Jelly Cake
One cupful of sugar, 1 cupful of milk, 2 teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar, 1 teaspoonful of soda or 2 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, 1 pint of flour, 1 egg, 1 tablespoonful of butter, a little salt, flavor and bake in layers. Put currants or any tart jelly between the layers.
A plain, thrifty layer cake with almost no fat, of the type that only works if it goes into the oven the moment the batter is mixed. The leavening instruction is the part most likely to trip a modern cook.
- Read the leavening as either/orTwo teaspoons cream of tartar plus one of soda is homemade baking powder; the recipe offers commercial baking powder as a substitute for the pair, not an addition. Use one system or the other, not both, or the cake may taste unpleasantly of excess leavening.
- A pint of flourFlour was measured by volume, so a pint means 2 cups, roughly 8 to 9 oz depending on how lightly it is scooped. Spoon it into the cup and level it rather than packing.
- Mix fast, bake at onceWith cream of tartar and soda the reaction begins in the bowl and is largely spent within a few minutes. Have the pans greased and the oven hot before the wet and dry are combined.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction; a modern moderate oven, around 350F, suits it, and thin layers of this sort take roughly 15 to 20 minutes. Test the centre early, since a lean batter dries out quickly.
- One tablespoon of butterThat is deliberate economy, not an error. Expect a firm, close crumb closer to a shortcake than to a modern butter cake, which is why the jelly between the layers matters as much as it does.
- "Flavor"Meaning your extract of choice: a teaspoon of vanilla, or lemon, which suits a tart currant jelly better.
- Yield and pansThe recipe does not say how many layers; this quantity will make about two thin 8-inch rounds. Spread with about half a cup of jelly, currant or another sharp one; sweet jam will make the whole thing cloying against a cake this plain.
- KeepingWith this little fat it stales within a day. Assemble it the day it is baked and serve the same evening.
Jelly cake was one of the standard cheap company cakes of the late nineteenth century: a single egg and a tablespoon of butter made a two-layer cake presentable enough for visitors at a fraction of the cost of a pound cake. The cream of tartar and soda pairing points to the decades when cooks were still accustomed to mixing their own leavening, and many books of the period print both that method and commercial baking powder side by side. Currant jelly was the usual filling because currant bushes were common in kitchen gardens and the fruit is high in pectin and acid, giving a tart layer that carried a cake with almost no richness of its own.