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Orange Cream Cake
3 cups pastry flour 3. 3 level teaspoons Calumet Baking Powder 1/2 cup butter 1¼ cups granulated sugar Yolks of 3 eggs, well beaten Juice of 1 orange in cup-fill cup with water (making 1 full cup moisture) Rind of whole orange Whites of 2 eggs Sift flour once, then measure, add baking powder, sift three times; cream butter and sugar, add grated rind, then yolks (well beaten), now add flour and water alternately, beating long and hard, lastly add the well beaten whites of eggs. Orange Cream Filling White of 1 large egg; juice of 1 large orange; 2 cups confectioner's sugar. Put egg and orange juice in deep bowl, add sugar gradually, beating long and hard until creamy and of consistency to spread. Spread on cake when cool. 1/4 cup butter 1/2 cup white sugar 2 egg whites 1/2 cup milk
A promotional-booklet cake, printed with the compression typical of the genre: the flour quantity is missing and a stray ingredient list from the neighbouring recipe has been swept in at the end. Both need sorting out before you start.
- The flour is not givenThe method says "sift flour once, then measure" but no amount appears anywhere in the text. For a cake with 1/2 cup butter, 1 1/4 cups sugar, 1 cup liquid and 3 teaspoons baking powder, something in the region of 2 to 2 1/4 cups of sifted flour would suit the other quantities; treat that as an inference, not the printed recipe.
- The four lines at the end"1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup white sugar, 2 egg whites, 1/2 cup milk" fits neither the cake nor the orange filling, and appears to have strayed in from an adjacent recipe. Ignore it.
- Sift, then measurePre-sifting before measuring matters here. A cup of sifted flour weighs roughly 115 g against about 140 g scooped, so measuring first and sifting after gives you a fifth more flour and a dry, tight crumb.
- Calumet baking powderCalumet is sold as a double-acting powder now and was advertised on that basis, so the batter will likely tolerate a few minutes on the bench before it goes in the oven. Three level teaspoons is a strong lift by modern standards against the two cups of flour inferred above, though the orange juice is acidic and some of the leavening will be spent early.
- Orange juice and waterThe instruction is to squeeze the orange into a measuring cup and top up to one cup with water. A large modern orange may yield a full cup on juice alone; that is fine, and gives a better-flavoured cake.
- Oven and pansNo temperature and no tin are given. As a modern working suggestion only, two greased 8-inch layer tins at 350F for 25 to 30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean and the edges pull from the sides.
- "Beating long and hard"Written for a hand and a wooden spoon. With a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar four or five minutes until pale, then add flour and liquid alternately on low speed only until combined, or the gluten will toughen the crumb. Fold the whites in by hand.
- The filling contains raw egg whiteIt is an uncooked confectioner's-sugar icing, beaten and spread with no heat at any point. Use pasteurised egg white if serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised. Two cups of sugar to one white and the juice of an orange will be soft; add more sugar until it holds a spreadable shape.
- YieldIf baked as the two 8-inch layers suggested above, filled and topped with the orange cream: 10 to 12 slices.
Calumet Baking Powder was made in Chicago from the late 1880s, and was sold on a double-acting formula that releases gas twice, once in the bowl and again in the oven's heat. Booklets of this kind served a commercial purpose: to fix a brand name into the ingredient list of recipes women would copy out and pass on. Note that the powder is named, in full, with the trademark, while the flour is not named at all. Oranges were becoming an everyday winter purchase in this period as rail shipment of Florida and California citrus improved, and the rind-and-juice pairing let a baker get two distinct flavour notes, the oil from the zest in the crumb and the acid from the juice in the icing, out of one piece of fruit.