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Delicate Cake
Beat the yolks of five eggs till thick and lemon colored, stir in one cup of granulated sugar, the grated rind of one lemon and one tablespoon of the juice.
Whip the whites of the eggs till quite stiff, add a few tablespoons of the froth to the beaten yolks, then one cup of pastry flour. Fold in the rest of the beaten whites. Bake as a loaf cake in a moderate oven, for nearly an hour.
Cover with a soft boiled icing when the loaf has cooled, and before the icing dries, sprinkle with chopped almonds.- Mrs A. A. Lindeke.
A butterless, leavening-free sponge cake that rises on egg foam alone, so the folding and the pan matter more than anything else here.
- The hinge: keep the air inThere is no baking powder or soda in this batter. The lightening of the yolk foam with a few spoonfuls of whipped white before the flour goes in is a deliberate step, and the remaining whites must be folded, not stirred. Overworking at that point gives a dense, rubbery loaf that no oven can rescue.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven is usually reckoned at about 350F, though period sources put the range anywhere from 325F to 375F. For a tall loaf of foam cake a lower setting near 325F helps keep the outside from setting before the centre rises; expect the full "nearly an hour" at that lower setting.
- Pastry flourPastry flour is a soft, low-protein flour, roughly between cake flour and all-purpose. Substitute cake flour, or use all-purpose with two tablespoons per cup replaced by cornstarch. Spoon it lightly into the cup and level; a cup is about 4 oz.
- Pan"Loaf cake" here means any deepish tin, not a modern 9x5 bread pan specifically. One cup of flour and five eggs fills an 8x4 loaf pan or a small tube pan. Do not grease the sides heavily: an ungreased or lightly greased pan gives the batter something to climb.
- DonenessThe cake is done when the top springs back and a skewer comes out clean, generally 45-55 minutes. Cool it in the pan before turning out; a hot sponge collapses under its own weight.
- Soft boiled icingThe period standard is a sugar syrup boiled to the soft-ball stage, about 238-240F, poured in a thin stream into stiffly beaten egg white and beaten until it holds a soft peak. "Soft" most likely refers to that soft-ball stage; either way the icing is spread while still fluid, which is why the almonds go on before it crusts.
- AlmondsChopped blanched sweet almonds. Toast them lightly first if you want flavour rather than texture alone; untoasted they are mostly crunch.
- YieldOne small loaf, ten to twelve thin slices. The crumb dries quickly without butter, so it is best on the day it is iced.
Recipes titled "delicate cake" run through American cookbooks of the later nineteenth century and generally mean a pale, fine-grained cake made with the whites alone or with few yolks, in contrast to the heavy fruited and spiced loaves that preceded them; many such recipes do contain butter, so the type is not defined by its absence. This version is a lemon sponge, leavened entirely by eggs. Mrs. A. A. Lindeke's attribution is typical of how contributed collections were assembled: readers sent in what worked in their own kitchens, usually credited under a married name, and the editors gathered them by type.