Sponge Squares
Bake the sponge cake No. I recipe in a dripper and when cool cut in inch squares with a sharp knife. Ice these squares with a chocolate, vanilla, or orange icing. They are very nice with ice-cream.
This is an assembly note rather than a full recipe: it depends on the sponge cake earlier in the chapter, and the only real work is the cutting and icing. Two things decide whether it succeeds — a completely cold, firm cake and an icing thin enough to flow but thick enough to set.
- A "dripper"The dripping pan, a shallow rectangular tin used under roasting meat. A standard 9x13-inch baking pan is the closest modern equivalent; the point is a sheet of sponge about an inch deep, not a loaf or a tube cake.
- The oven for the spongeThis page gives no temperature; it simply sends you back to the sponge cake No. I recipe. As a modern working figure, a moderate oven of about 350F suits a sheet an inch deep in a 9x13 pan, roughly 20 to 25 minutes, and it should spring back when pressed at the centre.
- Cold cake, sharp knife"When cool" is doing a lot of work. Warm sponge tears and compresses under a blade. Cool the sheet completely, then chill it an hour, or freeze it 20 minutes, before cutting; a long thin-bladed or serrated knife drawn in single strokes gives clean edges.
- Inch squaresOne inch is small even by petit-four standards once icing is added. Squares of 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches are easier to handle and easier to ice on the sides. Trim the browned top and edges flat first so the icing sits level.
- Icing consistencyFor icing that coats the sides as well as the top, you want a pourable glace — sifted confectioners' sugar with just enough hot water, milk or orange juice to make it ribbon off a spoon. Set the squares on a rack over a tray, spoon the icing over, and let the excess run through; scrape it up and reuse it.
- The three flavoursChocolate icing in a book of this kind is most likely cocoa or melted unsweetened chocolate beaten into the sugar glaze rather than a ganache. Orange icing is made with juice and grated zest in place of the water. All three should set firm to the touch in about an hour at room temperature.
- Yield and servingA 9x13 sheet trimmed and cut at 1 1/4 inches gives about 50 squares. They keep two days in a tin; the icing covers the cut faces and will slow staling.
Good Things to Eat was published in 1911 by Rufus Estes, who cooked on Pullman private railroad cars and later for the subsidiaries of U.S. Steel in Chicago, and whose book is generally cited as the first cookbook published by an African American chef. Squares of iced sponge like these are the plain domestic cousin of the French petit four glace — a fussy item made practical here by baking one sheet, cutting it up, and pouring icing over the lot. Estes suggests that they are "very nice with ice-cream."