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Graham Sponge Cake
Use either Sponge Cake No. 1 or 2, substituting graham meal for flour, making the measure round instead of level.
This is a variation rather than a standalone formula: it assumes you have the book's Sponge Cake No. 1 or No. 2 in front of you and changes one ingredient. The single instruction that matters is the measuring note, which is doing quiet but important work.
- Round vs. level measureEarly-1900s American recipes standardised on the level cup, so "round" here means heaped above the rim rather than struck flat. The recipe gives no figure for how much more that is. Graham meal is coarser than bolted white flour, and the extra volume was presumably meant to bring the measure nearer the weight of the flour it replaces; if you weigh rather than scoop, aiming for the weight of the white flour called for is a reasonable reading.
- What graham meal isCoarsely ground whole wheat, bran and germ included, named for Sylvester Graham. Modern stone-ground whole-wheat flour is the nearest equivalent; supermarket "graham flour" where sold is essentially the same thing. Do not substitute crushed graham crackers.
- Expect a shorter, denser cakeBran fragments cut the gluten and weigh down the beaten-egg foam that sponge cake depends on. The cake will rise less and eat closer to a whole-wheat loaf than to a classic sponge. Sifting the graham and returning the bran left in the sieve keeps it lighter than tipping it all in at once.
- OvenThis variation specifies no oven; follow whichever base Sponge Cake recipe you are using. If that recipe calls only for a moderate oven, 325 to 350°F is the usual modern reading. Whole-wheat batters tend to brown faster because of the bran, so check at the lower end and tent with foil if the top colours before the centre sets.
- FoldingFold the meal in by hand in three additions, cutting down and over rather than stirring. Overworking collapses the whipped eggs, and a graham sponge has less lift in reserve to recover.
- Doneness and panBake in an ungreased tube pan and invert to cool if the base recipe is a true foam sponge; the batter needs to cling to the sides as it climbs. It is done when the top springs back and the cake begins to pull from the pan, usually 35 to 45 minutes for an 8- or 9-inch tube.
- KeepingWhole-wheat flours carry oil in the germ and go rancid within a few months at room temperature; buy fresh or keep it in the freezer.
Graham meal turns up throughout turn-of-the-century American cookbooks as a wholesome alternative rather than a specialty ingredient, a legacy of Sylvester Graham, the 1830s dietary reformer who preached unsifted wheat, and of the later health-food and domestic-science writers who kept his flour in circulation long after his particular moralising had faded. The instruction to make the measure round instead of level reflects the period in which level measurement had become the American standard and departures from it needed spelling out.