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White Layer Cake
1/2 cup shortening 1 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup cold water 2 cups flour 2 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder whites of 3 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract Cream shortening and sugar together until very light; add water slowly, almost drop by drop, and beat constantly; stir in flour and baking powder which have been sifted together twice; add flavoring; fold in whites of eggs which have been beaten until stiff and dry; pour into two greased layer cake tins. Bake in moderate oven 20 to 25 minutes. Put together with fresh strawberry or maple filling.
A plain white butter-style layer cake from a baking powder company's promotional booklet, made without yolks so the crumb stays pale. Two details need translating: the oven and the egg whites.
- Moderate ovenSet the oven to 350F. Two thin layers in 8-inch tins will be done in 20 to 25 minutes, when the centers spring back and a tester comes out clean.
- Pans"Two greased layer cake tins" would in this period most likely be round 8- or 9-inch pans; the larger size gives thinner layers that will be done somewhat sooner. The recipe asks only for greasing, though flouring the pans or lining the bottoms with parchment is insurance, since a white cake this lean sticks readily.
- ShorteningIn the usage of this period this is any solid fat: lard, a hydrogenated vegetable shortening, or butter. Butter gives better flavor but a faintly ivory crumb rather than the white the recipe is after.
- FlourTwo cups of unspecified flour in a book of this vintage means all-purpose, measured by scooping, roughly 9 to 10 oz. Cake flour, about 8 oz for two cups, gives a finer crumb and is closer to what the cake is reaching for.
- Adding the water drop by dropThis is the hinge. Cold water beaten into creamed fat and sugar will break the emulsion if it goes in fast, and a broken batter bakes heavy. Add it in a slow thread with the mixer running, or alternate it with the flour in three additions if the mixture starts to look curdled.
- "Stiff and dry" whitesOlder books used that phrase for what we would now call slightly overbeaten. Stop at firm, glossy peaks that still bend at the tip; whites beaten literally dry break into lumps and refuse to fold in, leaving white streaks and a coarse crumb.
- Sifting twiceNot decorative. With no yolk fat and no acid in the batter, the two teaspoons of baking powder need to be evenly dispersed or the layers rise unevenly. A thorough whisking of flour and baking powder does the same job.
- Yield and fillingOne two-layer 8-inch cake, about 10 slices. Fresh strawberry filling means crushed sweetened berries, which will soak the layers within a few hours, so fill close to serving; a maple filling or plain boiled frosting holds much longer.
The Royal Cook Book belongs to a genre that shaped American home baking more than most cookbooks did: the branded booklet issued by a leavening manufacturer, given away or sold for a few cents, with the trade name written into every ingredient list. Royal Baking Powder was a cream-of-tartar formula, and its pamphlets spent decades arguing that it was superior to the cheaper alum-phosphate powders then flooding the market. White cake was a useful thing for such a booklet to demonstrate. A batter with no yolks, no butter flavor to speak of and no chocolate has nothing to hide behind, so its rise and its fine crumb read as a testimonial to the powder. The recipe also reflects the moment when "shortening" was becoming a category of its own rather than a synonym for butter or lard, and when leftover yolks were simply assumed to have a use elsewhere in the kitchen, in custard, mayonnaise or a gold cake made from the other half of the eggs.