Foods of England - Raisin Cake

Raisin Cake

Cakes

Soda-raised cake containing high proportion of dried vine fruit.

Original Receipt from The Godey’s Lady’s book receipts and household hints by Sarah Annie Frost, 1870

Raisin Cake
Three cups of flour, one of milk, one and a half of sugar half cup of molasses, half cup of butter, half pound of chopped raisins, three eggs, one teaspoonful of saleratus [Bicarbonate of Soda] and spice of all kinds.

The name is known at least since Sewell’s 1846 translation, supposedly of the ‘strictest gramatically accuracy’, of the ‘Georgics‘ by the Latin poet Virgil;

Lesbos doth gather. There are Thasian vines
There are moreo’er the Mareotic white
These for rich soils employed for lighter those
And Psithian fitter for the raisin cake.

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