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Eagle Cake (Eggless)
1 cup sugar ⅓ cup butter 1 cup sour milk 1 teaspoon cinnamon ½ teaspoon cloves nutmeg 1 teaspoon soda 1 cup raisins 2 cups Five Roses flour
The book gives ingredients only, in the compressed style Five Roses used for its spice cakes — the method was assumed knowledge. Here is what a modern cook needs to fill in.
- The hinge: sour milk and sodaThe soda is the only leavening, and it works by reacting with the acid in the sour milk. Mix the soda into the flour with the spices, combine wet and dry quickly, and get the batter into the oven at once; a batter left standing loses lift.
- Sour milkThis meant naturally soured raw milk, which pasteurized milk will not reproduce. Use 1 cup buttermilk, or 1 cup milk with 1 tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar stirred in and left 10 minutes.
- The unmeasured nutmeg"Nutmeg" with no quantity is genuinely ambiguous. A quarter to half a teaspoon freshly grated is a reasonable modern reading; err low, since it dominates cloves quickly.
- MethodCream the butter and sugar, beat in the sour milk, then fold in the flour sifted with soda and spices, and stir in the raisins last, dusted with a little of the flour so they do not sink.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction; 350F is a reasonable modern setting. Do not push the heat to hurry the cake.
- Pan and timeThis is a small cake — roughly 8x8 inches or a single 8-inch round loaf. Bake 35 to 45 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean and the top springs back.
- Texture expectationsWithout eggs the crumb is denser and slightly gummy on the day of baking. It improves noticeably wrapped and kept a day.
- YieldAbout 8 to 10 servings, cut in squares. It keeps a week in a tin.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal as advertising for its Five Roses flour, and was assembled largely from recipes sent in by users of the flour — which is why entries like this one arrive as bare ingredient lists, written by cooks for cooks who already knew what to do with them. Eggless cakes belonged to a long tradition of thrift baking rather than to any single shortage: eggs were seasonal and expensive in winter, and a spiced, raisin-studded cake raised with sour milk and soda gave a keeping cake at low cost. The name "Eagle Cake" is not explained in the book and no origin is documented; such names were often simply the label a contributor's family used.