Caramel Cake
To make three large layers of caramel cake allow one cup of butter; two cups of sugar; one cup of milk; three cups of flour; five eggs (whites); two teaspoons of baking powder. Place the ingredients together as for plain layer cake, adding the whites of the eggs last. Bake in three well-buttered tins and when done spread between the layers caramel filling. See chapter on Cake Fillings and Frostings.
A plain white butter cake in three layers, written for a cook who already knows the creaming method. The only real gap is the filling, which the book keeps in a separate chapter.
- OvenNo temperature is given; the timing and heat are left to the cook. For modern equipment, bake thin layers at about 350F, 20 to 25 minutes, until a tester comes out clean and the edges just pull from the tin.
- TinsNo pan size is given; three "large layers" most likely means tins of about 9 inches. Butter them well, as the recipe directs, and line the bottoms if you wish; a cake this rich in butter and sugar sticks readily.
- "As for plain layer cake"The assumed method: cream the butter and sugar until pale and light, add the flour sifted with the baking powder alternately with the milk, then fold in the stiffly beaten whites last. That final folding is the hinge he layer turns heavy if the whites are stirred in.
- MeasuresOne cup butter is 8 oz (2 sticks, 225 g); two cups sugar about 400 g; three cups flour about 375 g. Whites of five eggs come to roughly 2/3 cup.
- Baking powderTwo teaspoons for three cups of flour is on the modest side by current practice, and period baking powder varied in strength. Use a fresh double-acting powder and do not increase it the five whites are doing much of the lifting.
- Milk and butter temperatureHave both at room temperature. Cold milk added to creamed butter curdles the batter and costs you volume.
- The fillingThe caramel filling is in the book's frostings chapter, not here. Any standard cooked caramel icing — brown sugar, cream or milk, and butter boiled to the soft-ball stage, about 238F, then beaten as it cools — suits this cake; spread it while still just spreadable, as it sets firm.
- YieldThree layers of roughly 9 inches would serve 12 to 16. The crumb is best the day it is made; the caramel filling keeps it moist a second day under a cover.
Caramel cake in American cookbooks of this period often means what this recipe describes: a plain white or silver cake, leavened with baking powder and lightened with egg whites only, carrying its identity in the cooked brown-sugar filling spread between the layers. Whites-only batters left the yolks for other uses, such as custards or gold cake. Caramel cake is often associated now with the American South, where it became a fixture of church suppers and birthday tables, though here it is printed as a general recipe with no regional claim attached.