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Loaf Cake
Mrs. John Thomas.
One cup sugar, one-half cup butter, one egg, one cup, sweet milk, one pint flour. one cup raisins, one-half teaspoon soda, one teaspoon cream tartar, essence.
A contributed recipe in the terse style of its era: ingredients only, no method, no pan, no oven. Everything below is the missing half.
- Method, since none is givenCream the butter and sugar, beat in the egg, then add the flour (sifted with the cream of tartar) alternately with the milk, into which the soda has been stirred. Fold in the raisins last.
- Soda and cream of tartarHalf a teaspoon of soda with a teaspoon of cream of tartar is a homemade single-acting baking powder, roughly equal to two teaspoons of modern baking powder. It begins working the moment it meets liquid, so get the batter into the pan and into the oven without delay.
- A pint of flourFlour was measured by volume: a pint is 2 cups, about 8 to 9 oz of all-purpose.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh milk, specified to distinguish it from the sour or buttermilk that so many recipes of the period call for. Whole milk is the right substitute.
- EssenceAny flavoring extract the cook had on hand — lemon, vanilla or rose. A teaspoon is the usual measure; more than that in a cake this size will dominate.
- RaisinsOne cup, tossed in a spoonful of the measured flour so they do not sink. Nineteenth-century raisins often needed seeding and chopping; today's seedless ones can go in whole.
- Pan and ovenThis fills one 8x4-inch loaf pan, greased and floured. Bake at 350F for 45 to 55 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
- YieldOne modest loaf, about ten slices. It is a plain, close-grained cake meant for tea, not a rich fruitcake despite the raisins.
The Home Cook Book (Chicago, 1874, with further editions later in the decade) was compiled from recipes contributed by local women and sold to benefit a charitable home, which is why so many entries carry a donor's name and so few carry instructions: the contributors were writing for cooks who already knew how a cake was put together. "Loaf cake" in this period generally meant a cake baked in a bread pan rather than a round tin or as small cakes, though the term was also applied to richer, sometimes yeast-raised fruited cakes; the leavening here marks its moment — separate soda and cream of tartar, the pairing that commercial baking powders were then in the process of replacing. The raisins and the vague "essence" point to an everyday cake made from pantry staples rather than an occasion piece.