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Lady Baltimore Cake
(From a famous recipe) 6 eggs Pinch of cream of tartar Pinch of salt Sugar Flour 1 teaspoon baking-powder 2 cups milk 2 ounces grated chocolate (about 10 tablespoons) 4 ounces granulated sugar (about 8 tablespoons) 4 ounces almond paste (about 8 tablespoons) 4 egg-yolks 1/4 pound shredded citron 1/2 cup pecan nut-meats Soft boiled frosting flavored with vanilla This cake is made in three parts: cake, chocolate-cream filling and nut cream. For the cake, weigh five eggs and take their weight in sugar (about one and one-fourth cup), weigh three eggs and take their weight in flour (about one and one-half cup). Separate whites from yolks of six eggs, add cream of tartar and salt to the whites and beat until very stiff and dry. Beat the yolks as dry as possible, and add to them the sugar, then fold in the whites quickly. Sift the flour three times, with the baking-powder, and whip into the mixture. Bake about three-quarters of an hour in an oven that slowly rises in temperature, keeping a piece of paper over the top of the pan. When cold, cut into three layers, with a sharp knife.
For the chocolate cream, heat one cup of milk in a double boiler with two ounces of sugar and two ounces of almond paste, add the chocolate, melted, and the beaten yolks of two eggs. Set aside to cool.
For the nut cream, heat one cup of milk in the double boiler with two ounces of sugar and two ounces of almond paste, add the shredded citron and the pecan-meats ground in a vegetable grinder, and thicken with two egg-yolks. When both creams are cool enough, spread the layers, using the nut filling for the bottom layer, the chocolate for the second and the boiled frosting for the top of the cake.
The almond paste may be bought at a confectioner's, or the almonds may be blanched and pounded. One and one-third cup of shelled almonds makes four ounces of paste.
A fatless sponge in three layers, filled with two cooked almond custards and finished with boiled frosting. The proportions are given by weight against the eggs, which is the part that decides whether it works.
- Weigh the eggs firstSugar equals the weight of five eggs, flour the weight of three. The book's own equivalents (about 1 1/4 cups sugar, about 1 1/2 cups flour) imply eggs of roughly 1 3/4 oz each; treat the cup figures as a check on your scale, not a substitute for it.
- Egg countSix eggs go into the cake, separated. The four egg-yolks listed further down are additional, two for each filling. Buy ten eggs.
- "An oven that slowly rises"The book gives no temperatures. Begin moderate and let the heat climb over the baking, or in a modern oven hold a steady 325F for the three-quarters of an hour the recipe specifies.
- The paper over the panA loose sheet of parchment laid on top keeps the surface pale and soft so the cake can be split cleanly into three. Do not seal it down; steam needs to escape.
- Whipping in the flour"Whip into the mixture" is not literal at this stage — fold the thrice-sifted flour in with a light hand. The sponge has no butter and nothing but egg foam to lift it.
- Ounce measures for the fillingsThe 4 oz of sugar and 4 oz of almond paste are each split between the two creams: 2 oz sugar (about 1/4 cup) and 2 oz paste per filling, with 1 cup of milk each from the 2 cups listed.
- Cook the custards properlyBoth fillings are yolk-thickened custards. Hold them in the double boiler, stirring, until they coat a spoon and reach 170-180F, then cool fully before spreading, or the layers will slide.
- Almond pasteModern canned or tubed almond paste (not marzipan, which is much sweeter) works directly. The note that 1 1/3 cups shelled almonds yields 4 oz of paste still holds if you blanch and grind your own.
- CitronCandied citron peel is now a holiday-season item or a mail-order one. Candied orange peel is the nearest common substitute in the nut cream.
- YieldOne three-layer cake, 10 to 12 servings. Assemble the day it is served; the sponge dries quickly once cut.
The cake called Lady Baltimore is generally traced to Owen Wister's 1906 novel of that name, set in a lightly fictionalised Charleston, after which a Charleston tea room sold the cake to visitors who had read the book; the version that spread through American cookbooks is a white layer cake with boiled frosting carrying chopped figs, raisins and pecans. What appears here under the name is a different thing — a sponge weighed against its own eggs, filled with almond-paste custards.