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French Loaf Cake
Two cups of white sugar, one scant cup butter, one cup of sweet milk, three heaping cups of flour, three eggs, two teaspoonfuls soda and cream of tartar all together, beat to a froth; add milk, beating well, flavor with lemon extract, add the flour gradually, pour into a cake tin lined with buttered paper, sprinkle a little powdered sugar over the cake before baking. It is well to cover it when first putting in the oven, in order not to harden the top too soon.
A plain butter loaf cake of the sort that filled a tin between bread days. The written order of operations is compressed almost to nonsense, so read the whole thing before starting.
- The missing first stepNothing is said about creaming, and "beat to a froth" sits next to the leavening in the text, so its object is unclear; the usual reading is that the butter, sugar and eggs are meant. Cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs until pale and light, then alternate milk and flour. Combining everything at once tends to give a heavy, greasy crumb.
- Soda and cream of tartarRead as two teaspoonfuls in total (the phrasing could also mean two of each), this is in effect homemade baking powder. Period books commonly give roughly two parts cream of tartar to one of soda, which would be about 1 1/3 teaspoons cream of tartar and 2/3 teaspoon soda. About 2 teaspoons of modern double-acting baking powder is a workable and more forgiving substitute.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh unsoured milk, as opposed to the sour milk or buttermilk used with soda alone. Whole milk.
- Cup measuresA "scant cup" of butter is a little under 8 oz / two sticks. Three heaping cups of flour is closer to 16 oz than the 12-13 oz three level cups would give; measure by weight at about 15 oz and hold back a little if the batter looks stiff.
- Buttered paperParchment, buttered. The recipe specifies only "a cake tin"; this is a large quantity of batter, so a 9x5-inch loaf pan may not hold it all and a larger tin, a tube pan, or two smaller loaves may be wanted. The paper lining is genuinely useful rather than decorative.
- Oven and timeThe recipe gives no oven description at all. A modern equivalent would be a moderate oven, around 350F, with the cake judged done by a skewer at the centre rather than by the clock; timing will depend on the tin used.
- Covering the topLay a sheet of foil or parchment loosely over the tin for the early part of the baking, then remove it. The recipe's own reason is to keep the top from hardening too soon, so the crust does not set and crack while the interior is still rising.
- The sugar crustPowdered sugar sprinkled on before baking melts into a thin sanded glaze. Sprinkle lightly; a heavy hand gives a sticky layer that never dries.
- YieldOne large loaf, or more than one tin's worth if the batter exceeds the pan. It keeps for several days wrapped.
"French loaf cake" in American cookbooks of the late nineteenth century seems to have had little to do with France; the name is generally thought to have attached itself to plain butter cakes baked in a loaf tin rather than in layers, often distinguished from "loaf cake" proper by being made without fruit or yeast. Books like this one leaned heavily on cakes that could be made from staples always in the house — sugar, butter, milk, flour, eggs — and leavened with soda and cream of tartar measured separately, mixing your own being cheaper than buying commercial baking powder. The lemon extract is the tell of the era: bottled flavoring extracts had become cheap and widely available, and they turn up in cakes where an earlier generation would have grated a rind or used rosewater.