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Daffodil Cake
(Angel and Sponge Marble) 12 C sifted Swans Down cake flour, for white part ⅔ C sifted Swans Down cake flour for yellow part 14 Cegg whites, (9 to 11 eggs) 12 t salt 1 t cream of tartar 1 Cand 2T sifted sugar 12 t vanilla, for white part 1/2 t orange extract for yellow part. 4 egg yolks, beaten light Sift flour once, measure, and sift four times. Beat egg whites.on large platter until foamy. Add salt and cream of tartar and continue beating until they hold up in peaks. Fold in sugar gradually and divide mixture into two parts, To one part fold in ½ C flour and vanilla. To the other, fold in egg yolks, 2/3 C flour, and 1/2 t orange extract, Put by teaspoons into ungreased Angel Food pan, alternating yellow and white mixtures. Bake in slow oven (325° F.) 60 to 70 minutes. Invert pan until cake is cold, then remove.
Swansdown Recipe.
A two-batter angel food, marbled yellow and white, from a Swans Down flour promotion. The transcription has flattened most of the fractions, so read the quantities carefully before you start.
- The mangled fractions"12 C" of flour is 1/2 cup, and "12 t salt" is 1/2 teaspoon; both still run their numerals together. The yellow part takes 2/3 cup flour and the whites measure 1 1/4 cups, as the text now gives. The sugar is 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons.
- Cake flour is not optionalSwans Down is a bleached, low-protein cake flour, and the whole structure of the cake depends on it. All-purpose flour makes a tougher, shorter crumb; if it is all you have, replace two tablespoons per cup with cornstarch.
- Sift four times, and mean itThe repeated sifting is aeration, not tidiness, and it is why the flour folds into the meringue without deflating it. Sift once, measure by spooning lightly into the cup, then sift the measured flour four more times.
- Egg whitesOne and a quarter cups is roughly 9 to 11 large whites, about 300 g. They whip higher at room temperature, and a single speck of yolk or grease will keep them from reaching stiff peaks.
- The platterBeating whites flat on a large platter was one pre-mixer method, and it gives a very open foam. A stand mixer works, but stop at firm peaks that still look glossy; overbeaten whites tear when you fold in the flour.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirEverything after the meringue is folding. Divide the sweetened whites by weight if you can, then fold flour into each half in three additions with a large spatula, cutting down and turning over rather than mixing round.
- Oven and pan325F is right for a tall tube cake, and the pan must be ungreased aluminum with no nonstick coating, since the batter climbs the sides as it rises. A two-piece tube pan makes release easier.
- Cooling upside downInverting is what stops the hot crumb collapsing under its own weight. Hang the pan over a bottle neck or on its feet for at least 90 minutes, until stone cold, then run a thin knife around the sides.
- YieldThe recipe does not give a pan size; an angel food tube pan, cutting to roughly 12 slices. Cut with a serrated knife using a sawing motion; pressing down compresses the crumb.
Daffodil cake is angel food's marbled cousin: egg yolks are folded back into half the batter, scented with orange, and spooned in alternately so the cut slice shows yellow and white. It belongs to the era after mechanical egg beaters and fine-milled bleached cake flours made tall foam cakes practical for home bakers, and the closing line, "Swansdown Recipe," is honest about its origin. Swans Down flour, sold since the late nineteenth century, promoted itself hard through recipe booklets and package inserts, and those recipes were copied into community cookbooks across the middle of the twentieth century.