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Calumet Gold Cake
Yolks of 8 eggs 2½ cups pastry flour 1¼ cups of granulated sugar 3 level teaspoons Calumet Baking Powder 1/2 cup of butter 1 tablespoon of vanilla 2/3 cup of water Sift flour once, then measure, add baking powder and sift three times. Sift sugar, then measure. Cream butter, add sugar gradually and cream thoroughly. Beat yolks until thick and lemon color, add these to butter and sugar and stir thoroughly. Add water and flour alternately, then flavor and stir very hard. Put in slow oven until raised to the top of the pan and increase the heat and brown. Bake 40 to 60 minutes in an ungreased mold. (See illustration, page 52.)
A yolk-only butter cake from a baking powder company's promotional booklet. The two things that decide the outcome are the flour handling and the staged oven.
- The staged oven"slow oven" was conventionally around 300-325F; hold it there until the batter has risen to the rim, then raise to about 350F to set and colour the crust. Starting hot risks setting the edges before the centre lifts.
- Ungreased moldThe recipe specifies an ungreased mold; with foam cakes an ungreased pan lets the batter grip the sides as it climbs, and that may be the reasoning here. Use a tube pan with a removable bottom rather than a modern nonstick one, and release the cooled cake with a thin knife.
- Pastry flourPastry flour is roughly 8-9 percent protein, between cake and all-purpose. Cake flour will work, giving a finer crumb; replacing two tablespoons per cup of all-purpose with cornstarch gives something closer to cake flour than to pastry flour. Sift before measuring, as instructed.
- Sifted sugarGranulated sugar of the period was often coarser and more prone to lumping, which is likely why it is sifted. Modern granulated needs none, and superfine will cream into the butter faster.
- Eight yolksEggs of the period are generally reckoned to have run smaller than today's large ones, so eight modern large yolks (about 5 ounces) may be slightly more than intended. Beat them until pale and thick enough to ribbon.
- A tablespoon of vanillaThat is three times the usual teaspoon. Period extracts were frequently adulterated and of variable strength, which may explain the quantity; with a good modern extract, two teaspoons is plenty.
- Water, not milkWater keeps the crumb light and lets the egg yolk flavour show; milk would make it heavier and browner. Add it alternately with the flour in three or four additions so the batter does not break.
- Doneness and yieldForty minutes suits a 9-inch tube pan, closer to the recipe's upper limit of an hour for a deep 10-inch. It is done when the top springs back and a skewer comes out clean. Serves 12 to 16, keeps well wrapped for a few days, and takes a boiled or caramel icing.
Reliable Recipes was published by the Calumet Baking Powder Company of Chicago, one of the well-known advertising cookbooks of the early twentieth century -- the leavened recipes name the brand throughout, and the illustrated molds shown alongside sold the idea that a home baker could turn out something like a bakery cake. Gold cake is the other half of a thrifty pair: silver or white cake used the beaten whites, gold cake the yolks left over. The rich yellow comes from the yolks. The staged oven -- slow to rise, then hotter to brown -- is usually explained as a habit carried over from wood- and coal-fired ranges, where a cook managed heat by adding fuel rather than turning a dial, and it persisted in gas-range instructions.