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Lemon Cake (One and one-half cupfuls sugar)
One and one-half cupfuls sugar, one cup of butter, two and one-half cups of flour, five eggs, beaten separately, four teaspoonfuls sweet milk, one teaspoonful cream tartar, and one-half teaspoon of soda.
A butter-and-egg cake in the pound cake tradition, leavened with cream of tartar and soda rather than baking powder. The original gives no oven, no pan and, oddly, no lemon.
- The missing lemonNothing in the ingredient list accounts for the name; either the flavouring was dropped in printing or it was assumed. Comparable period recipes flavour with grated lemon rind, lemon juice or lemon extract. Without any of them you have a plain cup cake, so add rind and juice if you want the cake the title promises.
- Cream of tartar and sodaOne teaspoon cream of tartar to half a teaspoon soda is the classic homemade baking powder ratio, and it is roughly equivalent to two teaspoons of modern double-acting baking powder. Sift both thoroughly through the flour; the acid and alkali begin reacting as soon as liquid touches them, so get the batter into the pan promptly.
- Four teaspoonfuls of milkA very small quantity, and possibly a misprint for tablespoonfuls, though it can stand as written: with five eggs and a cup of butter the batter carries plenty of liquid and the milk is only there to loosen it. Do not pour in a cupful.
- Eggs beaten separatelyThe recipe gives no method beyond this phrase. The usual reconstruction is to beat the yolks into the creamed butter and sugar and fold the whipped whites in last, alternately with the flour. Fold rather than stir, so as not to lose the aeration.
- MeasuresA cup of butter is 8 oz, two sticks. The flour is unsifted-cup ambiguous in books of this period; weigh 2 1/2 cups at about 10-11 oz and expect a stiff, thick batter rather than a pourable one.
- OvenNo temperature is given, as is usual in receipt books of this kind. Bake at 350F. A loaf or 9-inch tube takes 50-60 minutes, two 8-inch layers about 30; test with a skewer at the centre.
- YieldOne good-sized loaf or tube cake, twelve to sixteen slices. It keeps well wrapped for several days and improves on the second day.
Cakes like this sit at the point where the English pound cake, equal weights of butter, sugar, flour and eggs, was being lightened by American chemical leavening. Cream of tartar and saleratus or soda were sold separately in the nineteenth century and combined by the cook; commercial baking powder only gradually displaced the pairing, and recipes carried the older formula for decades after. Lemon was one of the standard flavourings for a plain white or yellow cake, alongside others in common use at the time.