Preheat oven to 250° F. Grease and flour a deep cake or tube pan.
Cream together butter and sugar.
Beat eggs, stir in milk, extract and molasses (treacle) and add to the butter mixture.
Dust the currants lightly with a little of the flour. Chop the lemon and orange peels. Fold the peel into butter mixture.
Grate or process the almonds and mix the meal created into the flour with the baking powder. Mix the currants into the flour using your fingers, crumbling them to separate. Then add the flour mixture into the other mixture and beat all well.
Bake in a greased pan in a very slow oven about 1 to 1 ½ hours.
When cool, sprinkle cake with ½ c. brandy. Wrap cake and store in an airtight tin for several weeks before serving. The newspaper clipping does not include this, but was published during prohibition, and the cake is definately better for it, and was almost certainly treated that way originally.
The original recipe called for 1 oz sweet almonds and 2 oz bitter almonds and did not include almond extract, however bitter almonds are not legal in US.
"Mrs. George is one of the noted "good cooks" of modern England. This is her prize recipe." Mrs. J.E. Rich, Boston, old newspaper clipping