Quick Cake
One cup sugar, one tablespoon butter, stir them to a cream and add one well beaten egg, two-thirds cup milk, one and one-half cups flour, two teaspoons baking powder, flavor with lemon or vanilla.
A plain baking-powder cake of the kind that got made between one meal and the next. The original gives no pan, no oven and no time, so those are the gaps worth filling.
- Oven and panBake at 350F. The batter fits an 8-inch round or square pan, or a small loaf tin; 25-30 minutes for the round, closer to 40 for the loaf, until a skewer comes out clean.
- That single tablespoon of butterThis is a very lean cake by modern standards, closer to a hot-milk sponge than a butter cake. Do not expect a tender crumb that keeps; it is best the day it is baked.
- "Stir them to a cream"With one tablespoon of fat to a cup of sugar there is nothing to cream in the usual sense. Work the butter and sugar to a damp sand, then beat hard once the egg goes in so the sugar begins to dissolve.
- Baking powderTwo teaspoons to a cup and a half of flour is generous, and period powders were single-acting and varied in strength. Modern double-acting powder at 1 1/2 teaspoons will lift this batter without leaving a soapy edge.
- SaltNone is called for; the butter of the period would often have been salted. A quarter teaspoon added with the flour is worth it.
- Flavouring"Flavor with lemon or vanilla" means extract: about a teaspoon of vanilla, or half a teaspoon of lemon extract, or the grated zest of a lemon if you would rather.
- FlourHousehold flour of the period may well have been softer than modern all-purpose. Cake flour, or all-purpose with a tablespoon per cup swapped for cornstarch, gives a lighter result.
- YieldOne modest single-layer cake, six to eight small servings. Cut in squares and serve plain, or with stewed fruit as a supper sweet.
Cakes like this one belong to the era after commercial baking powder, which made it possible to put a cake on the table in under an hour without yeast, without a sponge set the night before, and without beating a dozen eggs by hand. The name says the whole point: a "quick cake" is defined by what it saves rather than what it contains, and its short ingredient list — one egg, a spoonful of butter, less than a cup of milk — suits a dish meant to use whatever was already in the house. A plain single-layer cake of this kind would suit a light evening meal of bread and butter and preserves and something sweet.