Drop Cakes
Pound cake mixture, or butter sponge cake mixture with a handful or two of flour added and a little baking powder placed by spoonfuls on greased baking pans make the cone shaped drop cakes of the shops. A strip of citron, a few currants or granulated sugar on top make the variations.
This is a bakeshop note rather than a formula: it assumes you already have cake batter on the bench and tells you how to turn it into small drop cakes. The whole trick is stiffening the batter enough to hold a peak.
- The hinge: batter stiffnessA pound or butter-sponge batter as mixed for a loaf will spread flat on the pan. The "handful or two of flour" is what makes the batter hold the cone shape the spoon leaves behind. Aim for a batter that mounds and does not slump when dropped, closer to a thick cookie dough than a poured cake batter.
- "A handful or two" is genuinely vagueWhitehead is writing for a baker who will judge by feel, and the amount depends on how loose the base batter is. Add flour a few tablespoons at a time and test with one spoonful on a pan before committing the batch.
- Baking powderNo quantity is given. Modern practice is about 1 teaspoon per cup of the added flour; the batter is already leavened by creamed butter and eggs, so the powder is only there to offset the extra flour.
- OvenThe text gives no oven direction. Small drop cakes bake well at about 375F: lower and they spread before they set; much higher and the outsides colour before the centres cook. Ten to fifteen minutes depending on size.
- Greased baking pansThe text asks only for greased pans. Parchment on a modern half-sheet does the job well and stops the bottoms from over-browning.
- CitronCandied citron peel, still sold at holiday baking time, is meant here, not the fresh fruit. A single thin strip pressed on top before baking is the shop finish; candied orange or lemon peel works the same way.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants. Toss them in a little of the flour so they sit on the surface rather than sinking into the batter.
- YieldNone given. A batch built on a full pound-cake base (roughly a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour, plus the extra flour) is a shop-sized quantity and will give several dozen cakes dropped with a tablespoon; scale the base down for a household batch.
The American Pastry Cook belongs to the run of trade manuals Jessup Whitehead wrote in Chicago in the 1880s and 1890s for hotel, restaurant and bakeshop cooks rather than for households, which is why the entry reads as a shop practice instead of a recipe: it presumes a bench with cake batter already on it. The "cone shaped" description records the look of a stiff batter pushed off a spoon rather than piped. The three finishes the text lists -- a strip of citron, currants, or granulated sugar -- let one mixing yield three different items in the case.