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Orange Cake (Two cups sugar half cup butter)
Two cups sugar, half cup butter, three and a half cups sifted flour, half cup sweet milk, three eggs beaten separately, three teaspoons baking-powder mixed in flour; bake in jelly pans. For jelly take the juice and grated rind of two oranges, two table-spoons cold water, two cups sugar; set in a pot of boiling water, and, when scalding hot, stir in the yolks of two well-beaten eggs, and just before taking from the fire stir in the white of one egg slightly beaten, and when cold put between the layers of cake.
A plain butter cake baked in thin layers and sandwiched with orange curd, from the era when "jelly cake" meant any filled layer cake. The original assumes you know how to mix a butter cake, so the method below fills the gaps.
- The hinge: keep the filling below a simmerThe orange "jelly" is a curd, and it is cooked in a bowl set over boiling water for a reason. Direct heat or a true boil will scramble the yolks and leave you with sweet orange scrambled egg rather than a thick spread.
- Cook the curd properly"Scalding hot" is vague. Stir constantly until it visibly thickens and coats the spoon, about 170F, and hold it there a moment; the white stirred in at the end needs that heat too. It will thicken further as it cools.
- Jelly pansThese are shallow round tins, 8 to 9 inches across with sides about an inch high. Three or four of them, or bake in batches; the batter should go in no deeper than half an inch to three-quarters.
- Oven350F. Thin layers bake fast, 12 to 18 minutes, and are done when the top springs back and the edges just pull from the tin.
- Sweet milkOrdinary fresh whole milk. The term distinguished it from sour milk or buttermilk, which were used with saleratus rather than baking powder.
- Mixing methodCream the butter and sugar, beat in the yolks, add the flour sifted with the baking powder alternately with the milk, then fold in the stiffly beaten whites last. That is what "three eggs beaten separately" is telling you to do.
- A stiff batterThree and a half cups of flour to half a cup of milk gives a very thick batter by modern standards. Measure the flour by spooning it in and levelling, roughly 4 oz per cup, or the cake will bake dry.
- YieldThree or four thin layers, serving 10 to 12. Two cups of sugar with the juice and the eggs makes a generous quantity of curd, more than enough for the layers; it keeps a few days refrigerated and is not shelf-stable.
- Zest before juicingGrate the rind first, taking only the coloured outer layer. The white pith underneath is bitter and there is a lot of sugar here already to balance.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping (1877), compiled by Estelle Woods Wilcox from contributions by Ohio housewives, appeared just as two things converged in the American kitchen: reliable commercial baking powder and cheap stamped tinware. Both are often credited with helping the layer cake become a domestic staple, and the book's cake recipes are full of the results, with fillings of jam, boiled icing, nuts and coconut. "Jelly" in these pages means whatever goes between the layers rather than a fruit preserve specifically, which is why an egg-thickened orange curd is called one here. Oranges themselves were still a modest luxury in the inland Midwest, arriving by rail and associated with winter holidays.