Dickens as Father of Christmas Literature, Dinner

Nov. 28, 2011 - PRLog -- FOR RELEASE WEDNESDAY, NOV. 30

When one thinks of Christmas-time authors, none come quicker to mind than Charles Dickens. The father of the most famous and reproduced Christmas story, “A Christmas Carol,” Dickens is less well-known for his other contributions to yuletide literature. However, “A Christmas Carol” (published in 1843) was not the first of Dickens’ Christmas stories, which began with “A Christmas Dinner” in 1837.

“A Christmas Dinner” paints a warm picture of a family’s Christmas celebration in the 1830s, just as the traditions that define much of modern Christmas were beginning to take hold. Many of the dishes featured in the short book would go on to become mainstays of dinner tables during Christmas throughout the UK, America, and the world. With a 21st-century reprint of “A Christmas Dinner” by Red Rock Press, readers can experience authentic Victorian Christmas foods, drinks, and desserts just as did Charles, Catherine, and the ever-growing Dickens family (eventually swelling to 9 children in just 15 years).

In celebration of Dickens’ hand in popularizing many of the Christmas traditions we hold dear today, Red Rock Press is providing the recipe for Twelfth Cakes, the decadent fruitcakes traditionally served on January 5th to celebrate the twelve days of Christmas. Instructions for how this cake was made in Dickens’ kitchen in the 1800s (from cookbooks from Catherine Dickens’ kitchen) are included first, followed by an updated version for the modern cook, meticulously tested for authenticity and similarity to the original by culinary historian Alice Ross. For more information on “A Christmas Dinner” by Charles Dickens (w/Peter Ackroyd & Alice Ross) is available at www.ADickensChristmas.com or through the contact info below the recipes.

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TWELFTH CAKES
Make a cavity in the middle of six pounds of flour, set a sponge with a gill and a half of yeast and a little warm milk; put round it a pound of fresh butter in small lumps, a pound and a quarter of sugar sifted, four pounds and a half of currants, half an ounce of sifted cinnamon, a quarter of an ounce of pounded cloves, mace, and nutmeg mixed, sliced candied orange, lemon-peel, and citron. When risen, mix all together with a little warm milk; have the hoops well papered and buttered, fill and bake them. When nearly cold, ice them over.
-A Lady, The New London Cookery, Adapted to the Use of Private Families. 9th
Edition (London, 1838)

TO MAKEMARCH-PANE (MARZIPAN)
Take Almonds, scald them, then put them into cold Water, drain them, wipe them, then pownd them in a Marble Mortar, moisten them frequently with the white of an egg to keep them from oiling. In the mean time take half the Weight of your Almond-paste, in clarify’d Sugar, boil it ‘till it becomes feathered, then put in your Almonds by Handfuls, stir it well with a spatula, that it do not stick to the Pan. Pass the back of your Hand over it, and if it stick not to it, it is enough.
-John Nott, Cook’s Dictionary
(London, 1726)

A FINE ICEING FOR CAKES
Beat up the whites of five eggs to a froth, and put to them a pound of double-refined sugar powdered and sifted, and three spoonsful of orange-flower water, or lemon-juice. Keep beating it all the time the cake is in the oven; and the moment it comes out, ice over the top with a spoon. Some put a grain of ambergris into the iceing, but that is too powerful for many palates.
-A Lady, The New London Cooke Adapted to the Use of Private Families, 9th
Edition, (London, 1838)

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FOR THE MODERN COOK

Christmas Cake

5 cups un-sifted flour
1 package yeast
¼ cup warmed water
1 stick butter, softened
¼ cup sugar
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp. salt
3-4 cups warmed milk
1 cup dried currants
½ cup candied orange rind
½ cup candied lemon rind
½ cup candied citron
3-4 Tbsp. apricot jam
2 7-ounce packages marzipan

Place flour in a large bowl, shaping a large hole in the middle.
Combine yeast and warm water and stir until dissolved; add to flour.
Break softened butter into small lumps and add to mixture.
Add sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, and mix the contents of bowl.
Add milk gradually, kneading the mixture in the bowl until it becomes a sticky dough.
Add currants, orange rind, lemon rind and citron. Continue kneading, adding flour as needed until the dough becomes elastic.
Cover the bowl, set in a warm place (about 80° F.) and allow dough to rise until double in size.
Without punching down the dough, carefully transfer to paper-lined, buttered 9” spring form (a pan with sides that open).
Preheat oven to 325° F. Place dough in pan on stovetop while the oven is heating. Let the dough continue to rise there until your oven is the right temperature.
Set the cake into the heated oven and bake 1 to 1 ¼ hours or until it tests done. Test by inserting a cake tester or straw into the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is ready to leave the oven.
Another sign that the cake is finished is that it comes away easily from the sides of the pan.
Allow the cake to cool, cover it with apricot jam and then a sheet of marzipan. Ice and decorate.
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Marzipan Icing

Marzipan may be purchased in supermarkets or candy-making shops. Purchase and combine two 6-ounce packages of marzipan, then briefly knead it to shape a ball, and roll out to about ¼ inch thickness.

Make your own marzipan
12 ounces finely ground almonds
6 ounces fine sugar
1 egg
2 extra egg yolks
Scant ½ tsp. almond extract (made from bitter almonds)

In a bowl, mix ground almonds and fine sugar, and reserve.
In another bowl, whip up egg, egg yolks and almond flavoring until thick and lemon colored.
Add egg mixture to mixture of ground almonds and sugar, then knead into a firm ball.
Roll it out to 1/4 inch thickness.
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Icing

2 egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
¼ tsp. cream of tartar
⅓ cup cold water
Almond, vanilla or lemon extract

Using a rotary egg beater or an electric mixer, whip egg whites with sugar, cream of tartar, and water in the top of a double boiler until foamy.
Boil two inches of water in the bottom of the double boiler, then place pot with icing mixture on top of the boiling water. Continue to whip icing mixture for 7 minutes or until firm.
Whip in flavoring.
Spread icing on cake over the marzipan.
You can decorate the cake much as the Dickens family would have by using marzipan scraps to fashion tiny people, snowmen, sleds and fruit.
Or you can buy candy figures.

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For more info, contact Dan Kleinman at Daniel@RedRockPress.com, 212-362-8304, or visit www.ADickensChristmas.com.