Lemon Cake
Use the Cocoanut Cream Cake formula and for the cream : One and one-fourth cups of water The juice and rind of one lemon
This is a cross-reference rather than a standalone recipe: it borrows the batter and method from the Cocoanut Cream Cake earlier in the chapter and substitutes lemon for coconut in the boiled filling. Read the two together before starting.
- You need the parent recipeNothing here tells you the cake proportions, the thickener for the cream, or the sugar. Everything but the flavouring comes from the Cocoanut Cream Cake formula, so have that page open; on its own this entry cannot be followed.
- What the substitution meansThe one and one-fourth cups of water stands in for the liquid used in the coconut cream filling, and the flavour comes from the lemon instead of the coconut. Follow the parent recipe for the remaining filling ingredients and their stated amounts.
- Rind means zest, not peelGrate only the yellow outer layer. The white pith beneath turns the filling bitter.
- Add the juice at the endAcid slackens a starch-thickened cream and can curdle an egg-bound one. Cook the filling as the parent recipe directs until thick, then stir in the juice and zest off the heat.
- Layer-cake ovenFollow the parent recipe's oven directions; if it calls for a moderate oven, that corresponds to roughly 350F. Test thin layers with a straw or skewer at the centre.
- Cool before fillingBoiled cream fillings must be cold and set before they go between the layers, or they run out at the edges. Cover the surface directly with paper or film so a skin does not form.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield, and the number of layers depends on the parent formula. One and one-fourth cups of liquid makes a modest quantity of filling.
Rufus Estes published Good Things to Eat in 1911, having been born into slavery in Tennessee and gone on to cook for the Pullman Company's private railcars and later for the laboratories of a Chicago steel firm. The book's cake entries appear to be arranged the way a working cook thinks: a master formula, then short entries that change a single element, so coconut cream becomes lemon cream with a swap of liquid and flavouring, the cream thickened with cornstarch or flour, sweetened, sharpened with juice and scented with grated rind.