Light Spots
Whites of three eggs, one-half cup butter, one-half cup sugar one-half cup milk, two cups flour, one-half a teaspoon of soda one teaspoonful of cream tartar.
A supper-table formula of the sort written for cooks who already knew what to do with it: ingredients only, no method, no oven, no yield. The proportions place it as a stiff white drop batter, baked in small spots or gem pans.
- No method is givenWork it the way the ingredients imply: cream the butter and sugar, add the milk alternately with the flour sifted with the cream of tartar and soda, then fold in the whites beaten stiff. The whites are the only lift beyond the chemical leavening, so fold rather than stir.
- Soda and cream of tartar are baking powderOne-half teaspoon soda to one teaspoon cream of tartar is the standard home-mixed proportion of the period. Two teaspoons of modern double-acting baking powder does the same work if you would rather not keep cream of tartar; sift it with the flour either way.
- The batter must go in fastCream of tartar is a fast-acting acid and starts reacting the moment it meets the milk. Have the pans ready and the oven hot before the wet and dry meet, or the rise is spent on the counter.
- OvenNothing is specified. Small cakes of this composition are likely to want a fairly hot oven, in the region of 375-400F, for 12-15 minutes, until set and barely coloured.
- Cup measuresCups of this period run close to the modern 8 fl oz, but flour was generally scooped and lightly levelled rather than packed. Two cups by weight is roughly 8-9 oz; err on the light side.
- Salt and flavourButter of the period was commonly salted, which may be why no salt appears. With unsalted butter add a scant half teaspoon. A little vanilla, lemon or rose would not be out of keeping with white cakes of this kind.
- YieldPerhaps two dozen small cakes, depending on how large they are dropped. Cakes of this kind are best eaten fresh.
"Light spots" is a homely name for what the period would otherwise call small white cakes or drop cakes; reading it as small spots of batter, baked light, is a plausible guess rather than a documented derivation. The recipe belongs to the large family of white cakes built on egg whites alone, a family that commonly sat alongside recipes using up the yolks in custards, boiled dressings or gold cake; thrift and colour were both motives, and the pale crumb was prized. The soda-and-cream-of-tartar pairing suggests a formula from the long stretch when commercial baking powders were on the market but some cooks still mixed their own leavening at home.