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Jelly Cake (Half a cup of butter one cup)
Half a cup of butter, one cup of sugar, half a cup of milk, two and one-half cups flour, two eggs; stir a small teaspoonful cream tartar into the flour and half a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of hot water, then put it in the milk; bake in a hot oven in a gingerbread pan; place a clean towel upon the table and turn the cake on it; when cool cut the cake in squares, then split them open evenly with a sharp knife, spread jelly upon the under one, then place on the top half and frost with boiled frosting, made according to directions in the book for boiled frosting.
A plain butter cake baked as one shallow sheet, then cut, split and filled — the economical cousin of a stacked jelly cake. The instructions assume you know the creaming method and own a companion recipe for boiled frosting.
- Assemble it in the usual orderThe recipe lists ingredients rather than method: cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, then add the flour (with the cream of tartar sifted through it) alternately with the milk holding the dissolved soda. Mix only until the flour disappears.
- Cream of tartar and sodaThis is homemade baking powder, from the years when the commercial product was distrusted or dear. A scant teaspoon of cream of tartar with half a teaspoon of soda is on the light side for 2½ cups of flour; if you would rather not measure two powders, 2 teaspoons of baking powder in the flour and milk instead of water gives a comparable lift.
- "A gingerbread pan"A shallow rectangular tin; a modern 9x13-inch pan is a reasonable stand-in, though the period term covers a range of sizes. The batter is stiff rather than pourable — spread it level with an offset spatula or it will bake unevenly.
- "A hot oven"400–425°F in period terms, but a thin butter cake in a large pan colours fast. 375°F for 20–25 minutes is the safer reading; test with a skewer at 20.
- Turning out on a towelNot decoration — the cloth absorbs steam so the crust does not go soggy against a plate, and the cake releases cleanly from a tin with no removable base. Let it cool fully before cutting, or the squares will tear when split.
- Splitting and fillingCut into squares first, then split each one horizontally with a long serrated knife. Use a firm jelly rather than a loose jam; the top half slides off anything runny once the frosting weighs it down.
- Boiled frostingThe companion recipe is not reproduced here; the standard period method is a sugar syrup boiled to about the soft-ball stage (a little under 240F) beaten into stiff egg whites. It sets with a crisp shell and a soft interior, and it is best used at once — it stiffens in the bowl quickly.
- YieldBaked in a pan of about 9x13 inches, roughly twelve to sixteen filled squares, depending on how generously you cut.
Jelly cake was one of the workhorses of the American tea table in the second half of the nineteenth century: a plain butter cake, split or baked in thin layers, held together with whatever preserve the household had put up that summer. Printed versions often call for round layers stacked three or four high; this one takes the thriftier route of a single gingerbread-pan sheet cut into individual squares — food for the evening table, cut small and eaten out of hand. The cream of tartar and soda are the tell of the period. Chemical leavening in the home kitchen ran through pearlash and saleratus before it settled into the two bought separately and combined by the cook, and recipes went on specifying them that way well after packaged baking powder was widely available, partly from habit and partly from long-running public suspicion about what the commercial tins actually contained.