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Cream Caramel Layer Cake
Beat until thick 3/4 cup heavy cream 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water. Add 1 cup bread flour sifted with 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add 3 egg yolks and 1 whole egg, well beaten, and 2 tablespoons chocolate caramel syrup. Bake 20 minutes at 400 degrees F. in 2 layer cake pans 7 inches square, and put together with Chocolate Caramel Frosting between and on top.
A butterless layer cake that gets its fat entirely from heavy cream, which is beaten rather than whipped stiff. The whole method depends on treating the cream as a liquid batter base, not a foam.
- "Beat until thick"With 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water added, the cream is diluted and will likely thicken only to a pourable, custard-like consistency rather than stiff peaks. Beat it to that stage and stop.
- Bread flourThe specification is deliberate rather than an error; older American recipes did distinguish bread flour from cake and pastry flour, though how its protein compared with modern bread flour is not something this recipe tells us. Modern all-purpose gives a closer result; cake flour gives a finer crumb but needs a light hand with the mixing.
- Chocolate caramel syrupPresumably a separate preparation given elsewhere in the book, as the Chocolate Caramel Frosting is. Its composition is not stated here; a thick chocolate syrup, or 2 tablespoons of dark caramel sauce with a teaspoon of cocoa stirred in, stands in acceptably, as the quantity is small.
- Order of mixingThe flour goes in before the eggs, which is unusual for a layer cake. The recipe simply says to add the well-beaten eggs; add them gently so as not to knock the air out of the thickened cream.
- Oven400°F is genuinely hot for a layer cake, but correct for thin 7-inch layers baked 20 minutes. Check at 16 minutes; a cake this lean in structure dries quickly once past done.
- PansTwo 7-inch square pans are an odd size now. Two 8-inch rounds have almost exactly the same area, so the layers will be much the same depth and the timing should hold; check at the same point.
- YieldA two-layer cake cut in small squares, serving roughly 8 to 9.
- Egg proportionThree yolks plus one whole egg leaves three whites over. Angel food, a meringue, or an egg-white omelet are the usual ways to use them up.
Cream cakes — built on heavy cream in place of creamed butter — are generally said to have been a standing category in American cookery from the late nineteenth century onward. The technique depends on cream rich enough to thicken under a beater, which was presumably easier to count on when milk was sold unhomogenized and cream came off the top. Recipes of this kind sit naturally in a book of arranged luncheon and supper menus, where frostings and syrups are given elsewhere in the volume, so a line like "2 tablespoons chocolate caramel syrup" was not a mystery but a page turn. The pairing of caramel and chocolate in both cake and frosting reflects an American sweet tooth in which burnt-sugar flavoring was a common cake note alongside vanilla.