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Watermelon Cake
1 cup margarine 3 cups sugar 2 cups milk 7 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons baking powder 2 teaspoons vanilla 6 egg whites Combine as for cake, folding in stiffly beaten egg whites last. Divide batter into two parts. In one bowl leave the white batter. To the second half add 1/2 teaspoon red cake coloring and to this red batter add 3/4 cup raisins floured to prevent their falling to bottom of mold. Have a melon-shaped mold well oiled and floured. First place the white batter in mold, letting it run well up on the sides of the mold. Then pour the red batter in center, and last of all pour a little white batter over the top. Do not fill mold too full, or cake will run over in oven. Bake in moderate 350 degrees oven about 1 3/4 hours. Time of baking depends on size and depth of mold or pan used. When done, turn cake out, and cool slightly. Frost with green-colored Seven-Minute frosting, and streak with white frosting to indicate watermelon markings.
A very large white cake baked in a melon mold, with a red raisin-studded core standing in for the flesh and seeds and green frosting for the rind. The mechanics of the mold and the long bake matter more here than the batter itself.
- The moldA hemispherical or oval melon mold is the point of the cake; a metal mixing bowl, ovenproof glass bowl or deep round pan gives the same domed profile once turned out. A tube or Bundt pan defeats the effect, since the hole cuts through the red center.
- Fill only two-thirdsThe warning about overflow is the real hinge. This batter rises hard on 4 tablespoons of baking powder, and in a deep mold it climbs rather than spreads. Bake any surplus batter as cupcakes rather than crowding the mold.
- ScaleSeven cups of flour is roughly triple a modern cake recipe, and should yield a cake for something like 18 to 24. Halving everything and using a smaller bowl works; expect the baking time to drop well short of the 1 3/4 hours given, and start testing early, since the recipe itself notes that timing depends on the depth of the mold.
- Oven350F as written, which is correct for a deep mold. If the crown is browning well before the middle sets, tent it loosely with foil and keep going; a skewer must come out clean from the deepest point, and 200-205F at the center is a reliable check.
- MargarinePeriod margarine was a firm block product used interchangeably with butter. Use stick margarine or butter, not a soft tub spread, whose higher water content will loosen the batter.
- Food coloringHalf a teaspoon of liquid coloring goes into only half the batter here. Modern gel pastes are more concentrated than old bottled liquid colors, so start with a few drops and build to a watermelon pink, judging by eye.
- The raisinsTossing them in flour helps but will not fully suspend them. Chop them small, and pour the red batter into the center of the white in a fairly thick, deliberate column so it holds its shape.
- FoldingSix whites are a small amount of aeration for this much batter, so their job is texture rather than lift. Fold in thirds and stop while a few streaks remain.
- Turning outThe recipe turns the cake out and then cools it slightly; in practice let it settle 15 to 20 minutes in the mold before inverting. Turned out piping hot, a deep cake this size can tear under its own weight; left until fully cold, it may stick.
- Seven-minute frostingIt must be beaten over simmering water until it holds firm peaks, and it sets quickly once off the heat. Frost the cooled dome green, then trail thinned white frosting from crown to base for the rind stripes while the surface is still tacky.
Watermelon cakes belong to a long American tradition of cakes disguised as something else, and they turn up in printed collections from the late nineteenth century onward, usually as a white cake with a pink or red center and raisins or currants for the seeds. The trick leans on two things becoming cheap and reliable in the home kitchen: bottled food coloring and chemical leavening strong enough to raise a deep, heavy batter in a shaped mold. Card parties were a characteristic afternoon entertainment of the 1920s and 1930s, and the food they called for tended to be novelty first and easy to cut and serve. A cake that reveals a watermelon slice when cut fits that brief exactly.