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Corn-Meal Cake
Mix together a pint of Indian meal, a tea-cupful of sour cream, the same quantity of fresh milk, half a cupful of treacle, one egg, a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda, half a tea-spoonful of salt, and as much cinnamon, nutmeg, or other spice as may be required to flavour the cake. Butter a tin, pour the mixture into it, and bake it in a moderate oven for from one hour to one hour and a half. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient for a good-sized cake.
A plain cornmeal batter bread leavened with soda against sour cream and treacle. The measures are Victorian and the baking time assumes a much less reliable oven than yours.
- Indian mealThis is cornmeal. In British books of this period it was usually a yellow maize meal, and probably coarser than the fine, degerminated cornmeal sold today; a medium grind suits the texture the recipe seems to expect, while fine meal makes a denser, pastier cake.
- The pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so a pint of meal is about 2 1/2 US cups, roughly 12 oz by weight. There is no wheat flour at all, so the finished cake is crumbly and closer to a cornbread than to a sponge.
- Tea-cupfulVictorian teacups are variously reckoned at about 5 to 6 fl oz, so roughly three-quarters of a US cup. Two of them, cream and milk, plus the treacle and egg against 2 1/2 cups of meal gives a fairly loose batter; the meal will swell as it stands, so add a little more milk only if it will not level in the tin.
- TreacleBritish treacle here means dark treacle or black treacle, closest to American full-flavour or dark molasses. Do not use blackstrap, which is harsher and more bitter than anything intended. Golden syrup is not a substitute; it lacks the acidity.
- Carbonate of sodaBaking soda. It is the only leavening, and it works by reacting with the acid in the sour cream and the treacle, which is why both are in the list. Modern cultured sour cream is acidic enough; with sweet cream instead you lose most of that acid and the cake will rise poorly.
- Sour creamAt the time this meant raw cream left to sour naturally, thinner and sharper than the thick cultured product sold now. Cultured sour cream works, thinned with a spoonful of milk; well-shaken buttermilk will also serve, though it is leaner.
- A moderate ovenAround 340-350F, 170-175C. Butter a tin of about 8 inches square, or a 2 lb loaf tin.
- The baking timeOne to one and a half hours reflects a coal range with unsteady heat. In a modern oven at 350F this batter is generally done in 40 to 55 minutes; test with a skewer at 40 minutes and take it out clean rather than waiting out the stated hour.
- YieldOne cake, eight to ten squares. It is best warm on the day it is baked, as an all-cornmeal crumb dries quickly.
Cassell's calls it Corn-Meal Cake and the meal Indian meal, both of which suggest the recipe crossed the Atlantic: maize was a New World grain, called Indian corn in England to distinguish it from wheat. The method, soda woken up by sour cream and treacle, is the standard American quick-bread chemistry of the middle nineteenth century, which is often said to have arrived in Britain with the emigrant cookbooks and the cheap grain imports of the 1870s and after. The stated cost of one shilling for a good-sized cake places it firmly among the economical entries; treacle was the working household's sweetener, and cornmeal was cheaper by weight than wheat flour. This is a plainly nourishing bake, meant for tea or breakfast, not for the dessert table.