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Feather Cake
Miss Knapp.
White sugar one cup, butter one-half cup, flour two cups, eggs three, two teaspoonsful of Cook's Friend baking powder, nutmeg or other flavouring to suit the taste. Very good.
A plain butter cake reduced to a shopping list, as many nineteenth-century contributions were. The method, the pan, the oven and the baking time were all assumed knowledge, so they have to be supplied.
- No liquid, by designThere is no milk here, and that is not an omission: the three eggs are the only moisture. Cream butter and sugar thoroughly, beat the eggs in well, then fold in the flour with the baking powder sifted through it. The batter will be thick, closer to a pound-cake batter than a modern one-bowl cake.
- Cook's Friend baking powderA proprietary Canadian brand of the period, of the sort that advertised in and was named throughout books like this one. Any modern double-acting baking powder substitutes measure for measure; two teaspoons to two cups of flour is still a normal ratio.
- Cup and spoon sizesPeriod cups were commonly close to the modern 8 fl oz, though usage varied, so one cup sugar, half a cup butter (4 oz, one stick) and two cups flour work as written. How the flour was measured is not recorded; for consistency, weigh it at roughly 9-10 oz.
- EggsHen's eggs of the period were probably smaller on average than a modern large egg. Three modern large eggs give a slightly wetter, more tender crumb, which is no loss in a cake named for its lightness.
- OvenBake at 350F, a moderate oven. A single 8-inch round or an 8x4-inch loaf pan, greased and floured.
- Time and doneness25 to 30 minutes for a round layer, 40 to 50 for a loaf. Test with a skewer at the centre; because there is no milk, the cake dries quickly if pushed past clean.
- FlavouringNutmeg is the first option named, though the recipe leaves the choice open. Freshly grated, a quarter to half a teaspoon is enough to register. Lemon zest or a teaspoon of vanilla stands in for "other flavouring."
- YieldOne modest cake, eight to ten small slices.
"Feather cake" was a common nineteenth-century name for any cake claimed to be exceptionally light, and it belongs to the moment when chemical leaveners were displacing beaten eggs and yeast in home baking. That shift is visible in the recipe itself: three eggs would once have been whipped at length to raise the batter, but here two teaspoons of a branded baking powder do the work, and the contributor names the brand. The Home Cook Book, compiled in Toronto in 1877 from recipes gathered from ladies of Toronto and other cities and towns, and sold to benefit the Hospital for Sick Children, was underwritten in part by advertising, and manufacturers' names turn up inside the recipes as well as in the margins. The attribution to Miss Knapp, and the terse verdict "Very good," are the whole of the editorial apparatus.