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Mock Angel Cake
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking-powder
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
¼ teaspoon salt
2 egg-whites
Put dry ingredients into a bowl, mixing and sifting well. Scald the milk in a double boiler. Stir quickly into the dry ingredients, and take care to have no lumps. Beat the egg-whites until stiff and fold them into the batter. Bake in a loaf pan in a moderate oven (350° F.) for forty-five minutes.
A thin, eggy batter that behaves nothing like a true angel cake — it is really a hot-milk sponge with the yolks and butter left out. A few points keep it from turning into a rubbery slab.
- Scald, do not boilScalded milk means heated to about 180°F, when steam rises and small bubbles ring the edge of the pan. A double boiler is the original's insurance against scorching; a heavy saucepan over medium heat works if you watch it.
- The hinge: mix fast, fold gentlyThe hot milk goes into the dry ingredients all at once and must be stirred smooth immediately, before the flour sets into lumps. Then let it cool a minute or two before the whites go in, or the heat will deflate them on contact.
- OvenThe recipe already gives 350°F, which is what "moderate" meant in this period. Bake on a middle rack.
- The panUnlike a real angel cake, this one has no meringue structure to climb an ungreased tube pan. Grease and line a standard 8x4 or 9x5 loaf pan; the batter is pourable, close to a thick crepe batter, and will look alarmingly liquid going in.
- FlourHousehold flour of the day was often softer than modern bleached all-purpose. Cake flour gives a finer, whiter crumb here; measure by spooning into the cup and levelling, not scooping.
- Baking powderTwo teaspoons to one cup of flour is a heavy dose by current standards and can leave a metallic edge. Modern double-acting powder is generally more efficient than the powders of the period — one and a half teaspoons is nearer the mark if you find the taste sharp.
- Doneness and yieldForty-five minutes is right for a loaf pan; the top should spring back and a skewer come out clean. It gives eight to ten thin slices.
- Eat it the same dayWith no added fat and only two whites, the crumb dries out fast; it is best eaten the day it is baked, plain or with fruit.
A true angel food cake takes ten to twelve egg whites, and in a household that used the yolks for something else that was a real expense — one reason "mock" versions like this one appear in American cookbooks of the period, alongside other "mock" dishes such as mock apple pie and mock oysters. The trick here is the scalded milk: pouring hot liquid onto the flour begins to swell the starch and helps give a pale, springy crumb without meringue doing the work, the same principle behind hot-milk sponge cakes. Butterick was a dress-pattern company that also published household books; economy substitutions like this one are the sort of recipe they carried.