Читать книгу The British Baking Book - Regula Ysewijn - Страница 56

Dundee cake

60

For 6–8 people

For the cake

10 Tbsp (150 g) butter, at room

temperature

¾ cup (150 g) light brown sugar

3 eggs

1²⁄

³

cups (200 g) plain white flour

1 Tbsp sherry

heaping ½ cup (100 g) candied orange

peel, finely chopped

grated zest of ½ orange

¹⁄

³

cup (25 g) almond meal

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of sea salt

1¼ cups (175 g) raisins

butter, for greasing

flour, for dusting

about 45 blanched almonds, to garnish

For the sugar syrup

1 Tbsp granulated white sugar

1 Tbsp water

For a round 8-inch springform tin

Preheat your oven to 350°F and prepare the cake tin (see page 21).

Put the butter and brown sugar in a bowl and beat until creamy. Add the eggs, one

at a time, and make sure that each egg is completely incorporated before adding

the next one. Add a teaspoon of the flour with the last egg to prevent the mixture

from separating. Stir in the sherry, candied peel, and grated zest.

Carefully fold the remaining flour, the almond meal, baking powder, and salt

into the batter so that the volume is retained. Stir in the raisins, then spoon

the batter into the tin and smooth the top.

Arrange the whole blanched almonds in concentric circles on top of the cake.

Don’t push the almonds into the batter – lightly place them on top, or they will

sink into the batter during baking.

Reduce the oven to 300°F and bake the cake in the lower part of the oven for

50–60 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the sugar syrup by mixing the granulated sugar and water in

a small saucepan and heating over low heat until the sugar has dissolved.

Cover the hot cake with the sugar syrup. Allow the cake to cool completely

in the tin. It tastes best after a few days, stored in an airtight container.

According to legend, 16th-century Mary, Queen of Scots, did not like to eat glacé cherries, and a lighter version of

fruit cake, the Dundee cake, was developed especially for her. The real story is that the cake was invented by Janet

Keiller at the end of the 18th century. She sold the cake in her shop in Dundee, where she also sold her marmalade.

Janet Keiller is the inventor of marmalade as we know it today; previously, it was cut-able rather than spreadable.

Her business passed on from generation to generation and thus became the iconic brand Keiller’s of Dundee in the

19th century. Keiller’s continued to bake the Dundee cake, with its typical decoration of almonds, on a commercial

scale to use their surplus of orange peel. The cake was a by-product of marmalade making and something for the

company to produce outside the orange season. The almonds, sherry, and raisins arrived from Spain in the port of

Dundee by boat, just like the Seville oranges, so the extra purchases helped maintain the company’s relationships

with the Spanish sellers. The cake shows the landscape and richness of the import port of Dundee.

Soon after Keiller’s commercialized the cake, other cake makers followed suit throughout Great Britain, and also offered

the cake in a cookie tin and delivered it worldwide. Today, real Dundee cake can be made only in Dundee and under

strict rules regarding the ingredients and method. There are no spices in Dundee cake, but you can always add them.