Feather Cake
One cupful of sugar, 1 cupful of sweet milk, 1 egg, 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, 1 teaspoonful of cream of tartar, ½ teaspoonful of soda, 2 heaping cupfuls of flour. A Delicious Cheap Cake One cupful of sugar, 1 egg, butter the size of a small egg, 1 cupful of very cold water, 2 even cupfuls of flour, measured before sifting, 2 slightly rounded teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, salt and flavoring. Mix the sugar and butter thoroughly, add the egg and beat well. Add the water and let this stand while you sift the flour, baking-powder and salt three times, or, until thoroughly mixed Then beat all very thoroughly and bake in a moderate oven. This may be filled with any preferred filling, may be used as a common loaf cake, or as a chocolate loaf cake by adding 2 teaspoonfuls of cocoa or 3 tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate.
Two economy cakes printed as one entry: a milk-and-soda "feather cake" with no method given, and a water cake with full instructions. The second is the more reliable of the pair.
- The leavening in the first recipe is wrongThe leavening in the first recipe looks wrong -- one teaspoon of cream of tartar will not neutralise a teaspoon and a half of soda, and sweet (fresh) milk supplies little acid of its own. As printed the cake is likely to taste soapy and to discolour; the soda may well be a misprint for half a teaspoon, which is the usual proportion to one of cream of tartar. Treat the two together as a substitute for two teaspoons of baking powder.
- "Sweet milk" and "butter the size of a small egg"Sweet milk means ordinary fresh whole milk, as against sour milk or buttermilk. Butter the size of a small egg is about 2 tablespoons, the same as the first recipe calls for outright.
- Moderate oven350F. A single 8-inch layer or a small loaf takes 25 to 35 minutes; test with a skewer at the centre rather than by time, as these batters are thin and shallow.
- Sifting three times is not paddingWith one egg and 2 tablespoons of fat, the crumb depends almost entirely on air and on the baking powder being evenly dispersed. Sifting flour, powder and salt together repeatedly is what does that work here. If you skip it, sift once and whisk thoroughly.
- Very cold waterThe cold water helps keep the creamed butter from softening into the batter. Letting the batter stand while you sift also hydrates the flour.
- Flour measurement"Measured before sifting" means an unsifted cup, which weighs more than a sifted one; the first recipe's "heaping" cups are more still. If the batter seems stiff, hold back the last of the flour.
- Cocoa versionTwo teaspoons of cocoa gives colour and little more; 3 tablespoons of grated chocolate is the stronger of the two options given.
- YieldEach recipe makes roughly one 8-inch layer or one small loaf; the recipe itself suggests filling it, so the batter may divide into two thin layers.
Both of these belong to the long American tradition of the cheap cake, measured in cups because the household had cups rather than scales, and rationed to one egg because eggs were the expensive item. The first recipe's cream of tartar and soda is the older leavening system: cooks bought the two powders separately and combined them in the bowl, which is exactly what commercial baking powder did for them once it became cheap and reliable in the later nineteenth century, and the second recipe shows the switch already made. "Feather cake" is a descriptive name rather than a fixed formula, applied to any plain cake light enough to be called feathery; dozens of unrelated versions appear under it in period collections. The second recipe substitutes cold water for milk, another economy.