Cake, Economical
INGREDIENTS.-1½ lb. of flour, 1/4 lb. of sugar, 1/4 lb. of butter or lard, 1/2 lb. of currants, 1 teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, the whites of 4 eggs, In making many sweet dishes, the whites of eggs are not required, and if well beaten and added to the above ingredients, make an excellent cake with or without currants.
Beat the butter to a cream, well whisk the whites of the eggs, and stir all the ingredients together but the soda, which must not be added until all is well mixed, and the cake is ready to be put into the CAKE-MOULD. oven. When the mixture has been well beaten, stir in the soda, put the cake into a buttered mould, and bake it in a moderate oven for 1½ hour.
TIME.-1 hour.
Cake, Good Holiday. INGREDIENTS for large cake.-1d.-worth of Borwick's German baking-powder, 2 lbs. of flour, 6 oz. of butter, lb. of lard, 1 lb. of currants, 1/2 lb. of stoned and cut raisins, tb. of mixed candied peel, lb. of moist sugar, 3 eggs, pint of cold milk. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 7d.
Twelfth Cake.
Baba.
Tennis Care.
Gateau.
Madeira Cake.
Margipan.
Wedding Cake.
Rout Cakes.
Shortbread.
Petit Fours.
Sponge Cake.
Christening Cake.
Fancy Cake.
Cakes.
CAKE, LUNCHEON.
Mix the baking-powder with the flour; then rub in the butter and lard; have ready the currants, washed, picked, and dried, the raisins stoned and cut into small pieces (not chopped), and the peel cut into neat slices.
Add these with the sugar to the flour, &c., and mix all the dry ingredients well to MADEIRA CAKE. gether. Whisk the eggs, stir to them the milk, and with this liquid moisten the cake; beat it up well, that all may be very thoroughly mixed; line a cake tin with buttered paper, put in the cake, and bake it from 21 to 24 hours in a good oven. To ascertain when it is done, plunge a clean knife into the middle of it, and if, on withdrawing it, the knife looks clean, and not sticky, the cake is done. To prevent it burning at the top, a piece of of clean clean paper may be put over whilst the cake is soaking, or being thoroughly cooked in the middle. A steamer, such as is used for steaming potatoes, makes a very good cake tin, if it be lined at the bottom and sides with buttered paper.
TIME.-24 to 24 hours.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Two cakes have run together on this page: a plain currant cake built on leftover egg whites, and a larger fruited "holiday" cake raised with proprietary baking powder. Both are Victorian pound-and-half-pound formulas that assume you weigh rather than measure.
- The hinge: soda goes in lastCarbonate of soda begins working the moment it meets moisture, and this batter has no acid to hold it in reserve. Mix everything else first, beat well, then stir in the soda and get the tin into the oven immediately.
- Expect a modest rise, and a faint soapinessSoda alone, with no buttermilk, cream of tartar or acid fruit to neutralise it, can leave a residue that tastes mildly alkaline and tint the crumb yellowish. A teaspoon to a pound of flour is about the usual modern proportion, but with no acid present the flavour shows; scant it, or substitute baking powder for a cleaner flavour.
- Weights in modern terms1 lb flour is about 3½ cups; ¼ lb sugar and ¼ lb butter are half a cup each; ½ lb currants is roughly 1½ cups. The result is a fairly lean, dry-eating cake by present standards — that is the economy in "economical".
- "A moderate oven"Conventionally about 350°F. (For the larger fruit cake the recipe specifies only "a good oven", and gives no lower heat.)
- Baking timeThe instructions and the time line for the first cake disagree. For a 1 lb-flour cake in a buttered loaf or ring mould, start checking at 1 hour and reckon on 1¼ to 1½ hours; the clean-knife test given for the second cake applies equally here.
- CurrantsThese are dried Zante currants, the small black raisins, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. Wash, pick over and dry them as directed — old stock was gritty — and toss them in a little of the weighed flour so they do not sink.
- Borwick's German baking-powderA heavily advertised Victorian brand sold in penny packets; any modern baking powder stands in for it. "1d.-worth" is not a quantity anyone can now convert reliably -- for 2 lb of flour, four teaspoons or more is a reasonable starting point.
- Egg whites onlyThe whole point of the first cake is using up whites left from custards and sauces. Whisk them to soft peaks rather than stiff; stiff whites folded into a creamed butter batter tend to break up under the beating the recipe calls for.
- YieldThe economical cake will about fill a 2 lb loaf tin. The holiday cake is roughly double and suits a deep 8-inch tin, lined with buttered paper as directed and protected on top with paper once it has coloured.
Recipes for cakes made from whites alone belong to a household economy in which nothing was thrown out: yolks went into custards, curds, mayonnaise and rich sauces, and the whites accumulated in a bowl with no obvious use. Beeton's answer was to sweeten and fruit them into a plain currant cake that cost little beyond the flour. The second cake on this page shows the other half of the story -- proprietary baking powders sold by the pennyworth were coming into domestic use alongside the older carbonate of soda, which the first recipe on this page still calls for, and a brand name could be quoted in the ingredient list as casually as flour. The steamer pressed into service as a cake tin, and the buttered paper laid over the top, are the marks of a kitchen where equipment was improvised and ovens were unreliable at the crown.