Home › Supper › Centennial Cake
Centennial Cake
One cup of white sugar, butter the size of an egg, two eggs, leaving out the white of one for frosting, half a cup of corn starch, one full cup of flour, half a cup of milk or water, two teaspoonfuls of baking powder; stir corn starch in the milk, flavor with vanilla or lemon.
A small, plain one-bowl cake that leans on cornstarch to lighten a soft flour. The original gives no pan, no oven, no baking time, so those are the gaps to fill.
- Butter the size of an eggRoughly 2 ounces, or 4 tablespoons. Nineteenth-century books used the egg as a volume gauge constantly; a large hen's egg is about a quarter cup.
- Why the cornstarchHalf a cup of cornstarch to one cup of flour dilutes the gluten and gives a fine, tender crumb — the same logic as cake flour, which was not yet in every pantry. Do not substitute more flour for it or the cake turns tough.
- Stir corn starch in the milkSlurrying the cornstarch into the cold milk first disperses it evenly through the batter. Whisk until no grit remains on the bottom of the cup.
- MethodCream the butter and sugar, beat in the whole egg and the single yolk, then add the milk-and-cornstarch alternately with the flour and baking powder. The recipe names vanilla or lemon but gives no quantity: a teaspoon of vanilla, or the grated zest and a little juice of half a lemon.
- LeavenTwo teaspoons of baking powder for a cup and a half of dry ingredients is on the generous side by modern standards, though not far outside it; period powders also varied in strength. A teaspoon and a half of modern double-acting powder will do.
- Pan and ovenThe batter suits one 8-inch round or a small loaf. The original gives no oven instruction at all; bake at 350F for 25 to 30 minutes in the round, 35 to 40 in a loaf, until a skewer comes out clean.
- The frostingNo recipe is given for it. The reserved white beaten with about a cup of sifted confectioners' sugar and a few drops of lemon juice makes the plain white icing the author assumed.
- YieldA single modest layer, eight small slices.
The name almost certainly points to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, which marked a hundred years of American independence and lent its name to everything from marches to sewing patterns to cake. Cornstarch cakes of exactly this type spread through American household books in the decades after commercial cornstarch became a grocery staple in the mid-nineteenth century, sold in branded boxes with recipe leaflets that pushed it as a cake ingredient rather than just a thickener. What it is is telling: this is a small, quickly mixed cake using two eggs and butter the size of an egg, the kind of thing baked in the afternoon and cut for the evening tea table, not a rich celebration cake despite the patriotic name.