
I love the combination of currants, orange and caraway, and have been adding them to pancake batter, as I lack a working oven. I like them best cold with a light slather of butter. Saves time and energy, but not my waistline! ;)
Interesting!
Glen I would love to see what's on your sideboard this Christmas!
I was thinking on how you check temperatures for old recipes. My grandparents were still living off-grid in the old ranch house when i was a youngster. She still cooked in a wood stove. She taught me to check the temperature with drops of water. You dipped your finger in a glass of water, and then put a drop of water on the pan. If it bounced and skittered around it was right for pancakes, and if it sizzled and moved around the pan it was right for frying eggs. To check her oven she opened the door, and did the drop onto the inside of the door.
My mom had an old cook book with a table in the front which defined the temperatures using that method. I think, (hope) my niece ended up with it. My brothers wife threw a lot of things away.
I enjoy watching you try these ancient recipes. This one is off to a good start hope you show does a follow up. Maybe a little kind of leveler. I have to try thanks
Being keto I can't have 99% of the recipes here but love that you do these ye olde things.
Edible history is fun.
Tremendous, cooking a recipe from a book from my home city, sort of.
Glen, I can vouch that compiling a cook book is a difficult exercise having produced one myself and I am now working on another one. I am sending you a signed copy because I know full well you will appreciate it.
Watching this in Newcastle-upon-Tyne! So proud, Glenn cooking recipes from the greatest city in the world.
LOL, cheese and pickles 😁 Just toast the "bread" with cheese and add some bread & butter pickles and I'm all in 👍
I imagine they served this with either custard or hard sauce.
When I saw the finished cake, I had the same thought as Glen of soaking it in brandy or rum for a,few weeks before he even said it. And serve it with a hard sauce.
Not very keen on caraway seeds. Will definitely try recipe. Sounds yummy!
I toast caraway rye all of the time and add peanut butter, jam or both. They are excellent together. Give it a try. 😊
I bet this would toast well and be delicious with some cheese, as your other half mentioned!
This recipe works great for biscotti !
Cheers
Looking really good! Can't wait for the brandy update!
love seeing you make these much older recipes. mad cool!
Aha I'm from Northumberland and live in Newcastle. There's often a few old cookbooks floating around second hand book shops. If I ever find one I'll pick it up and forward it on
Brandy Yes !!!🍺🍺🍺
Through your searches, gifts and luck you certainly have acquired an awesome library of cook books and cocktail recipes. Thanks for another interesting, intriguing and entertaining video.
Wonderful cake recipe. My grandmother would have served this (and did, or one very much like it) thinly sliced, spread with butter, next to a cup of tea.
I love old recipes! Great video, thank you!
Yay Jules, fruitcake and cheese! Excellent choice.
Your videos are the highlight of my weekend. This would be perfect with a cup of coffee or tea
OK - the caraway seed threw me for a loop.Thanks for the background on the time period.
Reminds me of the 1st time I ate Mama's homemade molasses gingerbread. Delicious but different as well. Seems like she put a thin powdered sugar lemon flavored glaze over it.
Looks good to me. I have some of my Grandmothers old cook books and some of the recipes are pretty vague. Go with your gut and stick with the method is the only thing you can do
I'd really love to try this; I'm sceptical of the caraway.
I love carraway. It's also good in scones.
What a super interesting recipe!!!
Gotta love those old cookbooks! They are so specific about some ingredients, teaspoon and tablespoon measures, yet "add a little milk". It would have helped if it indicated batter consistency, but you hit it out of the park anyway! 😉
That’s how my grandmother cooked and baked. No recipes. All by feel. And everything was always delicious. On occasion, her bismarcks would be a little dark and she considered that a failure but they were still wonderful.
One of my favorite quarantine pastimes has been watching your old cookbook show, and then trying to find the one you used online.
So far, this one has stumped me.
My Great Grandparents were from the southern edge of Scotland, Sinclairhill. I fell quit sure my Great Aunts and Grandmother made this cake. Thanks Suzanne Perkins Ozarksflipper
Can we have a full Christmas dinner cook along video please?
I wonder whether this has the unspoken assumption that the currents (raisins) would have soaked for some time in a liquid? The cake seems really familiar to something I had as a child in Italy, but that was moister.
I love your approach to terms such as 'moderate oven'. Nothing is more frustrating than people who try to nail down every aspect of baking to Vulcan Science Academy levels of exactness. At my altitude, anything calling for a 'moderate' oven gets thrown in the big pressure canner to steam at 121C for not quite the time given, than finished to brown in the oven at 125C.
Works about as well as anything else.
I grew up in Denver, and my grandmother always had to adapt recipes for altitude. But she never steamed things, so now I am curious about what the altitude is where you live.
Looks good. Will be fun to soak it in brandy and enjoy. Wording sure is a little different back then. A little of this and a pinch of that 🙂
@@samiam619 I have a set of small measuring spoons consisting of a smidgen, pinch and dash. Since there is no standard for those measurements I wanted to see what these particular spoons would equal, but my kitchen scales weren’t that accurate. By comparing them against my standard measuring spoons I found that a dash equals half of a 1/4 tsp (1/8 tsp), a pinch is half of a dash (1/16 tsp.) and a smidgen is half a pinch (1/32 tsp). I also did an internet search and found that these amounts are fairly common on many sites.
