Mistakes I Made Trying to Recreate Grandma's Dundee Cake from Memory

Last Sunday, I stood for a long time staring down at the blackened cake sitting on the kitchen counter. It had been about ten minutes since I'd taken it out of the oven. The almonds arranged in a ring across the top had turned almost to charcoal, and the centre had sunk slightly. If my grandmother had seen it, she probably would have sighed, then laughed. "You're always too impatient," she would have said.

My grandmother's Dundee cake was my entire childhood, really. Christmas, Easter, whenever someone was ill, that cake would appear. The smell that filled the kitchen of her house in the west of Glasgow, that rich, heavy fragrance of orange peel and raisins mingled together. It's been more than three years since she passed away, and the recipe was never written down. My mistake was thinking I could bring that flavour back from nothing but the fragments left in my memory.

The flour was wrong from the start

I wasn't sure whether the flour my grandmother used was plain flour or self-raising. Most Dundee cake recipes call for plain flour with baking powder added separately. But I clung to the faint memory that I'd never seen Grandma take out baking powder separately, and used self-raising flour as it was. The result was a disaster. The cake rose too much and then collapsed as it cooled, and that dense, close-knit texture was nowhere to be found. A Dundee cake is not a light, fluffy sponge. The cut surface should be dense yet moist. Next time I'll use plain flour with only a very small amount of baking powder. Half a teaspoon should be enough.

Memory of spices is not to be trusted

There was definitely a warm fragrance in my grandmother's cake. I remembered it as a combination of cinnamon and nutmeg. So I added a teaspoon of cinnamon and half a teaspoon of nutmeg, but one bite told me it was an entirely different cake. Too sharp, almost. The piercing cinnamon overwhelmed every bit of the fruit's flavour. Looking back, the fragrance of my grandmother's cake was far more subtle. I think she used just a tiny amount of mixed spice, perhaps only half a teaspoon. She hadn't loaded it with spices. The fruit itself was the star. What I had remembered wasn't the taste but the feeling of warmth, and my mistake was trying to convert that feeling into a quantity of spice.

I skipped soaking the fruit overnight

This was probably the biggest mistake. My grandmother would soak the raisins, glacé cherries, and orange peel in tea the night before. I didn't forget that step. I honestly just couldn't be bothered and skipped it. I told myself, "They'll absorb moisture in the oven anyway." The fruit sat hard and embedded in the batter, with an odd texture when you bit into it. On top of that, the unsoaked dried fruit drew moisture out of the batter, leaving the whole cake dry and crumbly. Next time I'll soak them in tea for at least eight hours. My grandmother always used a strong black tea like Assam, and I only now understand that the tannins in the tea add depth to the fruit.

I put the almonds on too early

The hallmark of a Dundee cake is the whole almonds arranged in concentric circles on top. I placed the almonds on as soon as I'd put the batter in the tin and slid it straight into the oven. I only properly recalled what my grandmother used to do after I had already scraped off the burnt almonds. She would put the cake in the oven and take it out after about an hour, and only then arrange the almonds on top. That way, the almonds don't burn and come out just lightly golden. I had baked the almonds for a full two hours, so of course they turned black.

And one more thing. Before placing the almonds, my grandmother would lightly brush the top of the cake with milk. It was partly to help the almonds stick, but it also gave the surface a gentle sheen. I learned this time just how much that one small gesture changes the finished appearance.

After all these mistakes, what weighed on me most wasn't the taste. I regret never having properly asked my grandmother for her recipe, having stood beside her in that kitchen holding a measuring cup but never once writing down exactly what went in and how much. At the time, I assumed that cake would exist forever.

I cut a slice of the burnt cake and ate it with black tea. I pulled off the charred almonds, avoided the dry fruit, and ate just the crumb on its own, and very faintly, truly faintly, a Sunday afternoon in my grandmother's kitchen passed through me. I'll bake it again next weekend. This time I'll buy plain flour, soak the fruit the night before, and wait patiently before placing the almonds.