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Hard-Times Cake
Half a cup of butter, two of sugar, one of sour cream, three of flour, three eggs, half tea-spoon of soda; bake in layers and spread with jelly.-Mrs. R. M. Henderson. 9
A plain butter cake leavened with soda and sour cream, written in the shorthand of a cook who already knew the method. The proportions are sound; only the oven and the cream need translating.
- The measuresThe bulk measures are cups; the eggs and soda are not: 1/2 cup (4 oz) butter, 2 cups sugar, 1 cup sour cream, 3 cups flour, 3 eggs, 1/2 teaspoon soda. Period cups varied, but were generally close enough to the modern 8-ounce cup that little adjustment is needed.
- Sour cream then and nowAt the time this would have meant unpasteurised cream left to sour naturally — generally thinner than today's cultured sour cream, and variable in acidity. Full-fat cultured sour cream works, though the batter will be stiffer; thin it with a spoonful or two of buttermilk if it will not drop from the spoon.
- Soda needs the acidThe half teaspoon of soda is the only leavening, and it depends entirely on the cream's acidity. If your sour cream is mild, add a teaspoon of baking powder as insurance rather than more soda, which would leave a soapy taste.
- FlourHousehold flour of the period was softer than modern all-purpose. Substituting cake flour, or replacing two tablespoons per cup with cornstarch, gives a texture closer to what Mrs. Henderson would have got.
- MethodCream butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, then add the sour cream with the soda stirred into it, and fold in the flour last. Work quickly once the soda is wet — the gas begins escaping immediately.
- Pans and ovenThe batter should fill about three 8-inch round layers. The original gives no oven direction; 350F for 22-28 minutes, until a tester comes out clean and the edges pull from the pan, is a reasonable modern equivalent.
- The jelly fillingSpread jelly only on cooled layers, and use a stiff one — currant, apple or crabapple. A loose jam will soak into the crumb and slide the layers apart. The recipe says nothing about how the top is finished.
- YieldOne three-layer cake, roughly 10 to 12 servings. It should keep a couple of days covered.
The name is the interesting part. Buckeye Cookery was assembled in Ohio and first published in 1877, four years into the long depression that followed the Panic of 1873. It is tempting to read the economy of the recipe in its omissions — no milk, no spices, no flavouring extracts, all of which cost cash at a store — though the recipe is in fact generous with sugar and butter, and the inference is ours rather than the book's; sour cream, at any rate, was simply what happened to cream in a farmhouse before it could be churned. Cakes leavened by the reaction of soda with soured dairy were the standard household method before commercial baking powder became cheap and reliable, and a recipe like this one \, no oven instruction, no pan size \, assumes a reader who has made a dozen of its cousins and needs only the proportions.