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Lemon Custard Layer Cake
Two cups of sugar, one-half cup of butter, one cup of milk, three eggs, one and a half teaspoons of baking-powder, and three cups of flour. This makes four layers. For filling take the juice and grated rind of two lemons, one egg, one cup of sugar and one-half cup of water, one teaspoon of butter and two tablespoons of flour mixed smooth with a little of the water. Boil this together until it thickens (watching carefully), then place between layers.
A plain butter cake in four thin layers with a cooked lemon filling. The original assumes you know the creaming method and the state of your own oven, so both need filling in.
- The filling is the hingeThe lemon mixture must come to a real boil and thicken visibly, stirring the whole time, or the flour tastes raw and the filling will not set between the layers. It thickens further as it cools, so pull it while it still falls thickly from the spoon rather than cooking it to a paste.
- Method for the batterCream the butter with the sugar, beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the flour sifted with the baking powder alternately with the milk. Half a cup of butter is 4 oz or one stick.
- OvenThe original gives no oven direction. A moderate oven, about 350F, suits layers this thin, which bake in roughly 15 to 20 minutes; test with a skewer rather than by time.
- PansFour 8-inch round tins, buttered and floored with paper. If you only have two, bake in batches and keep the remaining batter at room temperature, not chilled.
- Leavening runs lightOne and a half teaspoons of baking powder for three cups of flour is less than modern practice, which tends toward a teaspoon or more per cup. Period powders were generally single-acting; with a current double-acting powder you may want closer to two and a half teaspoons for a lighter crumb.
- Zest before juicingGrate the rind of both lemons before cutting them, and take only the yellow. Two lemons give roughly 1/4 to 1/3 cup of juice.
- Cool the fillingSpread it only when cold, or it will soak into the layers and run out at the sides. Four layers means three fillings; the recipe directs only that it be placed between the layers and says nothing about finishing the top.
- YieldOne four-layer 8-inch cake, 12 to 16 servings. Because the filling contains egg, keep the finished cake refrigerated and eat within two days.
Layer cakes filled rather than iced between the tiers were a fixture of American cookbooks from the 1870s onward, made practical by cheap chemical leavening and by the shallow tin pans that came with cast-iron cookstoves. The filling here is a lemon curd stretched with water and thickened with flour rather than relying on eggs and butter alone, a frugal version of the same idea that fills a lemon meringue pie. Its appearance reflects the period's enthusiasm for the lemon as a flavoring: shipped north in quantity from Sicily and, increasingly, from California, it was one of the few reliable sources of bright acidity in a winter kitchen.