The celebration of Twelfth Night, the traditional last day of Christmas, is a custom that has largely died out now but at one time there was a bigger party on Twelfth Night, which is the 5th January, than on Christmas itself. 12th night, marked merrily by a feast of food and drink, is also marked by the baking of two special cakes, the King and Queen cake. In Britain this has now become a dense fruity cake laced with spices, remembering the kings who came from the east and whose day, Epiphany, is commemorated on 6th January.
In France the Twelfth Night Cake, or Galette des Rois (cake of the kings), is a pastry tart filled with an almondy paste. Although the cakes are different a common tradition links them. It has been the custom to bake into the cake favours in the shape of a pea and a bean, and placed on top of the cakes the crown of a King and Queen is set. The man who found the bean in his slice of the 12th Night King Cake became King and reigned for the evening.
Likewise the woman who found the pea in the 12th Night Queen cake was crowned Queen. And these two sat in attendance as arbitrators as the night commenced, setting tasks and then rewarding favours or giving forfeits for success or failure in the tasks. Have some Lambswool Wassail, a wassail drink, to go with it
Note: The 1864 recipe for traditional 12th Night Cake will make a very big cake, but the recipe is easy enough to follow if you want to give it a go, however we also give you a smaller cake recipe, adapted for the modern kitchen for the modern cook to follow.
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12th Night Cake From An 1864 Recipe
Recipe Ingredients:
- Butter – two pounds twelve ounces (1200 grams)
- Sugar – one pound twelve ounces, (750 grams)
- Currants – five pounds, (2200 grams)
- Citron Peel (oranges and lemon peel) – one pound and a-half, (680 grams)
- Almonds – six ounces; (170 grams)
- Spices – nutmegs, mace, and cinnamon, of equal parts, in powder, two ounces; (57 grams)
- Eggs – twenty, (20)
- Brandy – half a pint (250 ml)
Note: these proportions allow for the cake being iced. If more sugar is preferred, the quantity must be the same as the butter; but less is used in this instance, that the cake may be light, and also to allow for the fruit, which would make it too sweet. Double the quantity of almonds may be used if required, as some persons prefer more.
Recipe Method:
Warm a smooth pan, large enough for the mixture; put in the butter, and reduce it to a fine cream, by working it about the pan with your hand. In summer the pan need not be warmed, as it can be reduced to a cream without; but in the winter keep the mixture as warm as possible, without oiling the butter. Add the sugar and mix it well with the butter, until it becomes white and feels light in the hand. Break in two or three eggs at a time, and work the mixture well, before any more is added.
Continue doing this until they are all used and it becomes light; then add the spirit, currants, peel, spice, and almonds, some or most of these being previously cut in thin slices, the peel having also been cut into small thin strips and bits. When these are incorporated, mix in the flour lightly; put it in a hoop with paper over the bottom and round the sides, and placed on a baking plate.
Large cakes require three or four pieces of stiff paper round the sides; and if the cake is very large, a pipe or funnel, made either of stiff paper or tin, and well buttered, should be put in the center, and the mixture placed round it; this is to allow the middle of the cake to be well baked, otherwise, the edge would be burnt two or three inches deep before it could be properly done. Place the tin plates containing the cake on another, the surface of which is covered an inch or two thick with sawdust or fine ashes to protect the bottom. Bake it in an oven at a moderate heat. The time required to bake it will depend on the state of the oven and the size of the cake.
When the cake is cold, proceed to ice it. (See icings for cakes below.) Cakes have generally, first, a coating on the top of almond icing; when this is dry, the sides and top are covered with royal or white icing. Fix on any gum paste or other ornaments whilst it is wet; and when dry, ornament it with piping, orange blossoms, ribbon, etc.; the surface and sides are often covered with small knobs of white sugar candy whilst the icing is wet.
ICING
Twelfth Cakes are iced with white or colored icing, and decorated with gum paste, plaster ornaments, piping paste, rings, knots, and fancy papers, etc., and piped.
Ingredients: & Method:
Pound, and sift some treble-refined sugar through a fine sieve, and put it into an earthen pan, which must be quite free from grease; to each pound of sifted sugar add the whites of three eggs, or sufficient to make it into a paste of a moderate consistence, then with a wooden spoon or spatula beat it well, using a little lemon juice occasionally, and more white of egg if you find that it will bear it without making it too thin, until you have a nice light icing, which will hang to the sides of the pan and spoon;
A pan of icing, when well beat and finished, should contain as much again in bulk as it was at the commencement: use sufficient lemon juice to give the icing a slight acid, or it will scale off the cake in large pieces when it is cut.
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A recipe adapted for the modern kitchen is on the next page
continued on the next page …
