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Lemon Cheese Cake (III)
Mrs. Ira Metcalf.
For the cake take part of two cups of sugar, half a cup of butter, three-quarters of a cup of sweet milk, whites of six eggs, three cups of flour, three teaspoons of Cook's Friend baking powder.
JELLY FOR LEMON CHEESE CAKE. - Grated rind and juice of two lemons, yolks of three eggs, half a cup of butter, one cup of sugar, mix all together, and set on the stove and cook till thick as sponge, taking care not to burn; use like jelly between the cakes, or bake one square cake and put the dressing on top and cut in shape of diamonds.
A white layer cake with lemon curd between the layers — the "cheese" is the curd, not cheese. Two points in the original need interpretation before you start.
- "Part of two cups of sugar"Ambiguous in the original; it appears to mean somewhat less than the full two cups. Use about 1½ cups in the cake, and measure the jelly's one cup separately.
- Cook's Friend baking powderA Canadian brand of the period, still made today. Any modern double-acting baking powder will do; you may prefer to scale back to about 2 teaspoons for three cups of flour, as three can give a coarse crumb.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh milk, as opposed to the soured milk or buttermilk used in soda-raised cakes. Whole milk is right here.
- No oven temperature givenBake at 350F. Two 8- or 9-inch layers take 25 to 30 minutes; a single square pan, 9 inches, takes 35 to 40.
- The hinge: cook the curd gentlySet the lemon mixture over simmering water rather than directly "on the stove." Yolks curdle above roughly 180F, and the recipe's own warning about burning is a sign the original cooks fought this. Stir constantly and pull it off when it coats the spoon thickly, around 170F.
- "Thick as sponge"An imprecise nineteenth-century comparison, probably to sponge cake batter or a set sponge pudding. In practice: thick enough to hold a line drawn through it with a finger. It firms considerably as it chills.
- Cool everything before assemblingWarm curd will slide off warm cake. Chill the filling at least an hour; it spreads cleanly and stays put between the layers.
- YieldAbout 12 slices as a two-layer cake, or roughly 16 to 20 diamonds cut from a single square; the recipe offers both.
- The six leftover yolks and three whitesThe three leftover yolks -- the cake takes six whites, the curd three yolks. You are left with three extra yolks — worth folding into a custard or enriching the curd if you prefer it denser.
"Lemon cheese" is the older British name for what is now sold as lemon curd, and it carries no cheese at all — the word marked any thick, spreadable preserve set with eggs and butter, in the same way that damson cheese and quince cheese were fruit pastes rather than dairy. That the phrase survived into an 1870s Toronto kitchen is unsurprising: The Home Cook Book was compiled by "ladies of Toronto" from their own and their friends' receipts and published to raise money for charity, and it reads throughout as a British-Canadian household repertoire adapting itself to local suppliers. The recipe's brand-name shortcut is worth noting — Cook's Friend was a Canadian chemical baking powder of the period, and it turns up casually in a home receipt. Three such lemon cheese cakes appear in the book, which is how these subscription cookbooks worked: everyone sent in her version, and the editors printed them all.<a href=