CORN-MEAL CAKE

A plain corn-meal cake in the 1877 shorthand style: ingredients only, no pan, no oven, no time. The proportions are sound, but you supply the method.

• Method impliedCream the butter and sugar, beat in the yolks, then add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, and fold in the stiffly beaten whites last. "Three eggs beaten separately" is the instruction that matters — the whites are the only lift beyond the chemical leavening, and folding rather than stirring keeps a corn-meal batter from turning dense.
• Cream of tartar and sodaTwo teaspoons cream of tartar to one of soda is the period pairing that stood in for baking powder, and it works out to roughly four teaspoons of modern baking powder in strength. Sift them with the flour and get the batter into the pan promptly; this is a single-acting combination that begins reacting as soon as the batter is wet.
• Sweet milkSimply fresh, unsoured milk, specified because sour milk or buttermilk was equally common in the kitchen and would have called for soda alone. Whole milk is closest to what was meant.
• Corn mealNineteenth-century meal was stone-ground and comparatively coarse. A medium-grind yellow cornmeal gives the right texture; fine degerminated supermarket meal makes a softer, more cake-like crumb, which is not wrong but is not what the book expected.
• SaltNone is listed, and the butter of the period was often salted. Add half a teaspoon if using unsalted butter, or the cake will taste flat.
• Pan and ovenThe batter runs to roughly two quarts. A 9-by-13-inch pan, well greased, in a moderate oven — 350°F — for 35 to 45 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Two 9-inch round pans will take closer to 30 minutes.
• Yield and servingTwelve to sixteen squares. It is a sweet tea-cake rather than a cornbread for dinner; it eats best warm with butter, and it stales quickly, as corn-meal batters do.