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White Part (Whites of four eggs one cupful)
Whites of four eggs, one cupful sugar, two tablespoonfuls butter, half a cupful milk, one and one-half cupfuls flour, and one teaspoonful of baking powder. Flavor with pineapple.
This is one half of a two-part cake — the pale batter meant to be paired with a spiced or chocolate "dark part" in a marble or ribbon loaf. The original assumes you already know the creaming method, so the technique has to be filled in.
- Whites folded, not stirred inThe only leavening beyond the teaspoon of baking powder is air. Cream the butter and sugar, add milk and flour alternately, then fold in whites beaten to soft peaks last, with as few strokes as will incorporate them. Beating them into the batter collapses the structure and gives a dense, rubbery crumb.
- Butter quantity is not a misprintButter quantity is probably not a misprint -- two tablespoons for a cupful of sugar and a cup and a half of flour makes a lean batter, and low-fat proportions are not unusual in cake recipes of this period. Expect it to bake drier and firmer than a modern butter cake.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given at all. Around 350F works for a batter of this size; period sources describe such heats loosely as a 'moderate' oven, but the term does not appear in this recipe.
- Pan and timingThe quantity fills one 8-inch round or a small loaf. Figure 25 to 30 minutes for a round layer, 35 to 45 for a loaf, testing with a straw or skewer at the center.
- Pineapple flavoringMost likely a bottled pineapple extract or essence, which was commercially available at the time. No form or quantity is specified; a small amount, on the order of a teaspoon, is a reasonable modern reading. Crushed fruit or juice would add liquid the formula does not account for.
- Baking powderPeriod baking powders were single-acting and began working the moment they met liquid, so recipes like this expected the pan to go straight into the oven. Modern double-acting powder is more forgiving, but the habit is still the right one.
- The other halfA 'white part' is commonly printed alongside a 'dark part', often using the leftover yolks with molasses, spice or chocolate, though this page does not reproduce it. If you are making only this one, keep the yolks for custard rather than discarding them.
- YieldOne modest layer or small loaf, about eight servings, or half of a marbled cake if paired as intended.
Two-batter cakes — marble, ribbon, harlequin — were a fixture of American cookbooks and supper tables through the second half of the nineteenth century, and the pale and dark formulas were often printed as a matched pair: whites, sugar and white flour for one; yolks, molasses, spice or chocolate for the other. Separating eggs for whipped whites did leave yolks to be used up, which such pairings conveniently absorbed, though that is an observation rather than a documented origin. Baked in alternating spoonfuls or in stacked layers, the two produced a striped or mottled slice. Bottled fruit essences, pineapple among them, were cheap and shelf-stable and were widely advertised around the turn of the century.