Yorkshire Cake
2 ounces of flour 2 ounces of butter 2 ounces of ground rice 2 ounces of sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder Very little milk Mix the butter and flour well together with the rice and sugar, add the baking powder, and just sufficient milk to moisten; mix well together. Spread on two buttered plates, and bake ten minutes. When done, spread jam over one, place the other on the top, and sprinkle with sugar. A layer cake is made in this way, with about three layers of cake, and jam or jelly in between, and icing sprinkled with halved walnuts on the top.
A small rubbed-in shortcake baked in two thin rounds and sandwiched with jam. The whole thing is four ingredients at two ounces apiece, so it scales cleanly up or down by weight.
- The weights in cupsTwo ounces of flour is a scant half cup; two ounces of ground rice is about 6 tablespoons; two ounces of butter is 4 tablespoons (half a stick); two ounces of sugar is a scant third of a cup. Weighing is easier and more accurate than converting.
- Ground riceEssentially rice flour, though the traditional British 'ground rice' is a somewhat coarser grind than the fine rice flour usually sold today. It does not develop gluten, which is what gives the cake its characteristically short, slightly sandy crumb. Do not substitute cooked rice or ground rice cereal.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A ten-minute bake on thin rounds points to a fairly hot oven, 400-425F; watch for the edges to color rather than trusting the clock.
- "Buttered plates"Tin or enamelled plates were shallower than a modern cake pan. Two small round tins, or a sheet pan with the dough patted into two rounds, will do the same job.
- "Very little milk"This is the hinge. The mixture should come together as a stiff, barely moistened dough you can press out, not a pourable batter. Add milk a teaspoon at a time; too much and it spreads and toughens rather than baking short.
- MethodRub the butter into the flour and ground rice with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until it looks like coarse crumbs, then stir in sugar and baking powder before the milk. Creaming the butter with the sugar gives a different, cakier result.
- AssemblingSpread the jam while the rounds are still slightly warm so it softens and grips, but let them cool before stacking or the top layer slides.
- YieldTwo thin rounds sandwiched together serve four modestly. For the three-layer version described at the end, multiply everything by one and a half or double it outright.
Ground rice was a standard economy in British home baking through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: cheaper than wheat flour, it gave biscuits and plain cakes a short, crisp texture without eggs. The name attaches loosely to a whole family of northern English plain cakes and shortcakes split and filled with jam.