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Taylor Cake
Two and one-half cupfuls of flour, one and one-half cupfuls of sugar, one-half cupful of butter, one-half cupful of milk, one egg, one-half teaspoonful of soda, and with or without fruit. Silver Cake. Take one half coffee-cupful of butter, one and one-half cupful of sugar, two cupfuls flour, one-half cupful milk, one teaspoonful cream of tartar, onehalf teaspoonful soda and the whites of eight eggs. Gold Cake. Use the same ingredients, and proceed in the same manner, only substituting the yolks of the eggs. "Widow's Cake." -A palatable cake to be eaten as bread or rusks at tea is made with two cupfuls flour, one of meal, teaspoonful soda; one cupful molasses, two eggs, salt. Mix with warm milk. Bake in a quick oven.
Four cake formulas run together in one paragraph, in the telegraphic style of 1900 cake chapters that assumed the cook already knew the creaming method. The mixing order is left to you; the leavening is where the real information sits.
- The hinge: soda needs an acidTaylor Cake and Widow's Cake list soda with no acid partner. Taylor Cake only rises properly with sour milk or buttermilk, which is what "milk" often meant in a soda recipe of this period; with fresh sweet milk you will get a flat, faintly soapy crumb. Widow's Cake gets its acid from the molasses, so sweet milk is fine there.
- Cream of tartar and sodaThe Silver and Gold cakes use the older two-part chemical leaven: 1 tsp cream of tartar plus 1/2 tsp soda is roughly equivalent to 2 tsp modern double-acting baking powder. Sift the cream of tartar with the flour and dissolve the soda in the milk, then bake without delay, since this combination reacts on contact rather than in the oven.
- Cupfuls and coffee-cupfulsA cupful here is 8 fl oz. A "coffee-cupful" was slightly smaller in some households, but in a cake book of this date treat it as the same cup; half a cup of butter is 4 oz, one stick.
- Meal"One of meal" in Widow's Cake most likely means cornmeal rather than oatmeal or flour. Fine yellow or white cornmeal both work; coarse stone-ground gives a grittier crumb, probably nearer the original.
- Oven temperatures"A quick oven" for the Widow's Cake is roughly 400-425F. The three butter cakes are unstated; bake them in a moderate oven, 350F, which is where a creamed butter cake of this size belongs.
- Whites and yolksSilver Cake takes eight whites, beaten stiff and folded in last. Gold Cake takes eight yolks, beaten until pale and thick and added with the sugar. Eggs of this period were often smaller than today's large eggs; seven large whites (about 7 oz) or seven large yolks (about 4 oz) is likely nearer the intended volume.
- Fruit in Taylor Cake"With or without fruit" means dried fruit -- raisins, currants, chopped citron -- around a cup, tossed in a spoonful of the measured flour so it does not sink.
- Pans and yieldEach of the butter cakes fills one 8- or 9-inch round or a small loaf pan, and gives 8 to 10 slices; 30-40 minutes at 350F, tested with a skewer. Widow's Cake is a bread-textured batter and does best in a loaf or square pan, about 25-30 minutes, sliced and buttered at tea as the note suggests.
Silver and Gold cake are the classic thrift pair of the late nineteenth century: one uses the whites, the other the yolks, so a household breaking eight eggs wasted nothing. "Widow's Cake" belongs to a different tradition, the plain molasses-and-cornmeal loaf eaten as bread rather than dessert, and the name is generally taken to signal economy rather than any particular widow -- no butter, cheap sweetening, stretched with meal. Taylor Cake is one of the many cakes of the era named for a family or a contributor to a church cookbook rather than for anything in the ingredient list; the compressed, unpunctuated presentation here is typical of such compilations, which printed formulas as lists and left method entirely to the cook's experience.