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Cream Sponge
One teacup of flour, one cup of sugar; beat two eggs in a teacup and fill up with cream or four tablespoons of melted butter, and fill up with sweet milk, one-half teaspoon of soda, one teaspoon of cream of tartar.
— Mrs. H. T. Jones
A shorthand cake receipt of the kind written down for someone who already knew how cake behaves: no pan, no temperature, no time. Everything you need to supply is below.
- The teacupA late 19th-century teacup is smaller than a modern mug, commonly reckoned at about 3/4 cup, though household books of the period often used "teacup" and "cup" loosely. Since the sugar is given as "one cup," the simplest course is to treat both as 1 cup (about 4 1/4 oz flour).
- "Fill up with"The eggs are broken into an empty teacup and cream (or milk) is added until the cup is full — so the liquid measure is whatever the eggs did not occupy, the total coming to the capacity of the cup, roughly 3/4 to 1 cup including the eggs. This is the hinge of the receipt: it self-adjusts to the size of your eggs, and you should not add liquid beyond the rim of the cup.
- Two versions in oneThe sentence is ambiguous, but it appears to offer a choice: eggs topped up with cream, or eggs plus 4 tablespoons melted butter topped up with milk. Make one or the other, not both.
- Soda and cream of tartarHalf a teaspoon of soda with one teaspoon of cream of tartar is homemade baking powder, in the standard 1:2 proportion. Sift both with the flour so they are evenly distributed, and get the cake into the oven promptly — the acid begins working as soon as it meets the liquid.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh, unsoured milk. The distinction mattered when sour milk was a normal baking ingredient and the choice of leavening depended on it.
- Oven and panThe receipt gives no oven, pan or time. A modern equivalent: bake at 350F in a greased 8-inch round or square pan for 25 to 30 minutes, or nearer 40 in a loaf pan. It is done when the center springs back and a straw comes out clean.
- What is missingThere is no salt and no flavoring. A pinch of salt and half a teaspoon of vanilla, or a little grated lemon rind, are consistent with the period and improve a plain cake considerably.
- YieldOne modest single layer, about eight small servings.
"Cream sponge" belongs to a large family of quick cakes. The soda-and-cream-of-tartar pair here is what cooks mixed themselves before commercial powders were trusted; cream of tartar, a byproduct of winemaking, was sold at the druggist as well as the grocer. What makes the receipt characteristic of a community cookbook is the measuring method and the cup filled up which requires no scale and no second bowl. The attribution to Mrs. H. T. Jones is the usual form in these locally gathered collections, where each contributor's name stood as the guarantee of the receipt.