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Hard-Times Cake
Half a cup of butter, two of sugar, one of sour cream, three of flour, three eggs, half tea-spoon of soda; bake in layers and spread with jelly.-Mrs. R. M. Henderson.
A bare ingredient list in the style of its day, with the method assumed. It is a plain butter cake leavened by soda reacting with sour cream, and it wants a light hand rather than a long bake.
- The hinge: soda and acidThe only leavening is half a teaspoon of soda activated by the acid in the sour cream. Mix the soda into the flour, combine wet and dry quickly, and get the pans into a hot oven at once, since the lift begins the moment the two meet and does not wait.
- Sour cream then and nowNineteenth-century sour cream was raw cream left to clabber: thinner and sharper than the thick cultured product sold today. Modern full-fat cultured sour cream works, loosened with a spoonful of milk to pouring consistency; well-shaken buttermilk is the closer match for texture but gives a leaner crumb.
- Cup measuresCups here are volume, roughly as we use them: about 4 oz of butter, 14 oz of sugar, 12-13 oz of flour. Southern baking of the period often relied on softer wheat flour, so a modern all-purpose flour may give a slightly tougher cake; swapping a few tablespoons for cornstarch brings it closer.
- Method the recipe omitsCream the butter and sugar until pale, beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the flour and sour cream alternately. The recipe prints only the proportions and leaves the method to the reader.
- OvenBake at 375F; three thin layers in 8- or 9-inch pans take 18-22 minutes. They are done when the centre springs back and the edges pull from the tin.
- PansThis batter makes three 8-inch layers or two thicker 9-inch ones; grease and flour, or line with parchment, since there is no rising agent to spare if a layer sticks and tears.
- The jelly fillingSpread a firm, sharp jelly, such as currant, apple or damson, on cooled layers only, and use it thinly. There is no frosting in the original, and the cake is best while the crumb is still moist.
- YieldThree 8-inch layers, cutting into 10 to 12 slices.
"Hard times" cakes turn up across American community cookbooks, and the name is generally used for anything that leaves out the expensive things: no spices, no raisins or citron, no wine or brandy, no almonds, and no separate whites beaten for a frosting. By that standard this one is only moderately austere, since it still spends three eggs and half a cup of butter; the economy is in the sour cream, which used up cream that had turned in a household without refrigeration, and in the jelly filling, which came from the summer's preserving rather than from the grocer. The Dixie Cook Book, compiled from contributed receipts and published in the 1880s, is full of such attributions to named women, and the pattern of a bare proportion list with no method is typical of the genre.