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Sand Cake
Take half a pound of butter and stir it to a cream, then add the yolks of twelve eggs and the peel of half a lemon, grated. Add to this preparation by degrees a quarter of a pound of fine flour, a quarter of a pound of potato-flour, and half a pound of sifted sugar. When these ingredients are thoroughly incorporated add the whites of the eggs whipped to a snow. Stir well, and bake in a moderate oven. The sand cake will be made considerably richer by adding half a wine-glassful of rum or brandy and the whole of a grated lemon-peel.
A Continental butter cake built on potato starch, which is what gives it the dry, fine crumb the name refers to. The original gives no tin size, temperature or time, so the notes below fill those gaps.
- Potato-flourThis is potato starch, sold as such in supermarkets and Asian and Eastern European groceries. It is not the same as modern potato flour made from cooked dried potato, which is heavier and absorbs far more liquid; using it will give a dense, gluey cake.
- A moderate oven350F (175C), or 325F (165C) in a fan oven. In a loaf or ring tin the cake will take roughly 50 to 65 minutes; test with a skewer at the deepest point.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe recipe says "stir well" after the whites go in, which is 19th-century shorthand. Twelve whites whipped to a snow are the only lift this cake has, so fold them in in three additions with a light hand or the batter collapses and bakes dense.
- Twelve eggsVictorian eggs are generally reckoned to have run somewhat smaller than today's, so 9 to 10 large eggs may come closer to the intended quantity. Better still, weigh the yolks and whites rather than relying on a fixed count.
- Half a wine-glassfulA wine-glass in this period is reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so half is roughly 1 fl oz (2 tablespoons) of rum or brandy. Add it to the creamed butter and yolks, before the flours.
- Creaming the butterHalf a pound (225 g) of butter needs to be genuinely soft and beaten pale before the yolks go in; the sugar here is added later with the flours, so the aeration has to come from butter and eggs alone.
- Tin and yieldThe batter suits a large ring or bundt tin, well buttered and dusted with potato starch; check that the tin holds the full quantity before filling. It gives roughly 16 to 20 slices.
- KeepingStarch-heavy cakes of this type can taste dry on the day they are baked and are often better after a day or two wrapped closely. It is usually served plain in thin slices, with nothing more than a dusting of sugar.
Sand cake is the English rendering of the German Sandtorte or Sandkuchen, a household cake of the German-speaking lands whose name is generally traced to its texture: potato starch cuts the gluten in the wheat flour, so the crumb breaks short and fine, like damp sand, rather than pulling in strands. Potato starch turns up repeatedly in period baking wherever a delicate, dry crumb was wanted. The optional rum and extra lemon peel in the last sentence are often said to be the usual German flavouring for the cake, offered here as an enrichment rather than the default.