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Cake Shortened with Oil
3 eggs 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/3 cup boiling water 1 cup sugar 1 1/2 cups sifted pastry flour 1/3 cup cooking oil Grated yellow rind of 1 lemon Break the eggs into an earthenware mixing bowl, and set the bowl in a pan of hot water. Add the salt to the eggs, and beat the eggs with a Dover egg beater till they become light and stiff. Beat the boiling water into the eggs and beat again till stiff. Gradually beat in the sugar, adding it a little at a time, and beating well between the additions of sugar, and until the batter is stiff and light and nearly fills a one-and-one-half-quart bowl. Beat in the lemon rind and the oil.
Now comes the most particular part of the making of the cake--the folding in of the flour. It is easy, if care is not taken, to work out all the air that has been beaten into the batter, and the air is what is depended upon to make the cake light. A flat wire whip is the best utensil to use in folding in the flour. Sift a little of the flour over the top of the stiffly beaten batter. Fold it in by dipping the whip edgewise down at the side of the bowl and lifting it up flatwise through the center. When this flour is partly folded in, sift on more flour and fold it in the same way. Continue folding flour in until all the flour has been used, but do not fold a stroke more than is necessary to get the flour completely blended with the batter. Pour at once into a cake tin which has a piece of oiled paper fitted into the bottom. Do not oil the sides of the tin. Bake in a moderate oven till a broom straw run into the cake comes out clean. When the cake is taken from the oven, turn it upside down to cool in the tin, placing something under the edge of the tin so that air can circulate under it. Then if the cake falls, it will fall upward and be lighter. When the cake is cool, it can be removed from the tin by running a knife around the sides of the cake. By baking this batter in three pie tins it can be used for a layer cake. It will not be necessary to fit oiled paper to the bottom of the tins. Instead, oil the tins, then sprinkle them with flour. This batter may also be baked in the form of cup cakes, oiling the tins and sprinkling them with flour to prevent the cake from sticking to them.
A foam cake with no chemical leavening at all: the lift comes entirely from air beaten into whole eggs, so the folding step decides whether it succeeds. Read the flour instructions before you start beating.
- Moderate oven"moderate" in books of this period is usually taken as roughly 350-375F; have the oven fully heated before mixing, since the foam begins to deflate as soon as it stands. The recipe gives no times: expect something like 35 to 45 minutes for a single deep tin, perhaps 20 to 25 minutes for the pie-tin layers and 15 to 18 for cup cakes, and test with a straw as directed.
- Dover egg beaterA hand-cranked rotary beater. A stand mixer with the whisk works and is far less tiring, but stop the moment the batter is thick and holds a ribbon rather than running it to the point of dryness.
- The warm-water bathEggs whipped over hot water take up more air and hold it better; the boiling water beaten in appears to be intended to help in the same way. Keep the water hot but not simmering, or the eggs at the base of the bowl may begin to set.
- Folding is the hingeThere is no baking powder here, so every stroke past the point of blending costs height. Sift the flour on in three or four additions and fold with a flat whisk or a wide spatula, cutting down at the side and lifting through the centre, stopping as soon as no dry flour shows.
- Pastry flourModern cake flour is the nearest easily available substitute, though it is a little softer than pastry flour. With all-purpose flour, replacing two tablespoons of each cup with cornstarch and sifting twice will give a more tender crumb.
- Ungreased sides, on purposeAs with angel food, the batter is understood to grip the dry tin wall as it rises, so oil on the sides would let it slip back. Oiled paper on the base only; the recipe does not name a tin size, but a straight-sided deep tin suits the batter.
- Cooling upside downThe same principle as angel food. Invert the tin immediately on its feet, or bridge it between two cans, and leave it until stone cold before running a knife round.
- Cooking oilUse a neutral oil such as sunflower, canola or light vegetable oil. Olive oil and anything strongly flavoured will dominate the lemon.
- YieldRoughly 12 servings from a single deep tin, three thin layers from the pie tins, or about 15 to 18 cup cakes; the recipe gives no tin sizes.