Georgian Plumb Cake

 

Getting started

 

The softened butter and sugar

 

The mixture before adding the orange water and brandy

 

Ready for the oven

 

The finished Plumb Cake

Now that we’ve all been at home for a while, baking seems to have emerged as one of the most important ways of our keeping ourselves entertained and being creative.

If you’ve already done all your favourite recipes, why not experiment with some from the past.  This one is for Plumb Cake (plumbs is the old word for currants) and is from 1700s – a time when Britain was importing lots of spices and food was becoming much more interesting. 

If you really want to step into the shoes of Georgian cooks, then you’ll need to do all the beating by hand – very good exercise and a bonus if anyone in your house is sleeping when you start baking.

The Recipe

You can try your hand at baking a Georgian Plum Cake and if you’re looking for more culinary inspiration from the past, you could try: Savouring the Past, The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies and of course Hertfordshire’s own Receipt Book of Baroness Dimsdale. 

Do please share your experiences by uploading them to this site. We’d love to hear how you got on.