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Snow Cake
Beat four ounces of fresh butter to cream; then add gradually four ounces of powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, half a pound of arrowroot, and any flavouring that may be liked--lemon, almond, or vanilla. Whisk the whites of three eggs to snow, stir them into the mixture, and beat it again till it is light and white. Butter a shallow mould or tin with raised edges, pour in the batter, and bake in a gentle oven. It should not be allowed to acquire any colour. When done enough, let it cool a little, then with a sharp knife divide it into pieces about two inches square. Keep in a cool, dry place. Time to bake, about an hour and a quarter. Probable cost, varying with the quality of the arrowroot. Sufficient for a small cake.
An arrowroot cake with no flour and no chemical leavening — the whipped whites and thoroughly creamed butter are the only lift it gets. Everything depends on baking it dry and pale rather than browned.
- Oven temperatureA "gentle oven" is usually taken to mean somewhere around 300F. The instruction that it should take no colour is the hinge of the recipe: much hotter and the edges will brown.
- Weights and volumes4 oz butter is one US stick. "Powdered sugar" in a book of this date usually means finely ground granulated (caster) sugar rather than modern confectioners' sugar: 4 oz is about 1/2 cup of caster, or about 1 cup if you use sifted icing sugar. Half a pound of arrowroot is 8 oz, about 1 3/4 cups. Arrowroot is very light, so weigh it if you can — measuring it by cup easily adds an ounce or more.
- Flavouring quantityThe original leaves it open. Half a teaspoon of vanilla or almond extract, or the finely grated zest of one lemon, suits this amount of batter. Almond extract was often bitter-almond based in the period and much stronger than modern bottled extract.
- Creaming and foldingBeat the butter and sugar until genuinely pale and aerated — several minutes with a mixer — since there is no baking powder. Fold the whisked whites in gently at the end; the direction to "beat it again" reflects a stiffer arrowroot paste than most modern cooks expect, but overworking will still knock the air out.
- TinA shallow square tin about 8 inches across, buttered, gives a slab roughly an inch deep that cuts neatly into two-inch squares. A deeper tin will need longer and is likelier to colour.
- TimingAbout an hour and a quarter at 300F is realistic for a shallow slab. It is done when the surface is set and dry to the touch and a skewer comes out clean; there will be no browning to judge by.
- Cutting and keepingCut while still warm, as the original says: it directs you to let it cool only a little before dividing it. Then keep it in a cool, dry place.
- Yield and textureRoughly 16 two-inch squares. Expect something short, dense and powdery that dissolves in the mouth, closer to a shortbread than to a sponge.
Snow cake presumably takes its name from its colour: white sugar, white arrowroot, whipped whites and butter kept deliberately from browning. Arrowroot — the starch of *Maranta arundinacea*, imported from the West Indies and prized in the nineteenth century as a light, easily digested "invalid" food — was expensive and, as contemporary complaints about adulteration show, often cut with potato or corn starch; the recipe accordingly declines to quote a price and says only that the cost varies with the quality of the arrowroot. Cakes of this sort sat at the intersection of two Victorian preoccupations: the sickroom diet, where arrowroot puddings and jellies were standard, and the tea table, where a pale, delicate square signalled refinement.