Killer Queen Cakes

She’s a Killer Queen/Gunpowder, gelatine/Dynamite with a laser beam/Guaranteed to blow your mind/Anytime – Queen
I spent a recent Saturday at the Waddington International Air Show. I enjoy baking and I also like to be prepared when it comes to kai at such outings. This often results in a hearty fare. For this particular packed lunch the result was not only enough to feed us for lunch, but also for tea, and then for supper! There was a lot of food.
Inside the picnic bag of delights that day were little pottles of the following deliciousness:
Pesto-Pasta Salad w/ Sun Dried Tomatoes
Mushroom & Walnut Pate
Creamy Avocado Potato Salad
Homemade White Bloomer
Hummus
Olives & Sun Dried Tomatoes
Bananas & Nectarines
Killer Queen Cakes
Killer Queen Cakes (or just Queen Cakes as they are known to non-boganbuddhas) are both a new discovery and a new favourite of mine. Earning favourite status in part because I now have another use for my bun tin other than Mince Pies. However, mostly I love them because they are sweet in a dried-fruit-kinda-way instead of an excess-of-refined-sugars-kinda-way. They are what I consider to be a very ‘grown up’ kinda cake. Much like how Fruit Cake seems to me so much more ‘grown up’ than Chocolate Cake – that’s how I feel about these little morsels.
According to this very interesting site, Queen Cakes are traditionally made of butter, sugar, flour, eggs and baked in a tin. The shape of the tin would vary but heart shaped was particularly popular. A 1724 recipe for Queen Cakes from the aforementioned website lists the ingredients as:
1lb of flour, 1lb refined sugar, 1lb currants, 1lb butter, bit of mace, some orange water and ten eggs, but half the whites
My recipe is based on a WWII era recipe from my Eating for Victory: Healthy Home Front Cooking on War Rations cookbook, which is a collection of reproduced Second World War leaflets. On this occasion I used un-refined castor sugar and agave syrup. However, I have made these with regular castor sugar and English golden syrup and they still came out choice. I also reduced the amount of baking powder from the original 3 teaspoons which was in the recipe which seemed a lot).
Killer Queen Cakes
Makes 1 dozen cakes
Suggested Listening: Killer Queen by Queen (Album: Sheer Heart Attack)
Ingredients
-
2 1/2 oz margarine
2 oz unrefined castor sugar
1 tablespoons agave nectar (or golden syrup)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/4 pint milk and water
6 oz flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch salt
1 1/2 oz currants
12 hole bun tin
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180*C and lightly grease the bun tin in preparation.
- In a large bowl cream the margarine and sugar until light.
- Stir in the agave nectar (or golden syrup) and vanilla essence.
- Stir in the milk and water mixture.
- Sieve the flour, baking powder, and salt onto the wet ingredients and fold to half-way incorporate. If you prefer, the double sieve option also works well here. First sieve the flour, baking powder, and salt into a separate bowl and then sieve a second time onto the wet ingredients.
- Add the currants and continue to fold until it is all incorporated. The consistency should be light and airy.
- Spoon the mixture evenly into the prepared bun tin.
- Bake in the prepared oven for 20-25 minutes.
- Leave to cool 5-10 minutes in the bun tin and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
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