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Rice Cake
Take about four ounces of rice flour, sift three ounces of wheat flour into it, add eight ounces of granulated sugar, the rind of a lemon grated fine, six eggs, using all the yolks, and but half the whites. Beat the whole together for about twenty minutes, and bake about three-quarters of an hour.
A lean sponge in the old English manner: no butter, no chemical leavening, nothing but eggs beaten long enough to hold the whole thing up. Everything depends on the beating.
- The hinge: air is the only leaveningThere is no baking powder here, so the twenty minutes of beating is not padding — it is the entire structure. Beat the eggs and sugar in a stand mixer on high for 8-10 minutes, until the mixture falls from the whisk in a thick ribbon that sits on the surface for several seconds, then sift and fold in the flours by hand in three additions.
- Ounces are weight, not volumeFour ounces rice flour is about 115 g, three ounces wheat flour about 85 g, eight ounces sugar about 225 g. Use a scale; measured by cup these come out badly wrong.
- Which rice flourPeriod recipes mean finely ground plain white rice flour, sometimes sold as "ground rice." Do not substitute sweet or glutinous rice flour, which is a different starch and will bake gummy.
- The eggsSix yolks and three whites. The extra yolks make it rich and close-grained rather than airy like a modern angel cake; beat yolks and sugar first, then whip the three whites separately to soft peaks and fold them in for a lighter crumb.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A cake of this type wants a moderate oven, 325-350F (165-175C). Higher and the top sets and cracks before the middle has risen.
- Pan and timeThree-quarters of an hour suits a deep 8-inch round or a loaf-shaped tin, buttered and lined. Start checking at 35-40 minutes: the cake should be springy at the centre and a skewer should come out clean.
- The lemonGrate only the yellow zest, and rub it into the sugar with your fingers before beating. That releases the oils and carries the flavour far better than adding the rind to the batter whole.
- Yield and servingAbout ten to twelve slices. With no butter in it, the crumb is on the dry side, and it takes well to tea, fruit, cream, or a glass of wine.
Rice cakes of this kind run through English and American cookery from the eighteenth century onward, when "ground rice" was a common pantry staple used for puddings, thickening and baking. Rice flour has no gluten, so cutting wheat flour with it gave a short, sandy, close crumb that cooks prized as delicate. Recipes leavened only by long beating were common before chemical raising agents became reliable and cheap in household kitchens, and twenty minutes of beating by hand was substantial work.