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Sponge Cake (Cup water cups sugar cups)
1/2 cup water 1½ cups sugar 2 2 1 cups Northern flour teaspoonfuls baking powder teaspoonful lemon extract Beat egg yolks, add sugar, water and extract. Sift flour and baking powder and beat into first mixture; then fold in egg whites beaten stiff.
A water sponge — no butter, no milk, leavened by beaten eggs plus a little baking powder. The transcription is damaged, so read the list with care before you start.
- The ingredient list is garbledThe original column of figures has collapsed: the stray "2 2 1" appears to belong to the three lines that follow it (2 cups flour, 2 teaspoonfuls baking powder, 1 teaspoonful extract), and the egg count is missing entirely although the method calls for yolks and whites separately. Treat the numbers here as unreliable rather than assuming a conversion.
- Northern flourSome cookbooks of this period distinguished hard spring-wheat flour milled in the North from the softer winter-wheat flour used for biscuits farther south. Northern flour is probably closest to modern all-purpose; do not substitute cake or self-rising flour without adjusting the baking powder.
- No oven temperature is givenThe book says nothing about the oven. A sponge of this size is usually baked moderately, around 325F to 350F, so the structure sets before the crust colors; judge the time by a skewer at the deepest point rather than by the clock.
- Pan preparationAn ungreased tube pan is the usual choice for a fatless sponge, so the batter can cling to the sides as it climbs. A greased pan tends to give a lower, denser cake.
- Folding the whitesThis is the hinge. The flour is beaten into the yolk mixture, which deflates easily, so the stiff whites go in last, folded in gradually. Stop while a few streaks remain rather than stirring until smooth.
- CoolingInvert the pan immediately and let the cake hang until fully cold. A warm fatless sponge collapses under its own weight.
- Lemon extractA teaspoonful is the whole flavor of the cake. Fresh grated zest can stand in if your extract is old; start with the zest of one lemon.
- YieldRoughly one 9- or 10-inch tube cake. Best the day it is baked; it stales quickly, having no fat to keep it soft.
Water sponges like this one belong to a family of cakes that carried American home baking through the nineteenth century, when eggs beaten by hand did much of the lifting and every cook knew how long her arm would last. The addition of baking powder — universal by 1900 — is the tell that this is a later, easier version: the powder insures the cake against a poorly beaten meringue. Such cakes recommended themselves because they are cheap, keep no butter to go rancid in a warm pantry, and make a respectable showing under whipped cream or a lemon sauce. The distinction between Northern and Southern flour, meanwhile, is a reminder that flour was still a regional product identified by its mill and its wheat rather than a standardized bag off a shelf.