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Pound Cake
Have a pound and a half of sugar and twelve ounces of butter, and work to a cream; then add twelve well-beaten eggs, a pound and a half of sifted flour, and mace and nutmeg to suit the taste. Form into a dough, put into small, buttered tins, and bake in a moderately quick oven.
A late-Victorian pound cake scaled for a hotel kitchen: no leavening, no liquid, and no timings. The measurements are all by weight, which makes it easier to reproduce than most recipes of its era.
- The hinge is the creamingWith no baking powder, every bit of lift comes from air beaten into the butter and sugar and from the eggs. Cream the butter and sugar until visibly pale and fluffy, then add the beaten eggs in a slow stream so the mixture never breaks.
- Weights in modern termsA pound and a half of sugar is about 3 1/2 cups; 12 oz butter is three sticks; a pound and a half of sifted flour is roughly 5 1/2 cups, though flour is best weighed at 680 g. Twelve eggs is about 1 lb 5 oz shelled.
- Not a true pound cakeThe classic formula is a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. Here the butter is cut to 12 oz against 24 oz each of sugar and flour, which should give a drier, firmer cake than the equal-weight version.
- "Moderately quick oven"Period usage put this above a moderate oven and below a quick one; roughly 350-375F is a reasonable modern reading. Small tins at that heat need roughly 20-30 minutes; a full-size loaf of this batter would want the lower end of that range and closer to an hour, or the outside sets long before the center.
- "Form into a dough"Period phrasing for bringing the mixture together, not for kneading. It is a thick batter rather than a dough, and once the flour goes in it should be folded only until no dry streaks remain.
- SpicingMace and nutmeg were a common pound-cake perfume in nineteenth-century recipes. For this quantity, about 2 teaspoons of grated nutmeg and 1 teaspoon of ground mace is a fair starting point; grate the nutmeg fresh, as the pre-ground jar is weaker.
- Tins and yieldThe ingredients come to about 5 lb of batter, enough for roughly two dozen small individual cakes or two 9x5 loaves. Butter the tins well and line the bases.
- Testing and keepingBake until a skewer comes out clean and the cake pulls slightly from the tin. Wrapped tightly, it keeps well for a day or two.
Pound cake takes its name from the old English formula of a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour, an easily remembered and easily scaled proportion; the French quatre-quarts, four quarters, works on the same principle. By the time Oscar Tschirky's book for the Waldorf appeared in the 1890s, the ratio had loosened, and this version lightens the butter while holding sugar and flour high, producing a close-grained cake that slices cleanly. Mace and nutmeg reflect an older English taste in cake spicing, and the cakes here are baked in small tins rather than as one large cake cut at the table.