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Milk Sponge Cake
Four eggs well beaten with two cups sugar; two cups flour; first beat in one cup sifted flour and then one cup in which has been sifted one teaspoon soda; flavor with vanilla or almond, then add one cup scalding hot milk, beat thoroughly and bake at once, about forty minutes.
— Mrs. Daniel J. Cassidy
A hot-milk sponge, the sort of cake built on beaten whole eggs rather than butter. The original assumes you know your own stove, so the two things it leaves out are the oven temperature and the pan.
- Bake at once, and mean itThe scalding milk goes in last and begins working on the soda immediately. Have the pan greased and the oven already at temperature before the milk is heated; batter left standing will lose some of its rise.
- Oven temperatureNot given. For a sponge of this depth, 350F for the stated forty minutes is right. Test with a skewer at thirty-five minutes.
- PanAlso unstated. This quantity fills a 9x13 pan, a 9-inch tube pan, or two 8-inch rounds; the rounds will be done nearer twenty-five minutes.
- The soda questionOne teaspoon of soda in sweet milk has little acid to react with and can leave a soapy taste and a yellowish crumb. Baking powder in place of the soda gives a cleaner flavour; allow roughly three teaspoons of powder for the teaspoon of soda.
- Beating the eggs"Well beaten with two cups sugar" means beaten until pale, thick and ribboning off the beater, several minutes with a mixer. This is the cake's structure; there is no butter and very little else holding it up.
- Scalding hot milkHeat the milk until it steams and shows bubbles at the edge, around 180F, and pour it in slowly while beating so the eggs do not scramble.
- Almond flavouringAlmond extract is powerful stuff; a quarter teaspoon is ample. A full teaspoon of vanilla is fine.
- Yield and servingTwelve to sixteen squares. A lean, butterless crumb that suits sauce, sweetened fruit or whipped cream, and it stales quickly, so serve it the day it is baked.
Hot-milk sponge cakes appear in American community cookbooks from the later nineteenth century onward, as cheap chemical leaveners and more controllable ranges let ordinary households turn out a foam cake without prolonged hand-whisking. The scalded milk dissolves the sugar and is generally credited with giving a finer crumb than a cold-liquid batter. Butterless cakes like this one were economical and served as a base for whatever fruit the season offered, which is part of why they turn up so often in church and village collections. Many such books were subscription fundraisers, and printing a contributor's married name beside her receipt served as credit for the recipe.