John Nott’s 1723 Recipe for ‘Apricock Cakes’

“Take two Pound of the ripest Apricocks, scald, Peel and Stone them, mash them to pieces ; then take a Pound of double refin’d Sugar and two Spoonfuls of Water, and boil it to a Candy ; then put in the Pulp of your Apricocks, and set it on the Fire for a quarter of an Hour, and let it boil a little, stirring it well ; then pour it into shallow flat Glasses, that it may turn out the more easily ; let it stand in them for two Days, then take them out, lay them on Glass Plates and stove them, turning them every Day.”

John Nott, The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary; Or, The Accomplish’d Housewifes Companion 1st edtn (1723)

Apricocks, which are of course known today as apricots, are a delicious fruit when fully ripe, but also not a long-lasting one; they bruise rather easily and don’t store fresh for more than a few days, outside of the fridge at least. How then to make best use of a glut of apricots? The recipe above, by one Mr John Nott, “Cook to his Grace the Duke of Bolton”, could be of service. But as usual for recipes of this era, it might require a little translation to adapt it to the modern-day kitchen. Let’s give that a go.

Firstly though, we’re given an actual amount of fruit to use: two pounds thereof. That’s a bonus; much better than “some”, or “enough”, which is the usual sort of measure we find in eighteenth century recipes. So: peel them, fine. Take out the stones, no problem. Mash them, easy as. What’s next?

“Double refin’d sugar”, back in the eighteenth century, was some of 0the good stuff, the top-grade being triple refined¹As per ‘How England became the ‘sweetshop of Europe‘ by Mimi Goodall, on the Oxford University Faculty of History website. so I’d say standard white sugar would be the equivalent today, or maybe white caster sugar? Boil up a pound of it with two spoonfuls – let’s say tablespoonfuls? I’m happy to stand corrected if not – of water “to a Candy”, which is the point where it would form into a hard, crystalline mass on cooling. What do they call it, “hard crack”? Something like that.

Next: add the apricot pulp to the sugar and heat for a quarter of an hour, letting the mixture “boil a little”, which suggests a rolling simmer to me, rather than a full boil. Then pour the mixture into “shallow flat glasses”, so that once it has set it can be removed again more easily, and after a couple of days, tip the cakes out, lay them a glass plate and “stove them”. Which I’m guessing means to put them in, or near the stove – or possibly on a shelf above the stove? – so that they would dry in a gentle heat, which would allow them to store longer. These days we’d probably use a very low oven, or potentially a dehydrator, instead.

In conclusion then: this sounds to me like a recipe for a hard candy, rather than a cake in the flour-and-eggs sense? Unless the addition of the fruit pulp would results in something with a fruit leather consistency? Given the likely size of the finished “cakes”, unless the “glasses” used are quite small, it sounds like quite a mouthful of hard candy to me. But in any case, it does sound like an interesting way to turn a couple of pounds of apricots into a sweet treat that would last the rest of the year, and offer something to look forward to in the dark days of winter.

What do you reckon? Are you tempted to try a batch of “apricock cakes”? Or do you have an alternate use for your apricot glut? Do please let me know, via the comments.

Footnotes

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  As per ‘How England became the ‘sweetshop of Europe‘ by Mimi Goodall, on the Oxford University Faculty of History website. ↩︎