Dream Cake
In a city that we know of there is an entire side of a building in a fashionable neighborhood painted in large letters with the words "celebrated dream cake." Evidently it was the aim to rival the fame of "angel food," and this is certainly better eating, although scarcely so extremely white. 1 pound of granulated sugar--2 cup. 1/2 pound of butter--1 cup. 12 whites of eggs--1 1/2 cup. 1/2 pint of milk--1 cup. 2 rounded teaspoons baking powder. 1 rounded teaspoon cream tartar. Vanilla or lemon extract. 1 pound good weight of flour--4 cups.
Sift the flour, powder and cream tartar together three or four times over. Soften the butter and stir it and the sugar together until white and creamy, gradually stir in the milk, tepid, and a handful of flour to keep them from separating. Whip the whites to froth, and add part whites and part flour until all are in, and flavoring extract at same time. Bake either in cake moulds or shallow pans and frost over when done.
A large white butter cake built on twelve egg whites, written for a bakeshop where cakes were scaled by the pound. The proportions are sound; what the text leaves out is the oven.
- Oven temperatureNone is given, as was usual for the period. Bake at 350F: about 30-35 minutes for two or three shallow layer pans, 55-70 minutes for a deep tube or loaf mould.
- Scale of the batchA pound of sugar, a pound of flour, half a pound of butter and twelve whites is a very large cake — probably enough for three 9-inch layers plus a small pan. Halving it is straightforward if you have six whites.
- Weigh the flourThe book's own equivalence of 1 lb to 4 cups gives a lighter cup than a modern one, whether from the flour itself or from how it was measured. Weigh 450 g of all-purpose flour rather than measuring cups, or the cake will run dry; cake flour gives a closer texture to what was likely intended.
- Egg whitesTwelve whites is about 1 1/2 cups, or 360 ml, which is what the recipe states. Whip only to a soft froth as written, not to stiff peaks — stiff whites will not fold into a batter this heavy without breaking.
- Tepid milk and the handful of flourA cup of cold milk added to creamed butter will curdle the mixture; warming it to about body temperature and adding flour alongside keeps the emulsion together, which is what the recipe means by keeping them from separating.
- Baking powder plus cream of tartarPeriod baking powders varied in strength, and the extra acid may have been intended to reinforce them. With modern double-acting powder the cream of tartar is not needed for lift; it chiefly helps whiten the crumb and slightly sharpens the flavour.
- Alternate, and foldThe instruction to add "part whites and part flour" means alternating the two in several additions. Fold rather than beat once the whites are in.
- Doneness and finishingA skewer should come out clean and the cake should spring back at the centre. Cool completely before frosting — a plain white boiled icing or a simple confectioners' sugar glaze suits it better than anything rich.
Angel food cake, made with whites and no butter at all, was widely popular in American baking in the later nineteenth century, and white cakes of various kinds — silver cake, bride's cake and the like — circulated alongside it, though several of these names are older than angel food and cannot be called responses to it. "Dream cake" appears to be a marketing name rather than a dish with a documented origin, and the aside about the painted advertisement is the point of the entry: the author is arguing that a butter cake made white with egg whites eats better than the fashionable foam cake, even if it cannot match its snowy colour. Whites-only cakes were more economical where the yolks could be used elsewhere, in custards or egg wash, so that nothing was wasted.