welcome friends welcome to Sunday
morning in our old cook book series
we're going to do yet another recipe out
of this five roses flour cookbook and
this time around we're going to do
something called a Yorkshire Spice Cake
now it is in the Christmas cake section
and I have never come across this cake
before so I'm interested to find out how
it works out one of the interesting
things about this Yorkshire spice cake
is that it only has one spice in it and
that is nutmeg so it'll be interesting
to see what the flavour is with only one
spice first off I've got some lard pure
pork lard that I've put in here and I'm
gonna cream it until it's light and
fluffy the recipe says shortening but I
know in this time period that pork lard
and shortening the terms were used
interchangeably and that you would have
found more pork lard pure pork lard on
the shelves than vegetable shortening
and certainly at a better price point
anyway so as that's creaming together
I'm gonna work with a little bit of the
other ingredients
I'm gonna get a couple of bowls here so
the first thing I'm gonna do is take
these currents and put them in here
along with some raisins now if you're
wondering what currants are they're not
black currants that's something
completely different or red currants
completely different in the context of
what we're talking about here currants
are very specific type of raisin made
from the Corinthian grape so no relation
to those other fruits and I'm just going
to take a little bit of the flour and
I'm gonna put it on top and we're gonna
mix that in to coat the currants and the
raisins before we put them into the
batter which leaves me with the flour
and I'm gonna put the flour in here and
we're just going to mix it together with
salt baking powder and we will grate in
the nutmeg and this recipe calls for a
lot of nutmeg three-quarters of a nutmeg
okay now this looks pretty good so I'm
gonna put in the brown sugar and when
you've got one of these even if you have
the one like I do
with the rubber spatula that's supposed
to scrape the side you should always
scrape the sides down anyway just to
make sure that everything is mixed
together so in goes the brown sugar and
we're going to continue to cream this
together
until it's fully incorporated
okay now the eggs go in one at a time
and you put them in you make sure
they're fully incorporated before you
put the next one in okay now we
alternate between wet and dry
ingredients into the mixture so the
flour ingredients and the milk and just
spoon some of the flour in a little bit
at a time you don't do it too quickly
don't put too much in if this takes I
don't know five six additions
just go slow there's quite a bit of
flour here that we need to get in and
there's quite a bit of milk as well
and then just a little bit of milk not
too much because it'll splash and you
don't want the batter to get too loose
now we mix in the raisins and the
currants I'm just gonna pop these in and
you don't want to mix the cake too far
at this point to over mix it that can
lead to problems so just like all of the
recipes from this time period there's no
mention of what size pan to use so I'm
just gonna take a chance with this
larger pan because there's quite a bit
of batter here and I may not have made
the right choice now that I've got it in
here let's see nope
the smaller nine by nine is the way to
go so I'm gonna make a change okay nine
by nine now the recipe says to put in
half of the batter spread it out and
then add the chopped peel so there we go
sprinkle on the chopped peel
then putting the rest of the batter
spread it out as best you can and then
put on the last of the peel and into the
oven
so Glenn I have already cut into this
gorgeous looking cake check that out
look at all that fruit so this is a
Yorkshire spiced cake of which I have no
you know when I started making this I
had no idea because often when I start
these recipes I just pick one don't do
any research and I just make it the way
that the recipe says yes so I did a
little bit of research while it was
baking Yorkshire spice cake seems to be
an early version of Christmas cake okay
like a Christmas fruitcake the earliest
versions that I could find we're
essentially the same as this with only
one spice which is nutmeg but instead of
using baking powder they used yeast for
leavening because you know we're talking
early 1800s mm-hmm later versions used
butter and a larger array of spices it's
a very simple very tasty cake mm-hmm so
for people that don't like Christmas
cake this is a much lighter tasting yeah
it doesn't have that heavy feel or rich
mmm-hmm I don't think rich is right with
there something with the fruit mixture
in by the time we put in those three or
the rum or whatever I can eat like this
much and it's like okay I'm that's it
I'm yeah no this is this is nice and
light I mean there's a lot of fruit in
here the currants definitely weigh in a
lot of flavor now later cakes of this
name have cinnamon in them mmm or what
is it the English call it spice mix sort
of a nondescript spice mix yeah but this
distinct you know every one is a
slightly different version there's the
anything like that everyone has a
slightly different version it's like
when you make a pumpkin pie everybody's
a little bit different some people will
do just nutmeg just allspice so you
could sub butter for the lard because
later versions of this cake do use
butter or a mixture of butter and lard
you could put in brandy or rum if you
wanted to but you don't have
I mean this cake is perfect just the way
it is I think and it's it is the kind of
cake that you could easily freeze and
have when guests just turn a short
period of time yes so this cake shows up
in later versions of the five roses
cookbooks Same Same Same Same until the
mid-50s and then it disappears after the
mid-50s it disappears but it's not in
the nineteen fifteen version but when I
was looking through the nineteen fifteen
version I found the next recipe which is
called Yorkshire Parkin Harkin Parkin
okay I've never heard of that either but
I guess I guess in Canada in the early
years there were a lot of people from
Yorkshire so give this one a try thanks
for stopping by see you again soon
you
