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Gold Cake
Mrs. Ira Metcalf.
One-half cup butter, two cups sugar, half cup milk, three of flour, three teaspoons Cook's Friend baking powder, and yolks of four eggs.
For the silver cake use the same receipt, only in place of the yolks of eggs use the whites of four eggs.
For marble cake same receipt, using brown sugar one cup, and one cup molasses, and some spices, and drop in dish on the white cake or silver receipt.
A bare list of proportions in the style of a recipe exchanged between cooks who already knew the method. Almost everything except the ingredients has to be supplied.
- Cook's Friend baking powderA Canadian brand of the period, sold in tins. Modern double-acting baking powder is generally stronger; 2 teaspoons rather than 3 for three cups of flour may be enough.
- Cups and measuresA cup is taken as 8 fluid ounces, though period cup measures were not standardised. Half a cup of butter is about 4 oz (113 g), three cups of flour about 13 oz (375 g) if scooped and levelled. Period flour differed from modern all-purpose, and a cake flour or a blend of all-purpose and cornstarch may come closer.
- The missing methodCream the butter and sugar, beat in the yolks, then add the flour sifted with the baking powder alternately with the milk. The recipe assumes this; it never says it.
- OvenThe receipt gives no oven direction; a moderate oven, around 350F, suits it. Two 8-inch rounds take 25 to 30 minutes, a single loaf or tube pan 45 to 55. This is a stiff, fairly dry batter by modern standards and overbaking will show.
- Silver cakeFour whites replace four yolks, which leaves the batter with less fat, though rather more liquid, since whites weigh more than yolks. Beat the whites to soft peaks and fold them in last rather than stirring them through.
- The marble batterThe third variation is a separate batter, not a swirl of the first: one cup brown sugar and one cup molasses in place of the two cups white sugar, with spices. Molasses is acidic and may speed the action of the baking powder, so bake without long delay.
- Marbling"Drop in dish" means spooning the dark batter in blobs over the pale one and cutting through once or twice with a knife. Overworking it gives a uniform muddy brown.
- YieldEnough for one large loaf or two 8-inch layers, about 12 servings.
Gold and silver cakes were a pair well suited to thrift: a cook who used four yolks for a custard or a boiled dressing had four whites to spend, and the two receipts let nothing go to waste. Books of the 1870s and 1880s often print them side by side, sometimes with instructions to bake both and stack the layers alternately. The Home Cook Book, compiled by "ladies of Toronto and chief cities and towns in Canada," is generally described as the earliest Canadian charity cookbook, and is full of such contributed formulas signed with a married name, and full too of brand names bought locally -- Cook's Friend baking powder was a familiar Canadian product of the period, and naming it here reflects the habit of specifying the tin one trusted. Marble cake of this era is darkened with molasses and spice rather than the chocolate that took over in the twentieth century.