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Hot Water Sponge Cake
1¾ cups pastry flour Powder 11/2 level teaspoons Calumet Baking 3 eggs 1/2 cup boiling water 2 teaspoons lemon extract 1 cup of sifted granulated sugar Sift flour once, then measure; add baking powder and sift three times; beat yolks until thick and lemon colored; beat whites until stiff; put whites in mixing bowl; add yolks to whites, then beat in sugar; then fold the flour in lightly, then flavor, then hot water, and bake in slow oven in an ungreased pan about 40 minutes.
A hot-water sponge cake, leavened by both beaten eggs and baking powder. The order of operations is unusual and matters more than anything else here.
- Read the quantities as fractionsThe flour is 1 3/4 cups pastry flour and the baking powder 1 1/2 level teaspoons. The remaining amounts are 3 eggs, 1 cup sifted granulated sugar, 1/2 cup boiling water and 2 teaspoons lemon extract.
- The hinge: water goes in last, and boilingThe flour is folded in before the liquid, so the batter is briefly very stiff. Add the water hot and fold only until it disappears; it thins the batter. Beating hard at this stage risks deflating the whites and can give a dense layer at the base.
- Oven temperatureA slow oven in this period generally means about 300-325F. The recipe gives about 40 minutes but names no pan size or shape; test with a skewer from 35 minutes.
- Ungreased pan is deliberateSponge batter needs to grip the sides as it climbs. Use a plain metal tube pan or a straight-sided square tin, not nonstick, and invert the cake to cool in the pan.
- Calumet baking powderCalumet was a double-acting powder, and the brand this book was written to sell. Any modern double-acting baking powder substitutes teaspoon for teaspoon.
- Pastry flourLow-protein soft-wheat flour, about 8-9% protein. Cake flour is the closest thing on a supermarket shelf; if using all-purpose, remove 2 tablespoons per cup and replace with cornstarch.
- Whites first, then yolksThe instruction to put the stiff whites in the bowl and add the yolks to them, rather than the reverse, is worth following. Folding the smaller volume into the larger keeps the foam intact.
- YieldThe recipe gives no pan size or yield. It stales quickly, as sponges made without added fat do, and is best the day it is baked.
Reliable Recipes was a promotional cookbook issued by the Calumet Baking Powder Company of Chicago, which is why the brand name is written into the ingredient list rather than left as a generic. Hot-water sponge cakes were popular in American home baking: the boiling water loosens a stiff flour-and-egg batter without adding butter, producing a light cake. The recipe sits at a transitional moment -- a true sponge would rise on beaten eggs alone, but a chemical leavener has been added as insurance, which is precisely the point a baking powder company wished to make.