Home › The Principles of Cookery › Webster Cakes
Webster Cakes
Beat half a pound of fresh butter to cream. Add half a pound of powdered white sugar, three-quarters of a pound of sifted flour, a table-spoonful of orange-flower water, a table-spoonful of brandy, four ounces of picked and dried currants, and five well-beaten eggs. Beat the mixture till it is very light. Line some shallow tins with buttered paper, pour in the mixture to the depth of half an inch, and bake the cake in a brisk oven. Before serving the cake cut it into squares or oblong pieces with a sharp knife. Time to bake the cake, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 8d. for this quantity.
A creamed pound-cake batter baked thin in a tray and cut into bars — one of the Victorian "small cakes" that saved the trouble of tins. Weights convert cleanly, but the oven and the pan depth need attention.
- Quantities in cupsHalf a pound of butter is 2 sticks (225 g); half a pound of powdered white sugar is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of caster sugar (225 g); three-quarters of a pound of flour is roughly 2 3/4 cups (340 g). Four ounces of currants is about 3/4 cup. Weigh if you can — the flour figure is where cup measures drift most.
- "Powdered white sugar"In this period that means loaf sugar crushed and sieved to a fine grain, i.e. modern caster or superfine sugar. It is not confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch and will make the crumb pasty.
- A brisk ovenRead this as 400–425F (200–220C). At half an inch deep and fifteen minutes, the cake needs to set fast; a cooler oven will dry it before it colours. Check at 12 minutes — the top should spring back and the edges just pull from the paper.
- Pan and paperThe recipe says "some shallow tins", plural, and at half an inch deep this quantity of batter fills something closer to a 9 x 13 in tin than a half-sheet pan. Buttered paper means parchment, buttered on the upper face; the original used it because tins were rarely non-stick and the cake is cut in the pan.
- Orange-flower waterStill sold, and strengths vary between brands. Start with two teaspoons rather than a full tablespoon and taste the batter; too much reads soapy.
- "Picked and dried" currantsPicked means gone over for stalks and grit — modern dried currants are cleaned, but a rinse and thorough drying still helps. Toss them in a spoonful of the measured flour so they stay suspended in a batter this shallow.
- Beating the eggs inFive eggs into 225 g of butter will curdle if added cold and fast. Have them at room temperature and add them in five additions, alternating with a little of the flour once the mixture looks slack.
- YieldAbout 30 to 36 bars from a tin of this size. Cut while barely warm with a long sharp knife; fully cold cake crumbs at the edges, hot cake tears.
Cassell's gives no clue to the name, and "Webster cakes" is the sort of title that attached itself to a small cake through a cook, a household or a shop rather than through any documented origin — the same book carries Shrewsbury, Banbury and Savoy cakes alongside it. What is clear is the construction: a creamed batter of butter, sugar and eggs, here against rather more flour than butter or sugar, baked as a thin sheet and cut into pieces. The flavouring pair, orange-flower water and brandy, belongs to an older style of cake flavouring that vanilla later displaced. The "probable cost" of 1s. 8d. is a standard feature of Cassell's entries, which price almost every dish.