White Cup Cake
1 cup powdered sugar 1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup cream 2 cups flour Dash of nutmeg Whites of 3 eggs Grated rind of 1/2 lemon ¾ teaspoon soda 1 teaspoon hot water Beat the butter and sugar to a cream; add lemon rind and nutmeg, then the cream, then the flour alternately with the whites beaten to a stiff froth. Last add the soda dissolved in the hot water. Bake in shallow buttered tins or all in one.
A plain white butter cake of the sort that filled the back pages of every American cake chapter around 1900. The method is straightforward; most of the decisions the original leaves to you are about sugar, cream and oven.
- "Powdered sugar" is not confectioners' sugarIn books of this period powdered sugar generally means a finely ground sugar, finer than granulated. Use superfine (caster) sugar, or ordinary granulated pulsed briefly; modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch and creams differently with butter.
- Which creamHalf a cup of cream here is dairy cream, not sour cream, though soured cream was common in farm kitchens and would explain the soda. Heavy cream works and gives a tender crumb.
- Soda without acidWith sweet cream and no sour milk, molasses or cream of tartar, the soda has little to react with, and excess soda can leave a faint soapy taste. Either use soured cream or buttermilk in place of the sweet cream, or substitute baking powder folded into the flour and skip the soda and hot water.
- Egg whitesThree whites beaten to a stiff froth are the main lift. Fold them in by thirds, alternating with the flour as directed, and stop as soon as the last streaks disappear.
- FlourTurn-of-the-century household flour was often softer than modern all-purpose. Cake flour, spooned and levelled, gives the fine white crumb the name promises.
- OvenThe recipe gives no temperature. A moderate oven, around 350F, suits it: shallow buttered tins take about 20 to 25 minutes; baked "all in one" in a loaf or 8-inch square pan, allow 40 to 50 minutes and test with a skewer.
- YieldRoughly one 8-inch square cake, one small loaf, or 12 cupcakes. It is a plain cake rather than a rich one, and is best iced or eaten within two days.
"Cup cake" is generally understood to have described the method rather than the shape: a cake measured out in cupfuls rather than weighed on scales, set beside the English pound cake with its equal pounds of butter, sugar, flour and eggs. The familiar 1-2-3-4 cake belongs to the same family. A white cup cake uses only the whites, leaving the yolks for custard or gold cake and producing a pale crumb that was prized at a time when a very white cake signalled fine flour and refined sugar.