Canadian Balmoral Cake

Balmoral Cake was a Victorian-era caraway-seed cake baked in a fancy mold, as seen in the link here. But Balmoral Fruit Cake was a ginger-fruit cake, according to Anna Lee Scott in the 1947 opus Cooking Made Easy: A Domestic Science Course For Users of Monarch Pastry Flour. Monarch was made by the Maple Leaf Milling Co. Ltd., so you will not be surprised to learn that this was a Canadian endeavor.

I have checked all my English, Scottish and non-Anna-Lee-Scott Canadian cookbooks, and found no Balmoral-type cake recipes of the caraway or the ginger-fruit persuasion.  It sounds really good though, and the next time I am making a loaf cake I might try this.

Balmoral Fruit Cake

Yield - 1 loaf

This is a cake you may easily find yourself making with great frequency. It ripens nicely in a day or two, if stored in a closely-covered tin…and will actually keep well for a day or more.

Oven temperature – rather slow, 325 degrees.

Prepare a loaf pan (about 5 by 10 inches, top inside measure).

Pick over, wash ad dry 1 cup sultana or other light-colored seedless raisins.
Prepare 1/4 cup finely-chopped preserved or candied ginger
and 1/2 cup blanched slivered almonds
Sift, then measure 2 cups Monarch Pastry Flour
Add 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt

Sift [dry ingredients] together once, then sift into a bowl. Add the prepared fruits and nuts and mix lightly until each bit is coated with flour.

Cream until soft 12 Tbs butter (or mixture of butter and shrtening), and gradually blend in 1 cup very fine granulated or fruit sugar; and cream thoroughly.

Beat until light 2 eggs and add to creamed mixture, a little at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the flour-fruit mixture, about one-quarter at a time, combining thoroughly after each addition. Turn batter into prepared loaf pan and spread evenly. Bake in a rather slow oven, 325 degrees, about 1 1/4 hours. Let stand on wire cake rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan.

Balmoral is most famous for being the castle in Scotland beloved by Queen Victoria, and still used by the Queen today. It is the name of several towns around the world, mostly in Australia, New Zealand, and two in Canada – one in New Brunswick, and Balmoral Mills in Nova Scotia. This last is home to the Balmoral Grist Mill - I wonder if the Monarch Flour cake is named for this Balmoral, rather than the royal Scottish one?