Just soak it in Brandy, or rum. Glen, you have the best ideas! You were exxxplaining things again for the people who make the stupid comments of 'you did this wrong'. Don't let them bother you please, some people think they know everything better. You allways do your research so you actually do know better haha!
He never lets stupid comments bother him.
We make tea buns by rubbing fat into flour, and stirring in eggs and milk before baking. I'm wondering if I can modify my tea bun recipe by adding those spices and some candied peel to it...? It already has the baking powder, raisins and sugar. Mmm...Christmas tea buns!
Great vid as always. Enjoyed seeing how this would come out. Well done.
Glen, I'd love it if you'd do a cookbook tour for us sometime! :)
First, I am amazed that a person was expected to maintain an even temperature in a wood burning stove for three hours. I also wonder if this cake is dry because it is intended as a dunking cake. A couple of dousings in coffee with cream and sugar might put it over the top. Kind of sad that people don't dunk anymore.
I do! I have baked in a wood stove, it's a nightmare and I don't care what the back-to-nature types want to pretend.
I think dunking gained low-brow connotations some where between the Great Depression and the Fifties. My mom discouraged the practice.
@@mackenziedrake my younger bro would dunk persistently, Mom let him go with it, but for us it was a big no no.
@@mackenziedrake LOL. Probably why I picked it up from my Grandpa instead
I will try this. Caraway sounds like a nice change of pace. Was thinking if too dry turning them into biscotti would be an option.
Great video as usual! How about a big shmear of butter or cream cheese!
Oh cool, I’m from Newcastle. I wonder if they’ll have copies of these in the local history section of the City Library… I’ll try to have a look!
That's very kind of you.
Try fruit cake with a nice hard English cheese. You won't regret it.
This is very similar to my grandmother's Christmas cake recipe (suet instead of dripping). Pre-soaking the currants and peel in alcohol may be the way to go! A tall, round cake tin will reduce drying in the oven. Then, of course, storing and 'feeding the cake with brandy for a good while...
Some ginger, cinnamon or coriander may make it extra yum.
The other way to go is to, do the 'tea loaf' thing and cut it thinly. I would still soak the fruit (maybe in cold tea).
I laughed so hard at 9:06 😂😂 can you imagine!?
telling your wife the stove is ready for cooking 😂😂 while your arm is about burnt to a crisp over a fruit cake
re: cutting butter into flour:
I'll cube the butter & scatter in a stand mixer bowl that has the flour already measured in it; use a balloon whisk attachment on VERY LOW/ lowest setting for about 3-6 minutes; stop & check by the feel of it (grasp /pinch some, see how it flakes/holds or doesn't).
about 6-7 minutes was spot-on for pie crust recipes, consistent results.
**
hope that's helpful to someone!.
I hunted down several versions of this recipe and all called for ¼ pint of milk.
😮
Reminds me of a panettone recipe. I would suggest more milk because Pannetone takes five eggs and this took three. Thanks for this looks delicious. I’m going to give it a try.
Yes Glen I think it needed more liquid (milk in it) I think the uncooked cake mix should have been a little sloppier. Is your oven a fan oven?
“It was a little dry”. You think?
I definitely would have gone with about 250 ml / 1/2C of milk!
But hey another great video. Even your so so recipes are a joy to watch.
Cheers from Ottawa 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
The brandy sounds good. So would a boozy caramel sauce to go with the savoury bit.
Might be too late, but take 1/4 and soak it in Brandy, and the other 1/4 in Rum. See which is better.
I just love the conversation during the tasting. So fun. Hey, did you ever let us know how the Brandy soaked version tasted? Is it on the channel somewhere?
I think if you had added more milk to get a stiff dropping consistency you would then have been able to fold in the egg whites and the cake would have turned out moister. The use of lard was common when I grew up, particularly for pastry, which, to this day, I make with half lard and half butter. Lard was and still is much cheaper than butter, of course, but it also “shortens” better.
I found another recipe for this cake on a blog called grandmaabson. The proportions are all different, more flour and sugar, and there only butter, no lard. The amount of milk called for was a half a cup, and It was baked at 3:25 for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.
I'm going to guess "a little more milk". My main reasoning is the lack of leavener (unless I missed it). I've got to think that was the role of the whisked egg whites. In order for them to fulfill that role, they need a bit more liquid in order to hold their air. But, I've got to say that what you made is a pretty decent "tea cake" and I don't think it's wrong.
I like the idea of putting it out as part of a Cheese platter
As soon as you said “caraway seeds” I went “ooooooo I gotta try that…”
@@judithburke1539 to each their own
The crunch as you cut it made me think of a cookie texture. Maybe have with a little more milk for dunking?
I love your video, they are live test of old recipe and seeing your genuine reaction to the first taste is always nice. How much do you prep for those type of videos ? Do you try to make the recipes beforehand ?
Good day Glen
I'm curious could the amount of milk have been a replacement for the volume of the whites? That typically is 2 tablespoons per white, so a 1/3 of a US cup.
Hi Glen, the Household version of this book is available as a reprint of the 1913 edition.
Curious as to what the texture of the cake was after the first 30 minutes of baking. Was it what would now be considered done?
I wonder if you cut thin slices and either toasted or baked them to be even dryer, then used them for Julie‘s cheese and pickles, if that might work.
How thoroughly you rub in the fat makes a big difference to how much liquid you need in the recipe. The more you rub it in, the less free flour you have, the more liquid you need.