Nut Cake
Cream two tablespoons of butter with one cup of sugar, and add the yolks of three eggs. To this add one cup of milk, two cups of flour sifted with two teaspoons of Larkin Baking Powder. Add one-half teaspoon of Larkin Lemon Flavoring Extract, one-fourth teaspoon of Larkin Table Salt, one cup of English walnuts, cut fine; finally, the beaten white of one egg, reserving the other two whites for the icing.
Bake in a slow oven.
NOTE. All measurements are made level. A cupful means a level cupful. A spoonful means a level spoonful. (See page 10.) Flour is sifted once before being measured.
A lean, plain walnut cake from a Larkin Company premium booklet, so the branded ingredients are simply generic ones under a house name. The chief thing the recipe withholds is the pan and the yield.
- The Larkin productsLarkin Baking Powder, Lemon Flavoring Extract and Table Salt were mail-order house brands sold with the company's soap clubs. Use any double-acting baking powder, lemon extract and fine salt in the same amounts.
- "A slow oven"Around 300-325F. For a butter cake of this size, 325F is the safer reading of the instruction; at 300F the crumb tends to dry before it colors.
- Pan and yieldNo pan is specified. Two 8-inch round layers is one plausible form, and those bake in roughly 25-30 minutes. In a single 8-inch square or a small loaf, allow 40-50 minutes and test with a skewer.
- Level measurementsThe note matters here. Turn-of-the-century cookbooks split between level and heaped cups, and this book is explicitly level: sift the flour, then spoon it into the cup and level it off. Two cups measured that way is roughly 230 g.
- Only two tablespoons of butterThat is very little fat for two cups of flour, which is why the milk and the whipped white are doing the work. Expect a light, close, slightly bready crumb rather than a rich one. It is not an error.
- English walnutsThe ordinary walnut of the supermarket, as distinct from the American black walnut, which is far stronger and would dominate the lemon. Chop fine and toss with a spoonful of the measured flour so the pieces stay suspended.
- The reserved whitesNo icing recipe is given. Two whites beaten with about a cup and a half of confectioners' sugar makes a plain uncooked white icing; walnut halves are a common decoration for such a cake.
- Mixing orderFold the beaten white in last and briefly. The baking powder is already activated by the milk, so the batter should go into the pan as soon as the white disappears.
This recipe comes from a promotional cookbook issued by the Larkin Company of Buffalo, New York, a soap manufacturer that grew into one of the largest mail-order houses in the United States by selling household goods directly to customers organized into buying clubs, with premiums given for volume. Free recipe booklets that named the company's baking powder, extracts and salt in every ingredient list were an efficient form of advertising. The cake itself belongs to the broad family of plain American layer cakes that nuts, coconut or spice were added to for variety; "English walnut" was the standard trade term for the common Persian walnut, used to distinguish it from the native black walnut.