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Silver Cake
Mrs. Ira Metcalf.
Two cups of fine white sugar, two and one-half cups of sifted flour, one-half cup of butter, one-quarter cup of sweet milk, one-half teaspoon of soda dissolved in the milk, one teaspoon of cream of tartar, the whites of eight eggs. Flavour to taste.
A plain white butter cake from the era before commercial baking powder, leavened by the soda-and-cream-of-tartar pair. The recipe gives no pan, oven or time, so those need supplying.
- Egg whites by volumeThe whites of eight eggs of the period run to about one cup; modern large eggs give roughly the same from seven to eight. Beat them to soft, not stiff, peaks so they can be folded in without tearing.
- The leaveningHalf a teaspoon of soda with one teaspoon of cream of tartar is homemade baking powder in the classic 1:2 ratio. Sift the cream of tartar with the flour and dissolve the soda in the milk as directed; once the two meet, the batter starts working and should go into the oven promptly.
- Order of workCream the butter and sugar thoroughly, add the milk and flour alternately, then fold in the whites last. The recipe assumes this sequence without saying so.
- Very little liquidA quarter cup of milk against two and a half cups of flour looks wrong until you count the whites as liquid. The batter should be thick but droppable; resist adding more milk.
- Flavouring"Flavour to taste" in a silver cake of this date was commonly almond or lemon extract, about a teaspoon. Vanilla also works.
- Pan and ovenThis is enough batter for two 9-inch layers or one large loaf. The recipe names no oven or time; at 350F allow 25 to 35 minutes for layers, 55 to 65 for a loaf, until a skewer comes out clean.
- Butter measureHalf a cup is one stick, 4 ounces. Nineteenth-century butter was often salted; if yours is unsalted, a pinch of salt improves the cake, though the original lists none.
- YieldTwelve to sixteen slices. It keeps two or three days well wrapped and is drier by the fourth.
Silver cake used up egg whites, and was often baked alongside gold cake, which used the yolks; the pair appear together in American community cookbooks of the later nineteenth century, sometimes combined in a single tin as a marble cake. The white crumb depended on finely refined white sugar, well-sifted flour, and butter pale enough not to yellow the batter. Commercial baking powder was on the market by the later nineteenth century, but many contributors still preferred to mix soda and cream of tartar themselves. The attribution to Mrs. Ira Metcalf is typical of the subscription cookbook, where recipes travelled under the name of the woman who vouched for them.