Medium-heavy soda-raised white wheatflour cake with dried fruit, sweet spices and a small admixture of, usually cider, vinegar. It is said to have remarkable keeping qualities.

Original Receipt by Mabel Quiller-Couch from the 'Royal Cornwall Gazette' - Thursday 08 March 1894

A delicious cake for birthdays, or afternoon teas, is what we call a "vinegar cake"; it is rich and good, and not costly. A teacupful of flour, a teacupful of moist sugar, a teacupful of currants, ΒΌ lb of butter turned to cream, 1 oz. of citron or candied lemon, 2 eggs well beaten, a tablespoonful of vinegar, and a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda - to be well beaten together, and put in the oven immediately. An hour will bake it.