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National Cake
WHITE PART Cream together 1 cup white sugar and ½ 1/2 cup butter, then add 1/2 cup sweet milk, beaten whites of 4 eggs,½ cup cornstarch, 1 cup Five Roses flour (into which have previously been mixed 1 teaspoon cream of tartar and½ teaspoon soda). Flavor with lemon extract.
This is only the white half of a two-part cake — the companion dark or pink batter that gave the cake its patriotic stripes is not printed here. The instructions assume a cook who already knows what to do with a creamed batter, so a few gaps need filling.
- Fold, do not stirThe recipe says only "add" the beaten whites, but they are the sole source of lift beyond the chemical leavening. Beat them to soft, glossy peaks and fold them in last, after the flour, or the cake bakes dense.
- Cream of tartar and sodaTogether they are a homemade single-acting baking powder: 1 teaspoon cream of tartar with 1/2 teaspoon soda is roughly equivalent to about 2 teaspoons of modern baking powder. If you substitute, sift it with the flour and get the batter into the pan promptly, since the acid-soda reaction begins on contact with the milk.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh unsoured whole milk, specified because sour milk and buttermilk were both common in a period kitchen and would react with the soda differently.
- CornstarchHalf a cup of cornstarch to one cup of flour dilutes the gluten and gives the fine, tender, pale crumb these cakes were prized for. It is the same principle as modern cake flour; measure both by spooning into the cup and levelling.
- SaltNone is listed, as the butter of the day was usually salted. With unsalted butter add ¼ teaspoon of salt to the dry ingredients.
- Oven and panNo temperature is given. Bake at 350F. The quantity is modest and will give two rather thin 8-inch layers, greased and floured, in 22 to 28 minutes, or one 8-inch square pan in 35 to 40; it is done when the centre springs back and a tester comes out clean.
- Yield and assemblyEnough for a modest two-layer cake serving six to eight. As printed it stands perfectly well on its own as a lemon-scented white layer cake with boiled icing; if you want the intended effect, pair it with an equal quantity of a dark batter and bake the two in alternating layers.
- Lemon extractAmount unstated. A teaspoon is right for this volume of batter; start there and taste the batter.
The Five Roses Cook Book was issued by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Winnipeg and Montreal as advertising for its Five Roses flour, and like other milling-company books it is heavy on cakes, where the brand of flour could plausibly be said to matter. "National" cakes belong to a family of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century layer cakes built from two contrasting batters — one white, one dark or tinted — baked separately and stacked or marbled so the cut slice showed contrasting bands; Ribbon Cake and Dolly Varden Cake work the same way. The white half depended on two things a Victorian pantry had newly made easy: cheap refined cornstarch, commercially available from the mid-nineteenth century onward and used freely in baking to soften a coarse household flour, and reliable chemical leavening, here mixed from cream of tartar and soda rather than bought ready-blended as baking powder. Only the white part is printed here; the dark companion recipe does not appear on this page.
Blue Part
Cream together 1 cup blue sugar sand and½ cup butter; then add ½ cup sweet milk, the beaten whites of 4 eggs, 2 cups Five Roses flour (into which have previously been mixed 1 teaspoon cream of tartar and ½ teaspoon soda). No flavor.