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Swiss Torte
4 tablespoons shortening 1 1/2 cups sugar 1/2 teaspoon soda 2 egg yolks, beaten 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon cream tartar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 egg whites, beaten stiff Cream shortening and sugar together. Add soda and beaten egg yolks. Sift dry ingredients and add alternately with milk. Add vanilla and fold in egg whites. Bake in a shallow pan. Serve with whipped cream. Serves eight.
A plain one-bowl butter cake leavened with soda and cream of tartar rather than commercial baking powder. The original gives no oven temperature or baking time, so both need filling in.
- Oven and panBake at 350F. "A shallow pan" here means a sheet-style cake pan — a 9x13-inch pan gives the shallow depth intended and serves eight generously; test at 25 minutes and expect up to 35.
- Soda plus cream of tartarTwo parts cream of tartar to one part soda is the original single-acting baking powder, and it starts working the moment liquid hits it. Have the pan greased and the oven hot before you mix, and bake immediately.
- Where the soda goesThe recipe adds soda to the creamed sugar, then lists cream of tartar among the dry ingredients. It works better sifted together with the flour, salt and cream of tartar so the acid and base meet evenly in the batter.
- ShorteningFour tablespoons is half a stick, about 55 g. Butter gives more flavour and behaves much the same in the creaming.
- SugarA cup and a half of sugar to two cups of flour is on the sweet side by current taste. It can be cut to a cup and a quarter without upsetting the structure, though the crumb will be a shade drier.
- Folding the whitesFold the stiff whites in last with a light hand — the batter is thin and it is easy to knock the air out. Streaks of white left visible are better than an over-mixed batter.
- ServingWhipped cream is the only accompaniment given. Cut in squares straight from the pan; the cake is plain enough to take fruit, a spoon of jam, or lightly sweetened berries alongside.
"Torte" is applied loosely in American community and promotional cookbooks: in central European usage it usually implies a rich nut- or crumb-based cake, sometimes flourless, but here it means little more than a plain cake baked shallow and dressed up with whipped cream at the table. The soda-and-cream-of-tartar leavening looks back to the period before packaged baking powder was universal, when the acid and the alkali could be bought and combined separately.