Sunshine Cake
Beat whites of five eggs stiff with 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. Slade's cream tartar. Beat yolks of five eggs and add: 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla. Stir into stiffly beaten whites. Fold in one level cup flour sifted. Bake in moderate oven 30 to 45 minutes.
— Edith S. Ware
A foam cake with no fat and no chemical leavening — the eggs do everything. The hinge is the folding: the batter loses volume with every unnecessary stroke, and there is nothing else to lift it.
- Slade's cream tartarD. & L. Slade Co. of Boston was a familiar grocery brand for spices and cream of tartar. Any plain cream of tartar works; use the same 1/2 teaspoon.
- Moderate oven350F, though 325F is safer for a tall foam cake in a tube pan, which browns at the edges before the center sets. Expect the shorter end of the range at 350F and the longer at 325F.
- The panThe recipe names no tin. Foam cakes of this kind were commonly baked in an ungreased tube pan, and this quantity suits one of about 9 inches. Grease defeats the cake — the batter needs to grip the sides to climb. A loaf or layer tin will give a flatter, denser result.
- Order of operationsBeat the yolks with the sugar until thick and pale, several minutes, before the whites go anywhere near them. The original folds the yolk mixture into the whites rather than the reverse, which preserves more air; keep it that way.
- Flour measureOne level cup, sifted, is about 4 oz / 115 g of all-purpose flour. Cake flour gives a finer crumb. Sift it over the batter in two or three additions.
- DonenessThe top should spring back when pressed and the cake should have begun to pull from the tube. A skewer comes out clean. Underbaked sponge collapses as it cools.
- CoolingInvert the pan immediately and leave the cake hanging until completely cold, then loosen with a thin knife. Cooling right side up compresses the crumb under its own weight.
- Yield and servingRoughly ten to twelve slices. Fat-free sponges stale quickly, so it is best eaten the day it is made; it takes well to a lemon or orange glaze, sugared fruit, or plain with tea.
Sunshine cake sits between the two great American egg-foam cakes of the late nineteenth century: angel food, which uses whites only and is bone white, and the yolk-rich sponge cakes, of which "gold" cake — made with yolks alone — is the usual counterpart to a whites-only "silver" cake. Sunshine cake keeps the whites beaten separately for lift but returns the yolks for color and richness, and the name is generally taken as a description of that pale yellow crumb. Cakes of this sort were helped along by two things then common in ordinary kitchens — cheap refined cream of tartar sold in packets by grocery firms like Slade's, and the rotary wire egg beater, which made a stiff meringue quicker work than a fork or a bundle of twigs. Church and society compilations such as the Philathea book, gathered from members under their own names, are full of these cakes: they are inexpensive, use no butter, and make a showing on a tea table.