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Pineapple Tea Cakes
1 cup sugar 1/2 cup shortening 2 eggs 2 cups pastry flour 4 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 cup milk 1/3 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon mace 1 teaspoon nutmeg 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 cup pecans, broken in small pieces 3 slices of pineapple, diced Cream shortening and add sugar gradually. Add well beaten eggs, then milk alternately with sifted flour, salt, mace, nutmeg and baking powder. Add vanilla. Beat very well. Add pecans and pineapple. Bake in well greased muffin tins for 20 minutes at 375 degrees F. This makes 16 cakes.
A plain creamed batter carried by canned pineapple and a heavy hand with the spice jar. The temperature and time are given, which is unusual for the period, so the work is mostly in ingredient substitution.
- ShorteningThis means hydrogenated vegetable shortening or lard, not butter. Butter works and tastes better, but the crumb will be slightly firmer and the cakes will brown a little faster.
- Pastry flourSofter and lower in protein than all-purpose. Cake flour is a workable stand-in, though it is softer still; or use 2 cups all-purpose less 4 tablespoons, replaced with 4 tablespoons cornstarch.
- The baking powder is highFour teaspoons to 2 cups of flour is roughly double modern practice, which may reflect the weaker or single-acting powders then in use. With today's double-acting powder, 2 teaspoons will lift these adequately; the full 4 tends to give a coarse crumb and a faint metallic edge.
- Pineapple"Slices" points to canned rings, most likely packed in syrup. Dice and drain them thoroughly, pressing lightly in a sieve, or the extra liquid will make the centers gummy. Fresh pineapple can be used here since the batter is baked, so its enzymes are inactivated.
- SpiceA teaspoon each of mace and nutmeg is assertive, and the two come from the same fruit. Half a teaspoon each gives a warm background rather than a dominant one.
- Pans and yieldSixteen cakes from this batter means tins smaller than the modern standard cup. In standard 12-cup muffin tins, fill two-thirds full and expect 12 to 14; check at 18 minutes.
- Doneness375F for 20 minutes is right for the smaller tin. The fruit keeps the centers moist, so test with a skewer in the cake rather than through a piece of pineapple.