A British Lady and a Scottish Cake come to America
As Canned Peaches is developing, I’m starting to get more and more recipes in my inbox. I experience a Christmas Morning-spectrum feeling as I click to open them, and peruse the contents.
When this Dundee Cake recipe arrived, I remember doing a fist pump and saying to myself “oh HECK yes, this is WEIRD.”
Which in the history of fruitcakes this side of the Atlantic Pond, that clocks in as one of the more spirited reactions. Have you ever noticed that people are REALLY grouchy about fruitcake? I’ve grumbled about a fruitcake or two in my day, but I was a happy camper when I saw this one.
The recipe came courtesy of Joan Elizabeth Pollard, via her granddaughter Alex.
“I adored her, and I’m turning into her.” Alex told me, about her quaint & charming British grandmother.
Getting to know Joan
Joan was born in 1921 in Bournemouth, England, a beautiful city on a heath along the southern coast, known for it’s beautiful Victorian architecture. She worked in a torpedo factory during World War II, and in peak WWII movie fashion, met an army doctor and fell in love.
After the war, the young couple moved to Berlin, married and started having children. Alex’s grandpa, John C. Pollard, was a psychiatrist, and this eventually brought the family to the United States, and then to southeastern Michigan.
Joan’s husband found work at the University of Michigan in the psychiatry department, where he did extensive research on the effects of LSD. He passed away suddenly in 1971, which prompted Joan to find work in bookstores, and eventually land at the local Ann Arbor bookstore Borders, where she worked for over 30 years.
And Now, for Just a Dash of LSD
I would like to reiterate this is strictly Grandma-based Food History, not Grandpa-based Drug History… however… hearing that someone’s grandpa did “extensive research into the effects of LSD” is far too fascinating for me, so I poked around a little bit to see if I could find anything fun to share.
He co-authored the 1965 book Drugs and Phantasy: The Effects of LSD, Psilocybin, and Sernyl on College Students, which can be read in full by following that link. The title does a great job summarizing exactly what the book explores, and my, what an exciting time the 1960s was. I wish I could have been given cash to take LSD in college! For science!
Besides testing drugs on college students, Alex also said that the jury is still in session on how many times Joan might have been used as a guinea pig.
Joan passed away in 2008, leaving behind a family that loved her dearly. She was known for her great taste and collections of art, pottery and delicious cooking, British and otherwise.
” The dish *I* most associate with her is ‘ice cream soup'” Alex told me, “which involves melted vanilla Breyer’s ice cream and Hershey syrup from a can.”
An exquisite treat, indeed. “But,” Alex continued, “she was a great cook.”
The Dundee Cake Story
I had never made a fruitcake before, and to be honest, never thought I would end up finding them so fascinating. But as I dug into Joan’s recipe for the Dundee Cake, I just got so excited. Not only did it make it onto Mimi Sheraton’s list of 1001 Foods to Eat Before You Die, I got to age a cake for a whole week! How excitingly un-American!
I had no clue why aging could be desirable, but I wanted to find out, and I started by plowing into the history of this rich, buttery, heavy cake.
Click here for the Dundee Cake Recipe
The Dundee Cake was birthed in Dundee, Scotland a port city known for the hustle and bustle of it’s shipyard, and the home of the Keiller Marmalade company. The marmalade company started mass-producing and shipping the cake mid-19th century, and claim to be the originators of the term “Dundee Cake.” Fruitcakes were being made all across Scotland at this time, but the Dundee Cake was known for being topped with concentric circles of almonds, and of course, containing Keiller Marmalade (made from sour Seville Oranges.)
These cakes were shipped all over the world, even making it all the way to India. Many other large producers started to make this cake, differing recipes started to circulate, and soon enough the question had to be asked of what exactly makes a Dundee Cake what it is, and what’s the right way to make it.
In 2012, Scottish baker Martin Goodfellow organized a meeting of bakers to determine a singular recipe for the Dundee Cake. They were quite successful at isolating the essence of Dundee Cake, and in 2014 the Scottish Government put in a bid with the European Union for the Dundee Cake to have protected status. I’ve been unable to find out if this bid was successful. Because I’m pernicious and have few few boundaries, I even emailed the Scottish minister who spearheaded the whole bid, but he never got back to me. Richard Lochhead, my DMs await your response. Brexit can wait.
Eating Some Old Cake
After learning about the ship-ability of this cake, it made sense to me that the recipe called for the cake to be aged a week – it was probably rare for people to eat the cake right away. It had to arrive to them! They probably gained an affection for the aged flavor, and the subtle mellowing of the dried fruits into the cake, and found it just didn’t taste quite right when it was fresh.
But would a couple of Yankees with some hot tea and forks like it?
So I made my first Dundee Cake, and let it sit for a week. Then I invited a bunch of people over, and made another cake for us to try.
Side by side, it was hard to tell the cakes apart. Once we dug into them, it was easy enough to tell which cake was the fresh and which was the elder, but not quite as I expected. The older cake wasn’t dry like I expected it to be. It had a deep fig newton-like flavor that permeated through the whole bite, unlike the fresh cake, where you could taste bites of cake, of fruit, or of almond.
Two out of 5 Yanks preferred the older cake, which was 2 more than I expected. The newer cake still had a slightly crisp, buttery crust, and a soft, almost fluffy interior. It seemed hard to compete with, but still it only won by a small majority. Not bad for old cake. Huzzah!
Full disclosure: I preferred the new cake. BUT – I also had a lot of leftover Dundee Cake in my possession for a few days after this tasting, and to be completely honest, I had quite a few night-time cake-plowing sessions over the next couple of days. I honestly found myself craving it.
With relative authority, I can say that my favorite Dundee Cake is two days old. A week is a little far, but 2 days is perfect. For me. You do you.
As I sat in my apartment, sharing slices of fruitcakes with my friends, I realized that even though this cake has been shipped all over the world for 2 centuries, it wasn’t a boat or an airplane that brought this recipe to me. It was the memory of Joan Elizabeth Pollard that did, a British lady I never met. But because of her, I was eating a delicious cake and spending quality time cooking, thinking, and smiling about cakes. I feel very grateful to Joan, and to her family for helping keep recipes and memories alive and vibrant.