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White Loaf Cake
One-half cup butter, two cups of sugar, one cup of milk, three cups of flour, two teaspoons baking powder, whites of four eggs.
— Mrs. J. T. P. Calkins
This is a receipt in the old sense: a list of proportions, with the method assumed. Anyone who baked regularly in 1900 knew what to do with it, and the proportions are sound — a standard 1-2-3-4 style butter cake made pale with whites only.
- The method the list omitsCream the softened butter with the sugar until light, then alternate the flour (sifted with the baking powder) with the milk in three or four additions. Beat the whites to soft peaks separately and fold them in last — they are the only lift besides the powder, and stirring them in flat gives a heavy, close crumb.
- Oven350F is a reasonable modern setting; a loaf of this size wants roughly 50 to 60 minutes. The receipt itself gives no oven instruction at all.
- PanDespite the name, "loaf cake" in these books generally means a cake baked in one solid piece rather than in layers. This is a large batter, so a single 9x5-inch loaf pan or 9-inch square will be filled close to the brim; grease and flour it, or line with paper.
- Baking powderTwo teaspoons to three cups of flour is light by modern standards. With today's double-acting powder, use two and a half to three teaspoons if you want a fuller rise, and get the batter into the oven promptly.
- FlourUse all-purpose, measured by spooning into the cup and levelling — about 12 to 13 oz for three cups. Cake flour will give a finer, more tender crumb if you have it.
- Two cups of sugarThis is a sweet cake by current taste, and the sugar also keeps it moist. Reducing it to a cup and a half is safe; going lower changes the crumb noticeably.
- Doneness and yieldBake until a skewer comes out clean and the top springs back — a pale cake will not brown much, so do not judge by colour. One loaf, ten to twelve slices. It keeps a few days wrapped.
- FlavouringNone is given, which was normal for a white loaf cake meant to carry a frosting or be eaten with fruit. A teaspoon of vanilla, or the almond extract common in period white cakes, is in keeping.
White cakes — also sold under names like silver cake and bride's cake — became a fixture of American home baking once cheap chemical leaveners made them practical, and they were prized precisely for their paleness at a time when many cakes were dark with molasses, spice or brown sugar. Using only the whites left a bowl of yolks behind, and gold cakes built on those yolks are often found alongside them. The attribution to Mrs. J. T. P. Calkins suggests a community cookbook receipt, the kind of compact proportion list likely contributed by a neighbour to a fundraising volume, where instructions were kept short.