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Orange Cake (Two-thirds cup butter two)
Two-thirds cup butter, two small cups sugar, one cup milk, three tea-spoons baking-powder, the yolks of five eggs, three small cups flour; bake in jelly-tins. Whites of three eggs beaten to a stiff froth, juice and grated peel of one orange, sugar to consistency; put this between the layers with white frosting on the top.--Mrs. Gov. Pillsbury, Minnesota.
A yolk-rich butter cake in the standard 1880s cup-measure style, with a raw orange meringue filling. Two things need attention before you start: the vague "small cups" and the uncooked egg whites in the filling.
- "Small cups"Nineteenth-century recipes used whatever cup was in the kitchen, and "small" suggests something under the modern 8 oz standard, though no exact size can be recovered. Since sugar and flour are both given as "small cups," the proportion holds as long as you keep the same cup for both: roughly 1 1/2 cups sugar to 2 1/4 cups flour if you read the small cup as about three-quarters of a modern one.
- Jelly-tinsShallow-sided round tins used for jelly cake, commonly around 8 to 9 inches across. The recipe does not say how many layers to make; baking in three shallow tins gives thin layers, and two 8-inch cake pans will work with a slightly longer bake.
- OvenNo temperature is given because the book predates thermostats. Bake at 350F, 18 to 25 minutes for thin layers, until the centre springs back.
- Baking powderThree teaspoons to the recipe's three small cups of flour (a little over two modern cups) is on the generous side but within modern range. Period baking powders were single-acting and variable in strength, so get the batter into the oven promptly rather than letting it stand.
- Five yolks, three whitesThe cake takes five yolks and the filling three whites, leaving two whites over; the top frosting is unspecified, and the leftover whites would serve for it, though the book does not say so. A boiled white frosting is the period-appropriate choice.
- The raw-white fillingWhites beaten stiff with orange juice and "sugar to consistency" is an uncooked meringue: it is never heated, it weeps within a day, and raw egg white carries a small salmonella risk. Use pasteurized whites, or cook the filling as a meringue over hot water, if that matters to your household.
- "Sugar to consistency"Beat in confectioners' sugar until the mixture holds a soft peak and spreads without running — figure on 2 to 3 cups. Orange juice thins it fast, so add the juice sparingly and the zest last.
- YieldThin layers, serving roughly 10 to 12 depending on how many tins you use. Assemble no more than a few hours ahead; an uncooked white filling loosened with juice will weep.
The contributor is Mahala Fisk Pillsbury, wife of John S. Pillsbury, governor of Minnesota from 1876 to 1882 and a partner in the family flour-milling business — which is very much the point of her appearance here. The Dixie Cook-Book, like the other compilations Estelle Woods Wilcox assembled in the 1880s, padded its authority with contributions solicited from the wives of governors, senators and clergymen, printed with the husband's title attached. Orange cake belongs to the era's fashion for jelly cake or layer cake: thin rounds baked in shallow tins and stacked with a filling that needed no cooking, which was a real convenience when the alternative was a custard tended over coal. Oranges reached inland American markets in greater quantity in the 1870s and 1880s, and they show up in these books as a signal of a slightly special occasion — a whole orange, peel and juice both, spent on one cake.