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White Cake No. 5
8 whites. 2 cups sugar. 1 cup butter. 3 teaspoons baking powder. 3 cups flour. 1 tablespoon cornstarch. 1 cup sweet milk.
Add nuts or cherries to batter if liked. Bake in two jelly tins.
A bare ingredient list of the kind that assumed every reader already knew the standard cake method. The proportions are sound; what is missing is procedure, pan size and temperature.
- The hinge: whites lastThe list gives no method, but in a cake of this type the eight whites would normally be beaten to soft peaks and folded in at the end, after the milk and flour, working with the baking powder rather than in place of it. Beaten in with the butter and sugar instead, they contribute much less lift.
- Method the list leaves outThe conventional handling would be to cream the butter and sugar thoroughly, sift the flour with the cornstarch and baking powder, add it alternately with the milk, then fold in the whites. None of this is stated; the list assumes a reader who already knew the standard cake method.
- Sweet milkPlain whole milk, unsoured. The word distinguishes it from the sour milk or buttermilk called for in soda-leavened cakes, where the acid does the lifting.
- CornstarchA tablespoon of cornstarch alongside the flour was a common touch in white cakes, intended to give a softer, finer crumb; at this proportion the effect is slight. Sift it with the flour rather than adding it separately.
- Jelly tinsRound, shallow layer pans, commonly around 8 to 9 inches across. Three cups of flour makes a good deal of batter for two such pans; three 8-inch pans would give layers of a more manageable height. Grease and flour or line them.
- OvenNo temperature is given. For layers of this depth a moderate oven, about 350F, and 25 to 30 minutes is a reasonable modern starting point; test with a skewer at the centre and expect only light colouring on top, since the cake is meant to stay white.
- Nuts or cherriesChopped walnuts or drained candied cherries, dredged in a spoonful of the measured flour so they do not sink. Half a cup to a cup is enough for this quantity.
- Yield and finishingTwo or three layers, perhaps serving 10 to 12. No icing or filling is given; a layer cake of this kind was generally finished with a boiled white icing or a lemon or jelly filling.
- The spare yolksThe recipe leaves eight yolks over, which is why yolk-heavy recipes such as gold cake, boiled custard and lemon curd were useful companions to a white cake. Use them the same day.
White cake developed as beaten whites, chemical baking powder and finely milled white flour became widely available in the later nineteenth century, and it was commonly paired with a "gold cake" made from the yolks, as in the older silver-and-gold cake pairing. The numbering here — No. 5 — suggests a collection assembled from a series of similar recipes. A cake this rich in butter, sugar and eggs would have been beyond reach under wartime food conservation.