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Banana Cake
1/3 cup shortening 1 1/2 cups sugar 3 egg yolks 1 cup banana pulp 1/2 cup sour milk 1/3 cup nut meats 2 1/8 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon soda 3 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 3 egg whites, beaten stiff Cream shortening and sugar. Add well beaten egg yolks. Add banana pulp, sour milk and nuts. Sift dry ingredients together twice. Stir into liquid mixture and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Bake in loaf in moderate oven. Makes 1 large loaf.
A standard mid-century butter-cake method with mashed banana and soured milk. The recipe assumes you know your own oven and pan, so a few numbers need filling in.
- Moderate ovenBake at 350F. In a single large loaf pan this needs roughly 55 to 70 minutes; a tube or 9-inch square pan runs closer to 40 to 50. Test with a skewer in the centre rather than by the clock.
- Pan size"One large loaf" in this period means about a 9x5-inch pan. The batter is generous, so fill no more than two-thirds and bake any excess separately rather than risking overflow.
- Banana pulpOne cup of pulp is two large or three medium very ripe bananas, mashed until only small lumps remain. Fruit that is still firm and pale gives little flavour and less moisture.
- Sour milkThis generally meant milk that had clabbered on its own, though buttermilk was commonly used in its place. Use buttermilk, or stir a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar into half a cup of milk and let it stand ten minutes. The acid is what the half teaspoon of soda is there to react with.
- ShorteningIn this period the word covered any solid fat, hydrogenated vegetable shortening or lard among them. Butter works and tastes better, but cream it well; at only a third of a cup there is not much fat carrying air into this batter.
- That 2 1/8 cups of flourNot a typographical oddity but a genuine period measure: two cups plus two tablespoons. Use plain flour, spooned into the cup and levelled, since the recipe supplies its own leavening.
- SaltA full teaspoon reads high to modern eyes. If you bake with salted butter, cut it to half a teaspoon.
- Folding the whitesThe beaten whites add lightness on top of the soda and baking powder. Fold them in with a spatula in three additions and stop while a few streaks remain; stirring them down gives a denser loaf.
- ServingOne loaf gives 10 to 12 slices, and will keep two or three days wrapped.