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Citron Cake
Mix with one pound of warm butter one pound and two or three ounces of sugar; when well worked together add one pound and four ounces of flour, six eggs and the yolks of four more. Cut into long shavings four ounces of candied citron, form these into layers with the cake mixture in a papered tin, and bake in a slow oven.
Cocoanut Cake, Large Beat a quarter of a pound of warm butter with one cupful of caster-sugar, and when creamy beat in three teacupfuls of flour with which has been mixed two teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar and one teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda; add essence of lemon and the whites of two eggs firmly beaten and one pint of milk. Spread on greased pans and cover the tops with icing in which the grated cocoanut has been stirred. Ice the top with plain icing and sift a little cocoanut over it. Bake in a quick oven.
Cocoanut and Orange Cream for Cakes Beat two eggs, add two cupfuls of whipped cream, two cupfuls of grated cocoanut, two ounces of caster-sugar, the grated rind of one and the juice of two oranges; beat all together. A little grated cocoanut should be spread over as well.
Three separate items run together here without headings, in the compressed style of Oscar Tschirky's 1896 volume. The first is a true pound cake enriched with candied citron; the second and third are a coconut layer cake and a filling, and the third should not be made at all.
- The raw-egg creamThe Cocoanut and Orange Cream beats two raw eggs into whipped cream and is never cooked or held at any temperature. That is an uncooked egg custard spread between cake layers and left to stand at room temperature, which is exactly the condition Salmonella exploits. Use a current cooked-custard or pastry-cream recipe if you want a coconut-orange filling.
- Slow ovenFor the citron cake, read 300-325F. A cake this rich and this large needs a low, steady heat; at anything higher the outside sets and colours long before the middle is done.
- Weigh the citron cake1 lb butter, 1 lb 2-3 oz sugar, 1 lb 4 oz flour, 6 whole eggs plus 4 yolks. There is no baking powder or soda: all the lift comes from air beaten into the butter and sugar and from the eggs, so the creaming stage cannot be rushed and the eggs must go in gradually or the batter will curdle.
- "Warm butter"Softened to about 65-70F, pliable but still opaque. Melted butter will not hold air and the cake will bake dense and greasy.
- Papered tinA tin lined with paper, now parchment. This quantity is something over four pounds of batter: two 9x5 loaf pans or one large tube pan, and expect 1.5 to 2 hours at 300-325F. Test with a skewer rather than by time.
- Candied citronThe peel of Citrus medica, candied, sold in strips or diced with mixed peel around the winter holidays. It is not lemon and not the citron melon used in some American preserves. Cutting it into long shavings and layering it, as directed, keeps the pieces from sinking through a heavy batter.
- Teacupful and caster sugarA teacupful in this period is smaller than a measuring cup, usually reckoned at about 3/4 cup, so the coconut cake's flour quantity is genuinely imprecise. Caster sugar is superfine sugar; ordinary granulated will do if it is creamed thoroughly.
- The coconut cake's order of workAs printed, the icing appears before the baking, which cannot be right. Bake the layers first at 350-375F, then fill, ice and dust with coconut.
- Grated cocoanutMost likely fresh coconut grated from the nut, which is unsweetened and moist, though packaged shredded coconut was also available by this date. Packaged sweetened flake is much drier and considerably sweeter; unsweetened desiccated coconut, briefly moistened, is the closer substitute.
The citron cake belongs to the German and English pound-cake tradition: near-equal weights of butter, sugar and flour, leavened only by beating and by eggs, with candied peel layered in to break the richness. Candied citron was a staple of the nineteenth-century larder, imported from the Mediterranean. The coconut recipes beside it show a newer direction: chemical leavening, and a lighter cake meant to be iced and eaten fresh.