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Orange Loaf Cake
Two eggs, one cup sugar, one tablespoon melted butter, onehalf cup milk, one and one-half cups flour, two teaspoons baking powder, grated rind and juice of one orange.
A village receipt written the way one cook would hand it to another: the ingredients only, on the assumption that anyone reading knew what to do with them. The proportions are sound, but the method, pan and oven have to be supplied.
- The hinge: beat the eggs hardWith only one tablespoon of butter, this cake has almost no fat to hold air; its lift comes from well-beaten eggs plus the baking powder. Beat the eggs and sugar until pale and thick before adding anything else, then fold the flour in rather than stirring it hard.
- Assembly orderEggs and sugar beaten together, then melted butter, orange rind and juice, then the milk and the flour sifted with the baking powder added alternately. Get it into the pan and into the oven promptly once the baking powder is wetted.
- The orange juice is a variableAn orange yields anywhere from 3 to 6 tablespoons. That much liquid on top of half a cup of milk can loosen the batter considerably; hold back a spoonful or two of juice if it looks thin, or add a tablespoon of flour.
- OvenNo method or temperature is given at all; the receipt is an ingredient list. Bake at 350F.
- Pan and timeThis makes a small loaf. Use a buttered 8x4-inch pan and expect 35 to 45 minutes, testing with a skewer at 35. In two small pans or a shallow layer pan it will be done in 20 to 25.
- Flour measureOne and one-half cups is roughly 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 ounces depending on how the cup is filled; spoon the flour into the cup and level it rather than packing.
- Baking powderTwo teaspoons for a cup and a half of flour is on the generous side by modern standards. One and a half teaspoons gives a finer crumb with less of a chemical edge.
- YieldEight to ten slices from a small loaf. It keeps poorly, being nearly fatless, and is best the day it is baked, or split and toasted the next.
Loaf cake in nineteenth-century American usage generally meant a cake baked in a bread pan rather than in layers or a tube mould, and this one sits at the plain end of the cake repertoire: little butter, no icing, meant for tea or a lunch pail. The orange is the interesting part. Citrus was a bought item rather than a garden one, and a receipt that spends a whole orange on rind and juice both is making a modest show of it, using the peel for aroma because the cake carries too little fat to hold much flavor otherwise. The recipe records quantities and nothing else, on the assumption that the reader already knew how to mix a cake.