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Corn Starch Cake
Mrs. Ira Metcalf.
One cup butter, three cups sugar beaten to a cream, then add in the following order: two scant cups flour, whites of eight eggs, three teaspoons of Cook's Friend baking powder mixed with flour, and lastly, one and onehalf cups of corn starch mixed smooth in one cup of milk; flavour as you please; bake in an ordinary flat tin pan, and cut in diamonds when cold.
A white butter cake of the "silver cake" family, leavened with baking powder and lightened with cornstarch. The original assumes you know how a cake is put together, so the gaps are worth filling before you start.
- The order really is the methodThe recipe insists on the sequence: creamed butter and sugar, then flour, then whites, then the cornstarch slurry. Adding the flour before the liquid keeps the batter from breaking, and the thin cornstarch-and-milk mixture goes in last to loosen it to a droppable consistency.
- Beaten or unbeaten whitesThe text does not say. Given three teaspoons of baking powder are also present, the whites may have been beaten only frothy rather than to stiff peaks. Whipping them stiff and folding them in produces a lighter, drier crumb; adding them loose gives a denser, pound-cake texture.
- Cook's Friend baking powderA Canadian brand of the day, still sold in Canada. Substitute an equal measure of modern double-acting baking powder.
- Cornstarch as flourThe cornstarch is not a thickener here; it replaces part of the flour to cut gluten and give a tender, fine crumb. Total dry measure is roughly two cups flour to one and a half cups cornstarch, so this is a very soft cake — do not beat hard after the flour goes in.
- Cups and "scant"Cup measures were not standardised in 1877, but a cup here is probably near the modern 8 fl oz. "Scant" means fill just below the rim, so figure a little under two level cups of flour. On that assumption one cup of butter is about 8 oz, or two sticks.
- Flavour as you pleaseLemon extract, almond, rose water or vanilla were the usual choices for a white cake. One to two teaspoons of extract is enough; almond in particular is easy to overdo at this scale.
- Pan and ovenAn "ordinary flat tin pan" means a sheet pan rather than a layer tin: this is a sheet cake meant to be cut, not stacked. The book gives no oven guidance; 350F is a reasonable modern setting, and start testing at 35 minutes. This is a large batter, so a 9x13 will be filled to the brim -- a larger sheet pan is safer, and a shallower, wider pan will be done sooner.
- Cut cold, and cut in diamondsDiamonds were a common tea-table shape: cut parallel lines one way, then diagonals across them. Cutting warm will drag and tear a cake this tender.
- Eight yolks left overThe recipe leaves you with eight yolks. Cookbooks of the period often print a "gold cake" made from yolks alongside a white or "silver" cake; custard or lemon curd does the same work now.
- YieldAbout 24 to 30 diamonds from a 9x13 pan, depending on how you cut.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Toronto in 1877 by "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada" and sold to benefit the Hospital for Sick Children — generally regarded as the first Canadian fundraising cookbook of its kind, and its contributors' names, like Mrs. Ira Metcalf here, were part of the point. Cornstarch cake belongs to the late-Victorian vogue for pure white cakes, made possible by two commercial products that were still fairly new to home kitchens: refined cornstarch, marketed for cookery as well as laundry from the mid-nineteenth century, and chemical baking powder. A cake using only egg whites and a starch-softened crumb showed off both, and it also showed off the household's ability to set aside eight yolks.