Fuller's Walnut Cake

When I was eight or nine, my great-aunt Ada used to have a tradition. If her friend Sophie Gill came to tea, then she would go into town and buy Fuller's Walnut Cake and serve it, along with the requisite Fresh Pot of Tea.

I still remember that cake - it had TWO icings: one soft, inner icing, and one crunchy outer layer that was the color of café au lait. The cake itself was incredibly moist and filled with crushed walnuts, and the entire thing was crowned with walnut halves in a circle.

I'm not the only one who remembers that cake. A few years ago I researched it, hoping to find a source or at least a recipe. Horrors, Fullers had gone out of business, taking their cakes with them (there was also a wonderful chocolate version, crowned with chocolate "buttons.")

My research brought me to blogs mourning the lack of Fuller's Walnut Cake and yearning for a bite or a recipe. I searched again and again, on different search engines and all types of social media, but "not a sausage," to quote another disappointed blogger.

A few months ago, my virtual expedition discovered buried treasure. It is with great pride that I present to you the recipe for Fuller's Walnut Cake. And if anyone has the recipe for the chocolate version, please let me know posthaste.

Fuller's Walnut Cake

Cake
• 200g (7 oz) plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 200g (7 oz) unsalted butter
• 200g (7 oz) caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 55g (2oz) chopped walnuts

Butter cream
• 85g (3oz) unsalted butter
• 110g (4oz) icing sugar
• Vanilla extract to taste

Boiled icing
• 225g (8 oz) caster sugar
• Pinch of cream of tartar
• 1 egg white
• Vanilla extract to taste

Decoration
• 7 walnut halves

3 6” cake tins 2” deep

Line Pans with buttered greaseproof paper

Sift the flour and baking powder. Cream butter and sugar until light and beat in eggs one at a time. Fold in the flour and baking powder mixture followed by the chopped walnuts.

Divide the mixture between the three tins and bake at 160° C/ 325 F, Gas Mark 3 for 30-40 minutes. Rest for 5-10 minutes and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
Beat butter until light and then beat in the icing sugar. Add vanilla essence to taste.
Trim the tops of the cakes and sandwich together with the butter icing. Smooth the remainder over the outside of the cake.

Prepare the boiled icing, dissolve the sugar and 4 tbps of water over a low heat. Dissolve the cream of tartar in a teaspoon of water and add to the sugar mixture. Boil until soft ball stage is reached (240° F).
While the syrup is boiling whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks. Once the syrup has reached softball pour the syrup into the egg whites in a thin stream while continue to whisk. Continue whisking until the meringue is thick, opaque and stiff.. Add vanilla essence and pour the icing over the cake. Smooth with a wet knife and decorate with 7 walnut halves (six on the outside and one in the middle).
Leave for a couple of hours for the icing to form a crust.

(This recipe was originally published in The London Times by Shona Crawford Poole as a different version: The Times,Wednesday, Oct 05, 1983; pg. 13; Issue 61655; col C . However, it was tweaked by a forum writer known as 'broadway', found here. That recipe was the closest to the Walnut cake I knew and loved as a girl, so I used it.)