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Sunshine Cake
Whites of 7 eggs beaten to a stiff froth with ½ teaspoon cream of tartar. Add 1 cup sugar, yolks of 5 eggs well beaten, 1 cup Five Roses flour and 1 teaspoon flavoring. Bake in a loaf.
A sponge cake in the angel-food family, leavened by nothing but egg white and steam. The original assumes you know how a foam cake is handled, so the critical parts are unwritten.
- Fold, never stirSift the flour over the beaten whites and yolks and fold with a spatula until barely combined. Beating it in collapses the foam, and there is no baking powder to rescue it.
- Order of operationsBeat the whites with the cream of tartar to stiff but not dry peaks, add the sugar gradually, then fold in the yolks and flavoring, then the flour last. Adding sugar all at once deflates the meringue.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives none; a moderate oven, around 325F, suits foam cakes of this kind. Higher heat sets a crust before the interior rises and the centre sinks.
- "Bake in a loaf"Probably means one large cake rather than layers, though a loaf tin cannot be ruled out. An ungreased 9- or 10-inch tube pan suits this batter, since it needs to grip the sides as it climbs; a greased pan gives a squat cake.
- TimingExpect 40 to 50 minutes in a tube pan. It is done when the top springs back and a skewer comes out clean; the surface will crack, which is normal.
- CoolingInvert the pan and let the cake hang until completely cold before turning it out. Cooling it right side up compresses the crumb under its own weight.
- FlourUse cake or pastry flour, sifted, and measure by spooning in rather than scooping.
- FlavoringA teaspoon of vanilla, or lemon extract with a little grated zest.
- YieldOne tube cake, 10 to 12 slices. It goes stale quickly and is best the day it is baked; serve plain or with fruit rather than a heavy frosting.
Sunshine cake sits between angel food, which uses whites alone, and the yellow sponge cakes of the same period: the whites give the lift, the five yolks give the colour that earns the name. Cakes of this kind became practical for home cooks in the later nineteenth century as commercial cream of tartar and finely milled white flour became cheap and reliable, and as wire egg beaters replaced whisking by hand — seven whites beaten to a stiff froth is a long job with a fork. The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal to promote its flour, and recipes were largely contributed by Canadian housewives, which explains both the brand name in the ingredient list and the telegraphic style: the book assumed a reader who already knew what a sponge batter should look like.