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Gold--and--Silver Cake
2 cups sugar 1 cup margarine 4 eggs 1 cup water 1 teaspoon orange extract Mix as for cake. Bake in three layers, moderate oven (375 degrees) about 25 minutes. Frost with Seven--Minute frosting, and decorate artistically with tiny silver candies.
A plain butter-style layer cake from the era when margarine had just become respectable in home baking, finished with boiled meringue frosting. A few of its instructions assume knowledge the book expected every reader to have.
- "Mix as for cake"This is shorthand for the creaming method: beat the fat and sugar until pale and light, add the eggs a little at a time, then alternate dry ingredients with the water in three or four additions, ending with dry. Overbeating after the flour goes in is what makes this style of cake tough.
- The dry side of the batterThe ingredient list as printed gives only the wet elements and the sugar. A cake of this size in books of the period was built on roughly 3 cups of sifted cake flour, 3 to 4 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt; check against a comparable white layer cake before mixing.
- Oven temperatureThe book calls 375F a moderate oven, which is at the hot end of that term. Modern practice for a three-layer white cake is 350F, and 375F will brown the edges before the centres set unless the layers are thin.
- Pan sizeThree layers most likely means three 8- or 9-inch round pans, greased and floured or lined; the recipe does not specify. Divide the batter by weight if you want the layers even. About 25 minutes at this temperature; a skewer should come out clean and the top spring back.
- MargarineMargarine of this period was a firmer, drier fat than today's tub spreads. Use a hard block margarine or unsalted butter; soft spreads carry more water and will slacken the batter.
- Gold and silverThe name refers to the colour scheme rather than a technique here. If you want the traditional two-tone effect, the classic version divides the batter and builds one part on yolks and one on whites, baked as separate layers.
- Seven-minute frostingEgg whites, sugar and water beaten over simmering water for about seven minutes, to roughly 160F. It sets quickly, so spread it as soon as it holds a peak, and assemble the cake the day it is served -- it weeps in the refrigerator.
- The silver candiesThese are dragees. Silver-coated dragees are sold in many countries as decoration only and are not classed as food in some jurisdictions, including California. Read the packet, and use silver sanding sugar or nonpareils if you want something certainly edible.
- YieldA three-layer 8-inch cake gives 12 to 16 slices.
Gold-and-silver cake belongs to a family of American layer cakes named for their colour: silver cake used only egg whites, gold cake the yolks, and the two were sometimes baked together so that neither half of the egg went to waste. Cookbooks of this kind sold themselves on coordinated menus, matching frostings and decoration described as "artistic." The use of margarine rather than butter is also of its time, though margarine still carried some stigma in home baking in this period.