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A Love for Celebrating Christmas
Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol in 1843, when he was 31. The cake he was imagining when he wrote the book might have been a cake remembered from his boyhood; however, that recipe from the early 1800s would have differed from the immense and expensive cakes that Dickens and his family enjoyed through the 1840s and ’50s, when his children were growing up.
Later in the 19th-century, beaten eggs were used as the leavening agent, and still later, as standardized ingredients became commonly available, baking powder was substituted. One might guess that by the time A Christmas Carol appeared, a professional baker might have used eggs, whereas a home cook using an old family recipe might still have been using yeast.
http://www.eatlocallyblogglobally.com/2010/11/recipe-for-dickensian-twelfth-cake.html
Recipe by: Pen Vogler in “Dinner with Dickens” Cico Books
“The feast of currant wine biscuits, fruit, and almond cakes that Steerforth persuades David Copperfield to provide feeds David’s infatuation….”
Cook’s Note: The dessert is difficult to make since it requires specific products to produce a successful cake dessert. I used almond flour but would recommend grinding your own almonds and using superfine sugar. Our “cake” tasted delicious and was like a meringue crusted soft almond cake dessert.
For Recipe See:
https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/top-5-dickensian-recipes/
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