Home › Our Susan's Opinion of a Kitchen › Cocoanut Cake (Mrs W T Eyre Two eggs cup)
Cocoanut Cake (Mrs W T Eyre Two eggs cup)
Mrs. W. T. Eyre, Two eggs, cup of sugar, cup of flour, two tablespoonsful of water; white of one egg and teaspoonful of sugar mixed together to make the cocoa stick.
This is a recipe in the shorthand of a contributor who assumed the reader already knew how coconut cake went together. Two things are missing outright — the coconut itself and any oven direction — so read the notes before you start.
- What the amounts add up toTwo eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour and 2 tablespoons water is a plain sponge batter, enough for one thin 8-inch layer or a small square pan. It serves six at most; double it if you want two layers to sandwich.
- The coconut is unmeasuredThe recipe assumes grated coconut is on hand and never says how much. For one thin layer, count on about 1 to 1½ cups of unsweetened desiccated or freshly grated coconut pressed onto the top and sides. In this period that would usually have meant cracking a whole nut and grating the meat; modern bagged desiccated coconut works but is drier and often sweeter.
- No leavening is listedWith no baking powder or soda, the lift has to come entirely from beating the eggs and sugar to a thick, pale ribbon before folding in the flour, sponge-cake fashion. If you fold sloppily you get a flat, tough sheet rather than a cake.
- Cup measures of the periodA late 19th-century cup is often close to the modern 8 fl oz, though period cups varied and flour was scooped rather than weighed. About 4½ oz (125 g) flour and 7 oz (200 g) sugar is a reasonable modern reading.
- OvenNo oven direction of any kind is given. For a thin sponge of this size, bake at about 350°F for roughly 18 to 25 minutes, until the top springs back and the edges pull from the pan.
- The "cocoa" is coconut"To make the cocoa stick" refers to the coconut, not chocolate. The white of one egg beaten with a teaspoon of sugar is simply glue — a thin uncooked meringue brushed over the cooled cake so the shreds adhere.
- That raw whiteThe egg-white glue is never cooked. If the cake is for anyone elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised, use pasteurized egg white, or brush on a warm sugar syrup or thin cooked icing instead.
- Timing of the coatingCoat the cake while the white is still tacky and press the coconut on at once; once it dries it will not take the shreds. Let the finished cake sit an hour to set before cutting.
Coconut cake spread through American home cookery in the decades after the Civil War, when schooners running from the Caribbean made whole coconuts a reliable, cheap novelty in northern markets. The spelling "cocoanut," standard through the 19th century, is usually explained as a reflection of the old confusion with cacao, and it survived in print long after it stopped making sense. Recipes this compressed are characteristic of The Home Cook Book, a Chicago charity compilation drawn from contributions by named local women: each donor sent in her own household note, written for neighbors who already knew the general method and only needed the proportions. The result is a book full of exact quantities and almost no instructions — a fair record of how cooking knowledge actually passed between women of the period.