Home › Cake-Making › Gold Part
Gold Part
Yolks of eight eggs, scant cup butter, two of sugar, four of flour, one of sour milk, tea-spoon soda, table-spoon corn starch; flavor with lemon and vanilla.
This is half of a pair: the "gold part" uses the yolks left over from a white cake made with the whites, and the two batters are baked separately, layered, or swirled together. The original assumes you know the creaming method, so the sequence is left to you.
- Method, since none is givenCream the butter and sugar, beat in the yolks, then add the flour and cornstarch alternately with the sour milk into which the soda has been stirred. Add flavoring last and get it into the pan promptly — the soda begins working the moment it meets the acid.
- Sour milkNaturally soured raw milk is not the same as spoiled pasteurized milk. Use cultured buttermilk cup for cup; it supplies the acid the soda needs.
- Soda, not baking powderThe teaspoon of soda is neutralized by the buttermilk. Adding baking powder without removing the soda can leave excess alkali, tending toward a soapy taste and a yellowish crumb.
- The cornstarchA tablespoon of cornstarch softens the crumb. The recipe lists it alongside the four cups of flour; if you prefer, replace one tablespoon of the flour with it rather than adding it on top.
- Flour measureA period cup of flour was often sifted and lightly filled, running nearer 4 oz than 5, which would put four cups here at roughly 16-17 oz; spoon and level rather than packing, or the batter will be stiff.
- OvenNo oven instruction is given. 350F suits this batter.
- Yield and pansEnough for two or three 9-inch layers, or a single tube or loaf pan. Layers take 25-30 minutes, a loaf 50-60, tested with a skewer at the center.
- Flavoring amountsNo quantity is given for the lemon and vanilla. About a teaspoon of each, or lemon extract plus the grated zest of one lemon, suits this quantity of batter.
Gold cake exists because of silver cake. Once beaten egg whites became the standard leavening trick for fine white cakes, thrifty kitchens needed somewhere to put eight yolks, and the answer was a companion batter enriched with them ernated in layers, or dropped into the same pan and cut through with a knife to make what the period called marble or ribbon cake. The pairing also marks a moment in American baking: saleratus and soda with sour milk were still doing the leavening work here.