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Raisin Drop Cakes
4 tablespoons shortening 1 cup sugar 1 egg 2/3 cup milk 1 3/4 cups flour 3 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 1/8 teaspoon salt 1 cup raisins 1 teaspoon vanilla or other flavoring Cream shortening; add sugar; add well beaten egg and milk very slowly; add flour, baking powder and salt which have been sifted together; add raisins which have been washed, drained and floured slightly; add flavoring; mix well. Put a small amount of mixture into greased individual cake tins and bake in hot oven 15 to 20 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, or cover with icing.
A plain drop batter stretched with raisins, from a baking powder company's promotional booklet. Two things need translating: the oven and the pans.
- "Hot oven"Read this as 400-425F. Small cakes of this size want heat that sets the crumb quickly; 15 to 20 minutes at that temperature is accurate.
- Individual cake tinsA standard 12-cup muffin pan, greased, or gem pans if you have them. Fill each cup no more than two-thirds; the batter rises well.
- ShorteningFour tablespoons is a quarter cup. Period shortening meant lard or a hydrogenated vegetable fat; softened butter works and gives better flavour, though the crumb will be slightly firmer.
- The baking powderRoyal was a cream-of-tartar (tartrate) powder that acted mostly on contact with liquid, so recipes called for a generous hand. With modern double-acting powder, 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons is enough for 1 3/4 cups of flour; the full 3 teaspoons can leave a soapy, metallic edge.
- Adding the milk slowlyThe instruction is worth following. Egg and cold milk tipped into creamed fat all at once can make the mixture curdle and separate. Add in a thin stream, and use milk at room temperature.
- Flouring the raisinsWashing and draining freshens the fruit and rinses off dust; the light dusting of flour was believed to help keep the raisins suspended rather than sunk, though a batter this thick does most of that work. Shake off the excess.
- Consistency and yieldThis is a thick drop batter, not a pourable one. Expect 12 to 15 small cakes.
- FinishingPowdered sugar goes on while the cakes are barely warm so it clings; icing goes on cold, or it slides.
The New Royal Cook Book was one of the long series of booklets issued by the Royal Baking Powder Company, which built its business on cream of tartar leavening and spent decades campaigning against the cheaper alum-based powders that came into wider use in the later nineteenth century. The recipes in these books generally name the brand in the ingredient list, which is the point of the exercise: the booklets were given away or sold for pennies to teach home cooks to reach for chemical leavening instead of yeast or beaten eggs. Raisins earn their place here because they kept well in the pantry and were among the cheapest ways to turn a plain sugar-and-flour batter into something worth calling cake; drop cakes baked in gem pans were quicker than a layer cake and needed no filling or careful turning out.