Layer Cake
One-half cup of butter; one and one-half cups of sugar; three-fourths cup of milk; four eggs; two cups of flour; two teaspoons of baking powder. Beat the butter to a cream, add the sugar, and again beat it until creamy. Gradually add the milk and flour, a part of the flour, then milk to thin, alternating thus until both are entirely used. Whip the whites of the eggs to a dry froth, add them, and lastly stir in the baking powder. Bake in three layer cake tins in a quick oven.
A plain 1-2-3-4 style butter cake, written for a cook who already knew what cake batter should look like. Two things in the text need attention before you start: the missing yolks and the very hot oven.
- The yolksFour eggs are called for but only the whites are accounted for in the method. Many books of this period beat the yolks into the creamed butter and sugar before the flour and milk go in; you can do that here, and fold the whipped whites in at the end.
- "A quick oven"Quick is usually glossed as somewhere around 400-450F, though period books are not consistent and the cook judged by feel. That suits a thin layer in a shallow tin but will scorch the edges of a modern heavy pan. Bake at 375F for 20-25 minutes and test the centre with a skewer.
- Baking powder lastStirring the powder in at the very end, after the whites, means overworking a delicate batter to distribute it. Sift the two teaspoons with the two cups of flour instead and lose nothing.
- Whites to "a dry froth"This means stiff peaks, not literally dry and crumbly. Overbeaten whites break into flecks that will not fold in and leave streaks in the crumb.
- The tinsLayer cake tins of the period were commonly 8 or 9 inches across and shallow. Grease and flour them, or line the bases with parchment; this batter has no release help beyond the butter.
- Alternating flour and milkThe recipe begins with flour and alternates until both are used; alternating keeps the batter from splitting. Mix only until each addition disappears.
- Yield and finishingThree thin 8-inch layers, serving perhaps 10-12. The recipe gives no filling; a boiled icing, lemon curd or jam between the layers all suit it.
Cakes like this one belong to the American "cup cake" tradition in its late form, built on cup measures rather than weights. Butterick published its cook book as an extension of a pattern and magazine business aimed at the home sewer and housekeeper, and the recipe here calls for a quick oven, the kind of instruction given by feel rather than by thermometer. The recipe's real marker of date is the two teaspoons of baking powder: chemically leavened butter cakes replaced yeast-raised and hand-beaten ones through the second half of the 1800s, and by the time this book appeared the layer cake baked in shallow tins and stacked with filling had become the standard American celebration cake.