Home › Supper › Splendid Saratoga Sponge Cake
Splendid Saratoga Sponge Cake
Half a pound of flour, heaped a little, scant three-quarters of a pound of granulated sugar, eight eggs, the grated rind and juice of one lemon, two-thirds of a cup of cold water; boil the sugar and water together until it is a clear syrup, then turn it over the unbeaten eggs and beat together for ten or fifteen minutes, it will beat up very light; when ready, sift your flour twice and add ; the lemon should be put in before the flour.
This is a hot-syrup sponge: boiling sugar syrup is poured over whole unbeaten eggs, and the long beating that follows does all the leavening. There is no baking powder, no butter, and — as printed — no oven temperature and no baking time.
- The hinge: syrup temperatureThe hinge: syrup consistency -- Boil the sugar and water until the bubbles come thick and the liquid runs clear and slightly viscous. The recipe gives no stage or temperature; a syrup boiled to about the thread stage suits the method, but "a clear syrup" is all that is asked for. Under-boiled syrup leaves the batter loose and the cake dense; a syrup taken well past soft ball can stiffen on contact with the eggs.
- WeightsHalf a pound of flour, heaped a little, is about 230-250 g, or roughly 2 cups sifted. A scant three-quarters of a pound of granulated sugar is about 320 g, or roughly 1 2/3 cups. Weigh rather than measure; the ratio is what makes the cake.
- EggsEight eggs of the period run smaller than today's large. Eight large eggs (about 400 g out of shell) works, but if yours are extra-large use seven.
- Pour slowly, beat longThe original just turns the syrup over the eggs; in a modern mixer it is safer to add it in a thin stream with the machine already running, or the eggs may scramble at the edges. The ten to fifteen minutes of hand beating may take rather less in a stand mixer on high — beat until the foam is pale, tripled, and falls in a ribbon that holds a moment on the surface.
- Folding the flourSift twice as directed, then fold it in by hand in three or four additions. The whole structure is trapped air; a mixer at this stage will knock it out.
- OvenNone is given. Bake at 325F. A hotter oven sets the crust before the interior rises and the cake sinks in the middle.
- Pan and timeAn ungreased 10-inch tube pan is right for this quantity — the batter needs to grip the sides as it climbs. Expect 45 to 55 minutes, until the top springs back and a skewer comes out clean.
- CoolingInvert the pan and let the cake hang until completely cold before loosening it. A sponge this lean will collapse under its own weight if turned out warm.
- YieldAbout twelve to sixteen slices. Sponge cakes of this type were sliced thin and served plain, or with fruit and cream.
Saratoga Springs, New York, spent the second half of the nineteenth century as one of America's grandest resort towns — mineral springs, a racecourse from 1863, and vast hotels whose kitchens turned out cakes and confections that travelled home in recipe books as "Saratoga" this and that. The name here is a mark of fashion rather than a documented origin. The method, though, is a real technique with a long life: pouring boiling syrup over whole eggs and beating until cool produces a stable, fine-grained foam without butter or chemical leavening. That it appears in the supper chapter is a reminder that late-evening supper in this period meant something light — cold meats, a sponge cake, fruit — and not a second dinner.