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Pound Cake (Cream cup shortening with cups)
Cream 2/3 cup shortening with 2 cups sifted flour. Add 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt to 1 cup eggs (takes about 5) before beating; then beat eggs very light, gradually add to them 1 1/2 cups sugar, beat well together, then combine with the flour paste, mixing well. Add flavoring and 1 tablespoon water, and beat the whole mixture well. Turn into a greased bread pan, and bake in slow moderate oven (325 degrees) for at least an hour. This is a quick pound cake.
A shortcut pound cake from the era when hydrogenated shortening was replacing butter in cake baking. The method is unusual: fat is rubbed into the flour first, and the leavening goes in with the eggs rather than the flour.
- The hinge: two separate mixturesCream the shortening into the flour until it looks like coarse damp crumbs, and beat the eggs and sugar until pale and thick. Much of the lift comes from that egg foam, though the baking powder is doing work too. Note that the recipe directs you to beat the whole mixture well once the two are combined.
- "1 cup eggs"Measuring eggs by volume turns up in recipes of this period, though counting them was the more usual convention. One cup is 8 fl oz, about 5 large eggs today (the recipe's own estimate). Crack them into a measuring cup rather than counting.
- Shortening2/3 cup of vegetable shortening, measured solid and packed. Butter gives better flavour at the same volume, but it carries water and the crumb will be slightly denser.
- Leavening placementThe baking powder and salt are stirred into the eggs before beating, as written. This is unorthodox; whatever the reasoning behind it, the batter should go into the oven promptly.
- Oven325F, as the original helpfully specifies. "Slow moderate" sits between the slow and moderate settings used in books of this period; a dense loaf at higher heat will dome and crack while the centre is still wet.
- Pan and timeA "bread pan" is a loaf tin, commonly around 9 by 5 inches today, though period sizes varied. Grease it as directed. Start testing at an hour, as the recipe says; a skewer in the centre should come out clean and the loaf should have pulled slightly from the sides.
- FlavoringUnspecified, as was common. One to two teaspoons vanilla, or vanilla with a little lemon extract or grated zest, suits it. The single tablespoon of water is there to loosen the stiff paste, not to flavour anything.
- YieldOne loaf, 10 to 12 slices. It keeps four or five days wrapped and improves on the second day.