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Gold and Silver Cake
GOLD PART yolks of eggs 1 cup butter 2 cups sugar 4 cups Five Roses flour 1 cup sour milk 1 teaspoon soda 1 teaspoon cornstarch Lemon or vanilla extract 1 BB LBS SILVER PART 2 cups sugar 1 cup butter 4 cups Five Roses flour 1 cup milk 1 teaspoon soda 1 teaspoon cornstarch 8 whites of eggs Almonds Put in alternate spoonfuls of each part.
Note-The above recipe may be made separate, and called gold cake, and the second part called silver cake.
Two full-sized batters, mixed in the ordinary creaming order and then spooned into the pan in alternating dabs to make a marbled loaf. The proportions are large by modern standards: each part uses 4 cups of flour, so together they fill two 10-inch tube pans or three loaf pans.
- Egg countThe silver part calls for 8 whites, and the gold part is written to consume the matching yolks; the number is missing from the gold list. Use 8 yolks to match the whites.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction. A moderate oven, around 350F, suits it: a cake this size in a tube pan wants roughly 55 to 70 minutes; loaves closer to 45 to 55. Test with a skewer in the deepest part.
- Sour milk and sodaThe gold part relies on sour milk to activate the soda. Cultured buttermilk is the direct substitute. The silver part uses sweet milk with the same teaspoon of soda, which may taste faintly soapy unless you swap in buttermilk there too or replace the soda with baking powder (the usual rule of thumb is about three times the volume).
- CornstarchA teaspoon of cornstarch in a batter this size does little for structure; softening the crumb of a hard-wheat flour is the likely intention, though the book does not say. It can be left out with no great loss.
- FlourFive Roses was a strong Canadian bread-and-pastry flour. Plain all-purpose is the closest match. Measure by weight if you can: 4 cups is roughly 500 g.
- MarblingThe hinge of the recipe. Drop alternate spoonfuls in a checkerboard and stop there, or draw a knife through once. Stirring the two batters together gives a muddy, uniform cake rather than gold and silver.
- AlmondsNo quantity is given. Blanched almonds, finely chopped or ground, about 1/2 cup for the silver part, or a few drops of almond extract if you want the flavour without the texture.
- Yield and keepingThe full double batch feeds 20 or more. Halving each part gives one generous tube cake. As the note says, either half stands alone as gold cake or silver cake.
Gold and silver cake solved a real problem in a kitchen that separated eggs: a recipe using only whites left a bowl of yolks, and vice versa, and cooks are often said to have paired the two into one pan. The technique belongs to the wider family of marble cakes popular through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when chemical leavening and reliable ovens made large layered or variegated cakes practical at home. The Five Roses book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company and, like most miller's cookbooks of the era, collected recipes submitted by customers across Canada, which is why the flour is named in every ingredient list and why the instructions assume a cook who already knows how to cream butter and sugar.