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Coffee Spice Cake with Mocha Filling
1/2 cup shortening 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/2 cup strong coffee 2 cups flour 3 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 1/8 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons mixed spices Cream shortening and sugar until light; add well beaten yolks of eggs; add coffee slowly; add half of flour sifted with baking powder, salt and spices; mix and add well beaten whites of eggs; add remainder of flour and mix lightly. Pour into greased layer cake tins and bake in moderate oven 45 to 50 minutes. Spread layers and cover top with
A plain Royal-era layer cake, promotional in origin and generous with the baking powder. Two things need attention: the bake time, which belongs to a deep single cake rather than layers, and the filling, which the page cuts off mid-sentence.
- Moderate ovenSet it to 350F. "Moderate" in this period generally covered roughly 350-375F, and this batter is happiest at the lower end.
- The bake time is for the wrong panTwo 8- or 9-inch layers from this quantity of batter are done in 22-30 minutes. Forty-five to fifty minutes suits a single deep tin; held that long, thin layers will dry out and the edges will toughen. Test with a skewer from 20 minutes.
- Mixed spicesNo blend is specified. A workable reading is cinnamon dominant, with nutmeg, cloves and allspice in smaller part, mixed to two level teaspoons total.
- Baking powderThree teaspoons to two cups of flour is generous by modern standards. Modern double-acting powder is stronger; two teaspoons gives a better crumb and less chance of an off, chemical aftertaste.
- Strong coffeeBrew at roughly double normal strength and cool it completely before adding. Warm coffee will loosen the creamed shortening and start the leavening early. Instant at double strength is a fair substitute.
- ShorteningLard or a hydrogenated vegetable fat was meant. Unsalted butter works and tastes better with coffee and spice; keep the salt as written if you use it, since 1/8 teaspoon is negligible either way.
- Separated eggsThe whites go in between the two additions of flour, which is unusual. Fold them rather than beat them in, and do not overwork the batter after the last flour goes in.
- The filling is cut offThe text ends before the mocha filling is given. Any coffee buttercream will do: butter, sifted confectioners' sugar, a spoonful of cocoa and strong cooled coffee to loosen it, beaten until spreadable.
- YieldTwo layers, serving eight to ten.
Cookbooks issued by baking powder companies were widely distributed recipe collections in early twentieth-century America, and the Royal Baking Powder Company's titles are among the better known. They exist to demonstrate that a chemically leavened cake could be made quickly and reliably without yeast, and the branded ingredient is named in the ingredient list here. The coffee-and-spice pairing was common in the period, related to the older spice and molasses cakes, with brewed coffee supplying both liquid and colour. "Mocha" in this context means coffee-flavoured; the word comes from the Yemeni port of Mokha, and in American usage it came to signal the coffee-and-chocolate combination it still suggests today.