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Superior Nut Cake
5 eggs 1 cup sugar 1 cup sifted pastry flour 3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts Juice one small lemon 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 teaspoon salt Separate the whites from the yolks of the eggs, beat the yolks stiff, beat into them half the lemon juice. Beat in the sugar, a little at a time, and beat till very stiff. Beat in the vanilla. Add the salt to the whites, and beat till frothy, then add the other half of the lemon juice, and beat till stiff and dry. Pour the beaten yolk mixture onto the whites; sift over it some flour, and sprinkle over it some nuts, and fold them in. Sift on more flour and sprinkle on more nuts, continuing thus till all the flour and nuts are folded in. Pour into a cake tin into the bottom of which oiled paper has been fitted, and bake in a moderate oven.
This is a foam cake in the sponge family: no butter, no chemical leavening, all the lift coming from separately beaten yolks and whites. The original gives neither temperature, pan size nor time, so those are the gaps worth filling.
- Oven temperatureA "moderate oven" in books of this period is usually reckoned somewhere around 350-375F. Sponge batters of this kind are steadier at the lower end, 325-350F; hotter and the crust sets before the interior has finished rising.
- Pan and timingThe quantities suit a 9-inch tube pan or a deep 8-inch round. Expect 30-40 minutes; it is done when the top springs back and a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the pan for a few minutes before turning out.
- Oiled paperSubstitute a round of parchment cut to the pan bottom. Do not grease the sides of the pan — an unbuttered wall gives the batter something to climb, which matters when there is no baking powder.
- "Beat the yolks stiff"Yolks cannot go stiff in the way whites do. What is meant is beating them with the sugar until pale, thick and ribboning off the whisk, which takes several minutes with an electric mixer.
- Pastry flourPastry flour is lower in protein than modern all-purpose. Cake flour is the closest match; failing that, replace two tablespoons per cup of all-purpose flour with cornstarch.
- The lemon juice in the whitesThe acid stabilises the foam, doing the job cream of tartar does in later recipes. Add it once the whites are frothy, as directed, not at the start.
- FoldingAlternating flour and nuts in several additions, rather than dumping them in, is the whole technique here. Use a large spatula and stop as soon as no dry flour shows; overworking deflates the whites and gives a dense, rubbery crumb.
- YieldTen to twelve slices. It keeps poorly and is best eaten the day it is baked, plain or with whipped cream.