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Soda Cake
Mrs. Hamilton.
Two cups sugar, one-half cup butter, one cup of milk, three and a-half of flour, two eggs, one teaspoonful Cook's Friend; flavour with lemon.
A plain one-bowl butter cake of the sort that filled Victorian tea tables. The list of ingredients is complete but the method is left entirely to the cook, so the decisions below are yours to make.
- Cook's FriendA proprietary Canadian baking powder of the period, not baking soda despite the recipe's title. Substitute one teaspoon of modern double-acting baking powder; for a cake with this much flour that is a light hand, and one and a half to two teaspoons gives a more reliable rise.
- Cup sizesNineteenth-century cup measures varied, though many were near today's 8 fl oz; flour was scooped and unsifted. Three and a half cups is roughly 15-17 oz (430-480 g) — weigh it if you can, and expect a fairly stiff batter.
- Method the recipe omitsCream the softened butter with the sugar until pale, beat in the eggs, then add the flour and milk alternately. Adding all the milk at once to so little butter can curdle the mixture and coarsen the crumb.
- No saltButter of the period was often salted, and the recipe calls for no salt of its own. If you use unsalted, add half a teaspoon of salt to the flour.
- Flavouring with lemonMost likely lemon extract, a drop or two, or the grated zest of one lemon. Juice may start reacting with the baking powder before the cake reaches the oven.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction; 350F (175C) suits this batter. Baked in a greased 9-inch tube pan or two 8-inch rounds, allow 40-50 minutes for the tube and 25-30 for layers; a skewer should come out clean.
- YieldEnough for one large cake serving 10-12, or a two-layer cake. With this little butter to flour it is on the dry side, and takes well to butter, jam or a lemon glaze.
The Home Cook Book (Toronto, 1877) is generally credited as Canada's first community fundraising cookbook, its recipes contributed by named local women and its costs offset by advertising for grocers and manufacturers. "Cook's Friend" was one such proprietary baking powder sold in Canada at the time, and its appearance here by brand name — inside the recipe rather than beside it — suggests how far chemical leavening had already become household shorthand. The title "Soda Cake" appears to be a holdover from the years of raising cakes with saleratus and sour milk, the name attaching to the style of cake even after baking powder displaced the soda. Mrs. Hamilton's proportions are those of the standard Victorian plain cake.