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Royal Strawberry Cake
1 cup sugar 4 tablespoons shortening 2 cups flour 3 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 1/8 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 pint heavy cream 1 quart strawberries Cream sugar and shortening together; add beaten egg; add part of flour, baking powder and salt which have been sifted together, then part of milk; mix well and add remainder of flour; mix in remainder of milk and flavoring. Bake in shallow greased pan in moderate oven 20 to 30 minutes. When cold split in half and spread whipped cream and crushed sweetened strawberries between layers. Cover top with whipped cream and whole strawberries.
A plain one-egg butter cake dressed as a shortcake. The method is the standard creaming sequence of the period, and it still works; the only real variables are pan size and the amount of leavening.
- Moderate ovenThe book gives no temperature; "moderate" in this period was understood as roughly 350-375F. At 350F a shallow layer will usually be done toward the low end of the recipe's 20 to 30 minutes, when the centre springs back.
- "Shallow greased pan"A 9-inch square or 9-inch round pan about 2 inches deep gives a cake tall enough to split. A 9x13 will bake into a sheet too thin to halve cleanly, and a deep 8-inch pan will need closer to 35 minutes.
- Baking powderThree teaspoons to two cups of flour is about 1 1/2 teaspoons per cup, high by modern standards though not unusual in period recipes. With modern double-acting powder, 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons is enough; the full three can leave a faint chemical edge and a coarse crumb.
- ShorteningIn booklets of this kind the word covers any solid fat: lard, butter or hydrogenated vegetable shortening. Four tablespoons is half a stick of butter, which gives the best flavour here; the cake is lean either way.
- Liquid measuresHalf a pint of heavy cream is one cup, whipping up to roughly two cups. A quart of strawberries is about 1 1/2 pounds, or 24 ounces -- enough to crush half for the filling and keep the best whole ones for the top.
- Splitting the cakeLet it cool completely, then cut with a long serrated knife in a sawing motion, or score around the side with a knife and pull through with a length of thread. A warm cake will tear.
- Assemble lateCrushed sweetened berries weep quickly and the cream softens the crumb. Sugar the berries no more than half an hour ahead and fill the cake close to serving.
- YieldEight to nine servings from a 9-inch cake.
Books like this one were published by baking powder companies to sell baking powder, which is why the brand name appears in the ingredient list where an older cookbook would simply say "three teaspoons baking powder." Royal was a cream-of-tartar powder, marketed hard against the cheaper alum and phosphate brands in the long commercial fight over leavening that ran from the 1880s into the twentieth century, and its promotional cookbooks were given away free. The recipe itself is a strawberry shortcake in cake form: the older American shortcake was a rich sweetened biscuit dough, split and buttered while hot, and the shift toward a soft creamed cake base is generally traced to the spread of chemical leavening and reliable home ovens in the late nineteenth century. Calling it "Royal Strawberry Cake" rather than shortcake sidesteps that argument entirely.