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Cocoanut Layer Cake
1/4 cup shortening 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon flavoring extract 1 egg 1 cup milk 2 cups flour 1/8 teaspoon salt 3 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder Cream shortening, add sugar slowly, add flavoring and well beaten egg; add milk; mix well; then add flour, salt and baking powder which have been sifted together. Bake in three greased layer cake tins in moderate oven 12 to 15 minutes.
A plain one-egg white cake batter, split between three thin layers. Note that the coconut is not in the ingredient list at all: the name refers to the filling and icing, which this book keeps as separate recipes.
- The coconutThe cake itself contains none. Traditionally the layers are stacked with boiled white icing or a cooked cornstarch filling and thickly strewn with grated coconut, top and sides included. Plan on about 2 cups of unsweetened shredded or freshly grated coconut and a frosting of your choosing.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350 to 375F. Thin layers this size are done at 12 to 15 minutes as stated, so check at 12 rather than trusting the upper figure.
- Royal Baking PowderRoyal was cream of tartar based and single-acting, which may account for the generous three teaspoons for two cups of flour. With modern double-acting powder about 2 to 2 1/4 teaspoons is generally enough, and get the pans into the oven promptly once the liquid is in.
- ShorteningIn 1920s usage this means any solid fat: lard, vegetable shortening, or butter. Butter gives the better flavor here, and 1/4 cup is 4 tablespoons.
- Flavoring extractLeft unspecified. Vanilla is the obvious default; lemon or almond would also suit a coconut cake. One teaspoon of extract is a full measure, so use a good one.
- The flourHousehold flour of the period was often softer than today's all-purpose. Cake flour, spooned in and leveled, will give a lighter texture; with all-purpose, hold back a tablespoon or two per cup.
- Mixing orderAs written, all the milk goes in before any flour, which will look curdled and alarming. It comes together once the dry ingredients are folded in, but adding the milk and the sifted dry mixture alternately in two or three additions gives a smoother batter.
- Pans and yieldPan size is not given; three 8-inch rounds suit this quantity, or two 9-inch for thicker layers, which will need noticeably longer in the oven. Figure on roughly 10 to 12 servings.
The New Royal Cook Book belongs to a long line of promotional cookery books issued by baking powder manufacturers, whose object was to make chemically leavened cake the ordinary domestic standard and to make one brand the ordinary domestic choice; the brand name is written into the ingredient list rather than left as a generic. The recipe is a one-egg cake, the thriftiest of the layer-cake family, stretched into three layers by baking it thin. Coconut cake became a fixture on American tables in the later nineteenth century as desiccated and shredded coconut arrived in tins and packets from Caribbean and Central American trade, putting a formerly awkward tropical fruit within reach of an inland kitchen. That the coconut appears only in the title tells you how these books were used: the reader was expected to turn to the frosting section and assemble the cake from parts.