Angel's Cake
Whites of 8 eggs, well beaten. 1 cup of butter. 2 cups of sugar. 3 cups of flour. 1 teaspoonful cream of tartar. 1/2 teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in 1/2 cup of milk.
Mix in this way; add the sugar to the eggs, then the butter well creamed, then the flour and milk alternately. Season to taste. Bake thin, and spread icing between, on the top and sides, sprinkling grated cocoanut over the whole.--Mrs. C.
Despite the name, this is not the fat-free angel food cake of later cookbooks — the cup of butter makes it a white layer cake, closer to what other books of the period call silver cake. Treat it as such and it works well.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given, as was normal when ranges were judged by hand. Thin layers of a butter cake this rich want 350F, 18 to 22 minutes, until the centre springs back.
- "Bake thin"The batter is meant for three or four shallow layers in 8- or 9-inch pans, roughly an inch of batter each, not one deep cake. Filling a single pan gives a heavy, gummy centre.
- Mixing orderSugar goes into the beaten whites, then creamed butter, then flour and milk alternately. This is backwards from modern creaming method and the whites will deflate somewhat; that is expected — the soda and cream of tartar do the real lifting.
- Cream of tartar and sodaTogether these are essentially homemade baking powder, and the milk provides the liquid to start the reaction. Get the pans into the oven promptly once the milk is in.
- "Season to taste"Nineteenth-century shorthand for flavouring extract. A teaspoon of vanilla, almond or rose water, or a little grated lemon rind, suits a white cake.
- Cup measuresCup sizes in books of this period vary, though many are near enough to the modern 8-ounce cup for baking to work. Spoon and level, or weigh at about 4 1/4 oz per cup, or the layers will be dry.
- CoconutGrated coconut in 1879 meant fresh meat grated from the nut, unsweetened and moist. Bagged sweetened flake will make the finished cake noticeably sweeter; unsweetened desiccated coconut is nearer the original.
- YieldThree or four thin layers, iced between and all over — twelve to sixteen servings.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1879, gathers contributions from named and initialed Virginia housekeepers, which is why this one arrives signed "Mrs. C." The name "angel cake" seems in the 1870s and 1880s to have been used loosely of pale cakes made with egg whites only, the yolks apparently going into custards, curds and gold cake; the meringue-based, butterless angel food cake that later monopolised the name was still settling into print at this date, and books of the period often use "angel," "silver" and "white cake" for overlapping things. The recipe also reflects the transitional state of chemical leavening: rather than commercial baking powder, the cook keeps cream of tartar and soda separately and combines them in the batter, a practice sometimes said to have persisted after tinned powders became available.