Cake

Moved to bake a cake last week for the first time in some years, maybe as many as ten. At one time I used to have a soft spot for seed cakes and bake them on a regular basis, but on this occasion I favoured a date and walnut cake.

The memory was that the cake from the Boston Cook Book was better than the loaf from the English cook books, partly because it was indeed, as the name suggests, more cake like and inspection of the recipes suggested that the difference lay in the use of eggs and white sugar. But the US recipe was in cups rather than ounces which was a touch daunting when so out of practise, so settled for the M&S recipe, which involved at least one egg and I substituted granulated for the soft brown sugar specified.

The recipe said to pour the mixture into a (greased & floured) loaf tin and the mixture was of such a pouring consistency that I did wonder whether it would rise. But it did, despite my not lowering the nominal temperature a little to allow for the fan oven, at least not until the thing was nearly cooked. Product a little brown and not quite even, being more risen at one end than the other. An effect of the temperature not being as uniform as the makers of the fan oven claim?

Cooled on the maternal baking rack, which looked its age, was rather massive compared with a modern one and made out of galvanised steel, like a bucket, rather than stainless, like a cup cake rack.

Good stuff, but I must be getting old as there is still a stump left after two takes. And soaking the dates in hot water as part of the procedure is suspected of resulting in a mild laxative effect on my reduced circumstances. Syrup of figs sort of thing. Unsoaked dates don't cause any problem, despite eating a fair amount of them - stoned dates from Whitworths via Waitrose, the only people which seem to sell the things these days. When I used to make seed cakes, we would do one on a Sunday afternoon, usually after having taken in roast earlier in the day, in just the one take.

PS 1: the recipe called for a teaspoon of baking powder (this in addition to the use of self raising flour) to the hot water in which the dates were soaked while the rest of the stuff was mixed up. With the result that the water was bubbling nicely by the time it was stirred into the the rest of the mix.

PS 2: very efficient way of getting the calories in: 10oz flour, 8oz dates, 2oz walnuts (surprisingly bulky), 4oz sugar, 4oz butter. Not to mention the egg.