White Cake
The whites of 20 eggs. 1 pound of flour. 1 pound of butter. 1 pound of almonds.
Use a little more flour, if the almonds are omitted.--Mrs. Dr. S. White Cake. 1 cup of butter. 3 cups of sugar. 1 cup of sweet milk. The whites of 5 eggs. 3 cups of flour. 3 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar. 1 teaspoonful of soda.-Mrs. D.
Two separate white cakes from two contributors, printed one after the other. The first is a pound-cake formula given in the old shorthand of equal weights; the second is a leavened American layer cake and the more practical of the pair.
- The first recipe has no sugarAs printed, Mrs. Dr. S.'s cake lists eggs, flour, butter and almonds only. A pound cake of this type would normally take a pound of sugar alongside the pound of butter and flour; the sugar may have been dropped in printing, or this list may be the tail of a preceding recipe whose earlier ingredients do not appear here. Treat the quantity as ambiguous and work from a modern pound-cake ratio if you attempt it.
- Pound measures in cupsA pound of butter is 2 cups, a pound of flour is roughly 3 1/2 to 4 cups, and the whites of 20 eggs come to about 2 1/2 cups. This is a very large cake, filling two 9-inch tube pans or the equivalent.
- The almondsNineteenth-century almond cakes used blanched almonds pounded to a paste in a mortar, usually with a little rosewater or egg white to keep them from oiling. A food processor does the work, but pulse in short bursts; ground too far, the almonds turn to butter and the batter will be heavy. Store-bought almond flour also works. The note to add extra flour when almonds are omitted acknowledges that the nuts are carrying part of the structure.
- Cream of tartar and sodaMrs. D.'s cake follows the older practice of adding the acid and the alkali separately rather than using a packaged baking powder, which was commercially available by 1879 but not yet standard in every home kitchen. One teaspoon of soda with two of cream of tartar is equivalent to about 4 teaspoons of baking powder; the third teaspoon of cream of tartar is extra acid, which helps whiten and tenderise the crumb. Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly and get the cake into the oven promptly, as the reaction begins as soon as the milk goes in.
- "Sweet milk"Ordinary fresh whole milk, specified to distinguish it from sour milk or buttermilk.
- Method, which neither recipe statesCream the butter and sugar, add the milk and flour alternately, and fold in the whites beaten to soft peaks last. Nothing here should be beaten hard after the whites go in.
- OvenBake at 350F. The second cake makes two 9-inch layers in about 25 to 30 minutes, or a single tube cake in 50 to 60. The pound cake, if made, wants the same temperature and up to an hour and a half; test the centre with a skewer.
- What to do with the yolksTwenty yolks would not have been wasted. Period books put surplus yolks into custards, boiled dressing, or the gold half of a gold-and-silver cake.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housekeepers, prints recipes largely as they were handed in, which is why two unrelated cakes can share a heading here. Mrs. Dr. S.'s cake belongs to the older English tradition, leavened by air beaten into a great many egg whites and measured by the pound, while Mrs. D.'s is measured in cups and lifted chemically. Cakes made with whites alone were prized for their pale crumb at a time when a white cake signalled refined flour, plentiful eggs and a cook with time to beat them, and the almond version belongs to the same family as the rich English almond and Savoy cakes of the eighteenth century. The separate cream of tartar and soda are consistent with the decades before packaged baking powder became usual in home kitchens.