Loaf Cake
One and one-half cups sugar, three-quarters of a cup of butter, one cup of milk, three cups of flour, three teaspoons baking powder, two well beaten eggs, one wine glass of wine or brandy, half a nutmeg, one cup of chopped raisins.
This is an ingredient list with the method left to the cook's judgment, which was normal for a supper cake in a household book. Treat it as a standard creamed butter cake and the proportions work out cleanly.
- The missing methodCream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, then add the flour sifted with the baking powder alternately with the milk and wine. Fold in the raisins and nutmeg last. Overworking the batter after the flour goes in is what turns this cake tough.
- One wine glassA wine glass in nineteenth-century American receipts is a standard measure of about 2 fluid ounces, or 4 tablespoons — not a modern goblet. Sherry, Madeira or brandy all suit the raisins and nutmeg.
- Half a nutmegA whole nutmeg grates to roughly 2 to 3 teaspoons, so half gives about a teaspoon. Grate it fresh; pre-ground nutmeg at that quantity tastes dusty rather than warm.
- Flour and butter, by weightThree cups of flour is about 13 oz (375 g) and three-quarters of a cup of butter is 6 oz (170 g), or one and a half sticks. Period flours were often softer and lower in protein than modern all-purpose, though this varied by mill and region; if the crumb comes out tight, swap a half cup of the flour for cake flour.
- OvenBake at 350F. A loaf of this size takes 50 to 65 minutes; test with a skewer in the centre, as the raisins hold moisture and can read as underdone batter.
- Pan and yieldThe batter fills one 9x5 inch loaf pan generously, or two smaller ones. Grease and flour, or line with parchment — the sugar and raisins make the sides catch.
- The raisinsChop them as directed rather than leaving them whole, and toss them in a spoonful of the measured flour so they suspend instead of sinking to the bottom.
- Baking powderThree teaspoons works out to a teaspoon per cup of flour, which is the usual modern proportion for a cake with no other leavening. Check that yours is fresh; old powder gives a heavy, damp loaf here.
"Loaf cake" is one of the older cake names in American cookery, and in early receipts it commonly meant a cake raised with yeast and baked in a loaf — a relative of the enriched sweet breads of English tradition. Once chemical leavening was widely available in the later nineteenth century, the name drifted toward any plain fruited cake baked in a loaf shape, which is what this receipt is. It reads as a keeping cake of the plainer sort rather than a company dessert, with the wine and nutmeg doing the work that a frosting would do on something fancier.