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Lady Cake
Cream one-half a cup of butter, add two cups of granulated sugar, beat well, add three-fourths of a cup of milk, three cups of flour, three rounded teaspoons of baking powder, one-half teaspoon of almond extract, and fold in the well-beaten whites of five eggs. When baked cover with icing flavored with almond extract.
— Mrs. Stanley Vincent
A plain white butter cake of the type once called silver cake, with the egg whites doing the lifting alongside the baking powder. The recipe assumes you know the standard method, so the notes below fill in what it leaves out.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe five beaten whites go in last and are the reason the cake is fine-grained and pale. Fold them in in three additions with a spatula until barely combined; beating them into the batter collapses the foam and gives you a heavy, tight crumb.
- Oven and panNo temperature is given; ranges of the period had no thermometers and cooks judged heat by hand. Bake at 350F. The quantity fills two 9-inch round layers (25-30 minutes) or a 10-inch tube pan (50-60 minutes); test with a skewer at the center.
- Flour measureThree cups scooped and leveled is roughly 13-15 oz / 375-425 g; three cups of flour sifted first would be nearer 12 oz / 340 g. The recipe does not say which was meant, so sifting the flour with the baking powder is a reasonable choice if you want the lighter result.
- Baking powderThree rounded teaspoons is close to a level tablespoon and a half, which is heavy by current standards; baking powders of the period varied in strength between brands and were generally single-acting. Two level teaspoons is plenty with modern powder, especially since the whites are also leavening.
- Almond extractA half teaspoon in the batter and more in the icing is the whole flavor of the cake. Use real almond extract rather than almond "flavor," and keep to the stated amount; it turns medicinal quickly.
- The icingNo icing recipe is given. A boiled white icing (sugar syrup beaten into egg white) is the period-correct finish; a confectioners' sugar and milk glaze with a few drops of almond extract does the same job with less fuss.
- Leftover yolksFive yolks remain. White cakes of this kind were often paired in period books with a 'gold cake' made from the yolks; failing that, they go into custard, mayonnaise or curd within a day or two.
- YieldTwo layers, about 12 to 16 servings. The cake is dry by the third day and is best iced the day it is baked.
Lady cake belongs to a family of nineteenth-century American white cakes -- silver cake, bride's cake and their relatives -- defined by using only the egg whites so the crumb stays as pale as possible, at a time when whiteness in a cake signaled refined flour, expensive sugar and a cook with eggs to spare. Almond is its characteristic flavoring, and older versions often called for pounded blanched almonds or a spoonful of rosewater. The name is generally taken to distinguish it from the darker, spiced, fruit-heavy cakes served alongside it, and the white-cake-plus-white-icing formula is of a piece with later American wedding cakes. Its credit to Mrs. Stanley Vincent is typical of community-compiled books: a contributor's name attached to a household standard, written in shorthand for readers who already knew how to cream butter and judge an oven by hand.