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Sponge Savoy
Break six eggs, and put the yolks and whites into separate bowls. Beat the yolks lightly, and then add a pinch of salt, half a pound of powdered and sifted sugar, and a little flavouring. Beat these ingredients together briskly with a wooden spoon for a quarter of an hour. Add a quarter of a pound of cornflour, and lastly, stir in lightly the whites of the eggs whisked to a firm froth. Pour the batter gently into a mould which has been buttered and covered with sifted sugar, and bake the cake in a moderate oven. Turn it out carefully, and put it on a sieve till cold. Time to bake, about an hour. Probable cost, about 1s.
A flourless sponge in the old French manner, leavened entirely by beaten egg and long-whipped yolks. Nothing here is difficult, but the folding and the mould decide whether it rises or slumps.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThere is no baking powder, so every bit of lift comes from air already beaten into the eggs. Fold the whisked whites in with a spatula in three additions until barely combined; over-mixing at this stage produces a dense, damp cake.
- Cornflour is cornstarchBritish "cornflour" is American cornstarch, not cornmeal or masa. A quarter of a pound is 4 oz, close to a cup.
- The sugarHalf a pound of "powdered and sifted" sugar means finely ground granulated, which today is caster sugar — about 1⅛ cups. Modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch and will make the crumb chalky.
- A moderate ovenThe book gives no temperature; "moderate" in Victorian usage is generally taken as somewhere around 325–350F. At an hour of baking, a tall mould at that heat should be about right; if the top colours early, lay a sheet of foil loosely over it rather than dropping the temperature.
- A quarter of an hour of beatingFifteen minutes with a wooden spoon was one standard way to bring yolks and sugar to the ribbon stage. A stand mixer on high will do the same in about four or five minutes — beat until the mixture is pale, thick, and falls in a ribbon that holds its shape for a second or two.
- The mouldA Savoy mould is a tall fluted tin of about 1½ to 2 quarts; a plain angel-food or kugelhopf tin works. Butter it thoroughly and dust with caster sugar rather than flour — the sugar gives the thin crisp shell the recipe is after, and helps the cake release.
- FlavouringLeft deliberately vague. Grated lemon zest, a spoonful of orange-flower water, or vanilla are all period-appropriate; use about a teaspoon of extract or the zest of one lemon.
- Cooling on a sieveThe sieve is a cooling rack, and turning the cake out promptly matters — left in a hot tin the sugar crust sticks fast. Test with a skewer at 55 minutes.
- YieldEight to ten slices. It is a fairly dry sponge that keeps well, and cakes of this kind were commonly served with fruit, cream, or a glass of wine.
Savoy cake — gâteau de Savoie — is traditionally traced to the medieval court of Savoy; a fourteenth-century origin is often claimed but not documented, and the story that the cake was built tall and light to resemble the mountains of the duchy is repeated everywhere but documented nowhere. By the eighteenth century it was a well-established European sponge, distinguished from a pound cake by having no butter at all and by relying on separately whipped whites. The version here uses cornflour in place of the flour-and-potato-starch mixture common in French versions; branded refined cornflour became widely available to British households from the 1850s onward. The costing of about a shilling suggests it sat among the cheaper cakes of its kind.