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Sponge Cake (Three eggs one and a half cups)
Three eggs, one and a half cups powdered sugar, two of sifted flour, two tea-spoons cream tartar, half cup cold water, tea-spoon soda, grated rind and half the juice of one lemon; bake in drippingpan.-Mrs. Eliza J. Starr.
A plain lemon sponge leavened with the cream of tartar and soda pairing that preceded packaged baking powder. The original gives no oven heat, no time and no order of mixing, all of which have to be supplied.
- Powdered sugarIn the 1880s this meant granulated sugar ground fine, not the cornstarch-laced confectioners' sugar sold today. Use superfine or caster sugar, or pulse granulated briefly in a food processor.
- The leaveningTwo teaspoons cream of tartar with one teaspoon soda is the classic 2:1 ratio and works out to roughly the lifting power of three to four teaspoons of baking powder. Sift the cream of tartar into the flour and dissolve the soda in the half cup of cold water so the two do not meet until the batter comes together.
- Move fastThe soda begins reacting with both the cream of tartar and the lemon juice the moment it is wet. Have the pan greased and the oven hot before you combine anything, and get the batter in without delay.
- Beating the eggsWith no butter in the formula, all the tenderness comes from air. Beat the eggs with the sugar until pale and tripled in volume, five to eight minutes with a mixer, then fold in the flour rather than stirring.
- Flour quantityTwo cups of flour sifted before measuring is about 200 g; measuring unsifted will give you a third more and a tough, dry cake. Sift first, then spoon into the cup.
- Dripping-panThe shallow rectangular pan that sat under a roast. Sizes varied, but something in the range of a modern 9x13 dish or a half sheet pan is the usual stand-in, and a batter this size would bake as a thin sheet to be cut in squares rather than turned out as a layer.
- Oven and timeThe original specifies no heat; 350F works for this batter. A thin sheet is done in 18 to 25 minutes, when it springs back and the edges just pull from the pan; a 9x13 will take nearer 25 to 30.
- YieldAbout sixteen squares from a 9x13. With no added fat it keeps poorly, and is best the day it is baked.
Sponge cake appeared in American household books as a lighter alternative to rich butter cakes, leavened by eggs rather than by a large quantity of butter. The cream of tartar and soda combination here belongs to the period before commercial baking powder had displaced the two powders bought separately, though the proportions cooks used varied from recipe to recipe. Like other community compilations of its era, the book printed contributed receipts over the donor's name, and Mrs. Starr's entry is characteristically terse: no order of mixing, no oven heat and no time.