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Meringue Cakes
Make a sponge cake of the following: Half a pound of finest caster-sugar and the whites of twelve eggs beaten together until the sugar is quite dissolved, then add a quarter of a pound of butter warmed to melting, one gill of milk, three-quarters of a pound of flour and one teaspoonful of baking powder. Beat these well and spread thinly on a greased baking-sheet. Put into a moderate oven, leave the door ajar, and bake. A board should be placed under the tin so that the bottom of the sheet will not bake too quickly. When nearly done cut into squares and cover each with meringue or icing made stiff. Place back in the oven for a few minutes, and then serve. Sifted sugar may also be sprinkled over the icing before returning to the oven to finish baking.
A thin white sheet cake, cut warm and finished under a layer of meringue. The batter is unusual in that it uses no yolks, so the crumb is pale and tight rather than airy despite the name "sponge."
- The hinge: do not overbake the sheetThe batter goes on thin, so it may be done well inside twenty minutes; watch it rather than the clock. The recipe has you cut it while it is 'nearly done', so it will still be warm and flexible at that point, which makes for cleaner squares.
- Weights and measuresHalf a pound of caster sugar is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons; a quarter pound of butter is one stick; three-quarters of a pound of flour is roughly 3 cups (340 g). One gill is half a cup of milk. Twelve egg whites run to about 1 1/2 cups.
- Caster sugarSuperfine or baker's sugar. Ordinary granulated will not dissolve fully in the whites in the time given; pulse it briefly in a food processor if that is all you have.
- Moderate ovenConventionally read as about 350F, though the book states no temperature. Leaving the door ajar would have moderated the heat of a coal or early gas range; in a modern oven, keep the door shut and drop to 325F if the surface is coloring before the center sets.
- The board under the tinThis is insulation against a fierce bottom heat. Today, stack a second baking sheet under the first, or use a light-colored heavy pan rather than a thin dark one.
- Beating the whitesWhites and sugar are beaten together, not whipped to peaks separately, so this is a batter and not a foam. Warm the butter only to the point of melting; hot butter will loosen the mixture and the cake will bake dense and greasy.
- The meringueNone is specified. A standard stiff meringue of 2 egg whites to 1/2 cup caster sugar will cover a modest sheet; scale up to suit the area. Return the squares to the oven only long enough to set and lightly color the tops -- the recipe says a few minutes.
- YieldSpread thinly, this quantity of batter will need more than one standard baking sheet, so the number of squares depends on how it is divided. They are best the day they are made; the meringue weeps once it sits.
Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's maitre d'hotel, compiled a book that reflects something of the cooking associated with the hotel in the 1890s, and small iced cakes like these belonged to the afternoon-tea and banquet-service side of that work, where a pastry department turned out sweets by the tray rather than by the cake. The technique of building a dessert on a sheet, cutting it into squares and finishing each piece individually is the logic of the hotel petit four: one batter, many portions, uniform to the eye. Meringue itself was long established in English and French kitchens by then, having appeared in printed English cookery by the early eighteenth century; the name is often traced to the Swiss town of Meiringen, though that story is traditional rather than documented. The recipe sets baking powder alongside twelve egg whites, in a batter that a generation earlier would have relied on the whites alone for lift.