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Orange Cake (One cup sugar cup milk egg tsp)
One cup sugar, 3/4 cup milk, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp. orange extract, 1/4 tsp. orange juice, grated rind (little), 2 tbsp. melted butter, 1½ cups flour, 1½ tsp. Royal baking powder. Frosting:-Confectioner's sugar mixed with orange juice and about 1 tsp. of the grated rind.
ADA MacKAY BROWN.
A plain one-egg layer with an uncooked orange glaze — the kind of everyday cake a church cookbook prints because it can be mixed in one bowl. A few of the quantities need interpreting before you start.
- The orange juice measure is almost certainly a misprintThe orange juice measure may well be a misprint -- a quarter teaspoon of juice contributes almost nothing, and the original may have meant 1/4 cup, in which case you would reduce the milk to 1/2 cup so the total liquid stays near 3/4 cup. Since it is ambiguous, the safe reading is to keep the milk at 3/4 cup and add a tablespoon of juice for flavor only.
- Royal baking powderA brand name, still made, but any double-acting baking powder works at the same 1 1/2 teaspoons. Older single-acting powders reacted faster, so get the batter into the pan promptly rather than letting it stand.
- Mixing methodWith butter melted rather than creamed, this is a muffin-method batter: whisk sugar, egg, milk, juice, rind and extract, add the melted butter, then fold in flour sifted with the baking powder. Stop as soon as the flour disappears — overbeating gives a tough, tunneled crumb.
- OvenThe recipe gives none. Bake at 350F.
- Pan and timeThe batter fills one 8-inch round or square pan, or eight cupcakes. Figure 25 to 30 minutes for the layer, 18 to 20 for cupcakes, until a tester comes out clean.
- Flour1 1/2 cups of period all-purpose flour was often softer and lower in protein than many modern all-purpose brands. Cake flour, or all-purpose with two tablespoons per cup replaced by cornstarch, gives a crumb closer to the original.
- The frosting quantityNone is given. About 1 cup confectioner's sugar with 4 to 5 teaspoons juice makes a spreadable glaze for one layer; add the rind last so it does not bleed. Sift the sugar before mixing.
- Zest"Grated rind (little)" means the colored outer skin only, roughly half an orange's worth. Any white pith turns the glaze bitter.
- YieldOne single layer, eight servings. Double everything for a two-layer cake.
Community cookbooks like the Philathea Cook Book — the Philathea classes were for young women, the counterpart to the Baraca classes for young men in the Baraca-Philathea movement, and widespread in North American Protestant churches in the early twentieth century — were built from members' signed contributions, which is why this cake carries Ada MacKay Brown's name rather than a title beyond "Orange Cake." The recipe is a snapshot of its moment in two ways: it names a specific brand of baking powder, a habit encouraged by the aggressive advertising of Royal and its competitors during the chemical-leavening boom, and it leans on bottled orange extract as much as on the fruit. One might guess that extract, which kept in the cupboard year-round, was the more dependable of the two, though the recipe calls for fresh juice and rind as well. The single egg and the melted butter mark it as an economical everyday cake rather than a company one — the sort of thing mixed in one bowl between other chores and finished with a glaze that needs no cooking at all.