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Brown Sugar Cake
1 cup brown sugar 2 eggs 1/2 cup sour milk 1 cup chopped raisins 1 tsp. soda 1 tsp. Slade's nutmeg 1½ cups flour 1/2 cup butter and lard mixed 1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts) Bake about 35 minutes in moderate oven.
— Mrs. Clifton M. Tracy
A church-supper cake in shorthand: the contributor lists ingredients and trusts you to know the order. Cream the fat and sugar, beat in the eggs, dissolve the soda in the sour milk, alternate with the flour and spice, then fold in the fruit and nuts.
- Sour milkMilk soured naturally, as it would in a household without steady refrigeration. Buttermilk is the direct substitute, or 1/2 cup whole milk with 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice or vinegar left to stand ten minutes. The acid is not optional — it is what activates the soda, and with sweet milk the cake will rise poorly and can taste faintly soapy.
- Slade's nutmegD. & L. Slade Co. of Boston was a spice packer whose brand names appear in New England community cookbooks. It means nothing more than ground nutmeg; a teaspoon is a lot, and freshly grated will be noticeably better than a tin that has been open a year.
- Soda, no baking powderA full teaspoon of soda against half a cup of sour milk is more alkali than that much acid can neutralize; the excess will darken the crumb, though it can also leave a faint soapy note. Sift it with the flour or dissolve it in the milk so it does not streak.
- Butter and lard mixedThe recipe does not give the proportion; equal parts is a reasonable reading. Lard was cheap and gave tenderness, butter flavor. All butter works and tastes better; all shortening gives a softer, blander crumb.
- Brown sugarBrown sugar of the period was generally moister and less refined than modern light brown. Pack it firmly into the cup, and dark brown will give a stronger molasses note.
- Moderate oven350F. At that temperature 35 minutes is right for a single 8-inch square or an 8x4 loaf; a loaf may want closer to 45. Test with a skewer in the center, as the raisins hold moisture and can read as underdone batter.
- ProportionsOne and a half cups of flour carrying two cups of fruit and nuts makes a dense, fruit-heavy cake rather than a light one. Toss the raisins and walnuts with a spoonful of the measured flour to keep them from sinking.
- YieldAbout eight to ten servings. It keeps well wrapped for several days and, like most sour-milk cakes, is better on the second day.
Sour-milk cakes belong to the era before reliable refrigeration, when milk that had turned was a resource rather than a loss, and soda was the leavening that put it to use. This one is a plain family cake dressed up with raisins, walnuts and a heavy hand of nutmeg — the kind of thing baked for a church social rather than a dinner party, which is exactly what a Philathea cook book collects. The Philathea classes were adult women's Bible-study groups, the women's counterpart to the Baraca men's Bible classes in early twentieth-century Protestant churches, and their fundraising cookbooks carry the names of the contributors: every dish signed, every signature a neighbor. The brand name in the ingredient list is worth noticing too. Slade's was a Boston spice house, and its appearance here is a reminder that packaged, branded groceries were available to a cook who might otherwise have reached for a whole nutmeg and a grater.