To Make Rich Cake

I have been on a cake kick lately. Mostly because I love to bake. I was planning on making this cake for Twelfth Night, but the ingredients proved harder to find than I had thought.  The original recipe comes from "The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy", 1774.  While this is an 18th Century Recipe  I can only imagine that these types of cakes were cooked well into the 19th Century. I must admit that I did cheat a bit with this cake, since Williamsburg's History is Served has already transcribed this recipe for the modern cook. You can find their recipe here.  

First, gather all of your ingredients  To me, it seemed like a lot of things for one cake, mostly because of all of the candies fruits that need to go in.  The "new" recipe calls for almond flour, which I could not find locally, and I have not justified ordering any yet. So, I decided to go with the original recipe, and blanch & sack almonds until fine.  While I had never done this before the process was easy, just a little time consuming.  After the skins were removed, I placed the whole almonds in a towel and started to whack them with a meat cleaver. I will warn you, when you start to "sack" the almonds, make sure no one in the house is trying to nap. This is loud, but kinda fun. You do really have to whack them for a while to get them to a flour-like consistency  (You could use a food processor to make this faster, but I was trying to keep things "real".)

Now that all of the ingredients are ready. Start creaming your butter & sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, I used 8 in all. When the eggs are fully  mixed in, sift the flour in a separate bowl. I used about 4 cups of cake flour (Swans Down is a family favorite) 2 cups of granulated sugar, almond flour, and spice go in at this time as well. Mix all of the dry ingredients together, then add gradually to the butter mixture. The batter forms a nice consistency. After the cake batter is well blended, its time for the special ingredients, the sweet-meats! Candied lemon peel, orange peel & citron, as well as currants all go in then the Brandy & Sherry. The alcohol is more for preservation, but also adds a nice rich flavor to the batter.

After everything is added, put in a bunt pan and bake at 350. I actually baked the cake in 2 small pans. Remove from the oven and cool before taking it out of the pan. Then allow to cool completely before slicing. The cake is very good! Essentially it is a pound cake with fruits in it. Yes, it took me a minute to realize that.  I did freeze one of the cakes for a later event.  Overall, a good recipe, not too sweet, but full of flavor!

To Make a Cheshire Pork-Pie

So this recipe is a little older than the 19th Century, but I still wanted to try it. Besides, meat pies are timeless! After searching the books & finding many, many pies I still had not found one that I really wanted to try. Sure there were ones that looked good, and I have an idea for my next one, but this one sounded super good. I found the recipe on the Colonial Williamsburg Colonial Foodways page. The cool thing about the CWCF page is that they have already done the hard work for you! They give a period recipe, and the modern conversion for you, super easy!
 On to the pie! Today's recipe comes from "The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy", 1784.

So in the original recipe we need pork, pippins (apples), crust, seasonings & white wine. Luckily, we can still get all of these things today with ease!

Pork & Apples Layered in crust

I chose a thin cut pork chop, a little over a pound ended up being six pork chops. I seared them in the skillet as recommended by CW to ensure that the meat was fully cooked.  Don't forget to season them with salt, pepper, & nutmeg!! While the pork was cooking I started the crust. I chose to make the No. 1 Common Paste from The Practical Cook Book as made in the Apple Pie.  However, for this crust I only added about 3 cups of flour, and it was greatly improved!

So with the crust done & the pork seared, the apples pealed & sliced. Now time for assembly  I was using a deeper pie dish, about 8" wide and 3 or 4" deep to make sure I had enough layering room.

The bottom crust was already in the plate, and had been in the fridge while peeling & cutting apples.
 The dish was then layered with pork (3 chops on bottom) then apples & sugar, and the other 3 chops, followed by the rest of the apples.  When the layers are all in the plate, you add the wine.  I was able to find a "Rhine Wine" as CW called for, I had never heard of it, though I am not a wine person. I added a little over half a cup since I had a deep dish pie. Top crust added & closed.

Into the oven at 350 for about 40 minutes. It was a waiting game for this one, I was so ready to eat it, as was DH!  So as soon as I pulled it out of the oven he was ready to eat it. We did let it cool for a few minutes before I cut into it.  One thing I have noticed is that this crust does not really brown, so it looks almost the same coming out of the oven as it does going in! I did rub a little butter on the top crust when it was right out of the oven this time.  It smelled wonderful!  It was wonderful! The spices & wine & apples all work together to give a great sweet, but not too sweet taste. "These pork chops are amazing" So I had a pleased husband.

Dished out & ready to eat!

What I learned from this pie, next time cut the pork into smaller chucks rather than leaving the pork chop whole, it would really help the serving& eating of the pie. Maybe less apples, I used four, and it did seem a little apple heavy. And maybe a little less wine. The pie was very liquid-y, and that could have been from the apples, but since I used about 3/4 cup of wine, next time maybe only a half?
Over all, this was one of the tastiest  things tried so far!