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Sponge Cake (Twelve eggs pint pulverized)
Twelve eggs, pint pulverized sugar, one of flour, measured before sifting, small tea-spoon salt, heaping tea-spoon baking powder, essence of lemon for flavor; beat the whites to a very stiff froth, and add sugar; beat the yolks, strain and add them to the whites and sugar, and beat the whole thoroughly; mix baking-powder and salt in the flour and add last, stirring in small quantities at a time; bake This makes one one hour in a six-quart pan in a moderate oven. This makes one very large cake. By weight use one pound pulverized sugar and three-fourths pound flour. - Miss S. Alice Melching.
A twelve-egg sponge scaled for a household of a dozen or more. The weights given at the end are the safer guide, since a "pint" of sugar or flour depends entirely on how it was scooped.
- Pulverized sugarThis means finely ground granulated sugar — what is now sold as caster or superfine sugar. It is not modern powdered/confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch and will dull the crumb.
- Go by weightUse the alternative given: 1 lb (about 450 g) sugar and 12 oz (about 340 g) flour. The volume measures translate to roughly 2 cups sugar and 2 cups unsifted flour, which is a good deal less flour by weight than 12 oz — the weights are the version to trust.
- A moderate ovenConventionally read as around 350°F. For a cake this deep, 325°F is safer; a full hour at 350°F risks a dark crust over an underset centre. Test with a skewer at 50 minutes.
- The six-quart panSix quarts is about 24 cups of capacity, larger than a standard 10-inch tube pan. Do not grease it — a sponge needs to grip the sides as it climbs, and it should be cooled upside down so the crumb does not compress.
- Order of beatingWhites to a stiff froth first, sugar added to them, then the beaten yolks folded in. Straining the yolks removes membrane and any chalaza, which is worth doing since nothing here will hide a lump.
- The flourAdd it in small showers and fold, never beat. This is the hinge: once the flour is in, every extra stroke deflates the foam that is doing all the lifting.
- Baking powderA heaping teaspoon in twelve eggs' worth of foam is insurance, not leavening. Use a level teaspoon of modern double-acting powder; more will give the cake a coarse, slightly soapy edge.
- Flavoring"Essence of lemon" is lemon extract — about 1 to 2 teaspoons, or the grated zest of a lemon.
- YieldGenuinely large: 16 to 20 servings. Sponge of this kind stales fast and is best on the day it is baked, or split and served with fruit and cream the next.
Sponge cake belongs to the older family of egg-raised cakes, leavened by air beaten into whites and yolks rather than by butter and chemical powders, and it long predates the baking powder that sneaks into this version. American kitchens are generally said to have taken up commercial baking powders from about the 1860s and 1870s, which may be why a recipe like this one hedges its bets with both methods at once. The Dixie Cook-Book, a commercially issued regional book derived from Buckeye Cookery, printed recipes over contributors' names, and Miss Melching's gives the volume measures first, then supplies the weights — useful, since a "pint of flour" varies from hand to hand. The scale is worth noting too. Twelve eggs and a six-quart pan point to a household or church table where cake was cut for a crowd.