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Cake (Quart of flour well dried)
1 quart of flour, well dried. 1 cupful of butter. 3 cupfuls granulated sugar--it is better than pulverized. 6 eggs, well beaten. Lemon, or other seasoning. 1 light measure of both Horsford's powders, or, if preferred, a small teaspoonful of soda, and 1/2 cup of buttermilk.
Cream of tartar takes the place of buttermilk, when used with soda.--Mrs. A. CAKE with sauce.) 5 eggs. 1 pound of flour. 3/4 pound of sugar. 1/2 pound butter. 1 cup of cream. 2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar. 1 teaspoonful of soda.--Mrs. C. B. CAKE THAT CANNOT FAIL. 1 pound sugar. 1 pound flour. 3/4 pound butter. 8 eggs. 1 teacup of sweet cream. 2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar, sifted in the flour. 1 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little water, and put in the cream. Bake in pans or cups.--Mrs. P.
Three related pound-cake formulas printed as ingredient lists with no method, no pan size and no oven heat — the compiler assumed a cook who already knew how a cake was made. What follows fills in the gaps.
- A quart of flourFlour was measured by volume in a quart cup: roughly 4 cups, which period cooks reckoned at about 1 lb, which is why the second and third recipes state a pound outright. "Well dried" means warmed and sifted to drive off damp before measuring; modern bagged flour needs only sifting.
- Horsford's powdersEben Horsford's phosphate leavening was sold as two separate packages, an acid and an alkaline, to be measured out together — hence "1 light measure of both." Ordinary double-acting baking powder replaces the pair, in a quantity the cook must judge, since the original "light measure" is not a fixed amount.
- Soda and its acidBaking soda does nothing without acid. The first recipe pairs 1 teaspoon soda with 1/2 cup buttermilk, and notes that cream of tartar can stand in for the buttermilk. The 2:1 ratio of cream of tartar to soda in the other two recipes is the standard proportion of the period and is still correct.
- Sweet cream"Sweet" means unsoured, not sweetened — plain heavy or light cream. The "teacup" of the third recipe was an unstandardised measure, usually reckoned somewhat smaller than a modern cup.
- SugarThe note that granulated beats pulverized is about creaming: the sharp crystals cut air into the butter, where finely powdered sugar does not.
- Method, since none is givenCream butter and sugar until pale, beat in the eggs, then add the sifted flour and the liquid alternately. In the first recipe the soda would sensibly go into the buttermilk, though the text does not say so; in the third the cream of tartar is sifted through the flour and the soda dissolved in water and stirred into the cream, keeping acid and alkali apart until the batter is assembled.
- Oven and timeNo oven heat is given; a modern equivalent would be 325 to 350F. In two 9-inch loaf pans these batters run 55 to 70 minutes; baked "in cups," as the last recipe allows, 20 to 25 minutes.
- YieldEach formula uses about a pound of flour and makes a large cake — two loaves, or roughly two dozen small cakes if baked "in cups."
These three entries sit in the long shadow of the English pound cake, built on equal weights of flour, sugar, butter and eggs, and they show that scheme being loosened as chemical leavening spread through American kitchens. The Horsford's powders named in the first recipe were the calcium acid phosphate leavening developed by Eben Norton Horsford, a Harvard chemistry professor, and manufactured by the Rumford Chemical Works in Rhode Island from the 1850s onward; it was sold initially in two packets, acid and alkali, to be combined by the cook, which is exactly what "1 light measure of both" describes. That a household book offers three interchangeable leavening routes in a single column — patent powders, soda with buttermilk, soda with cream of tartar — is a fair picture of a transitional moment, when a cook chose according to what the pantry held rather than what the recipe demanded. The attributions to Mrs. A., Mrs. C. B. and Mrs. P. mark the book as a compilation of contributed receipts.