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Sponge Cake (III)
Mrs. Ira Metcalf.
Three eggs, one cup white sugar, one teaspoon of cream of tartar, one-half of soda. three tablespoons of boiling water, flour to thicken.
A contributor's shorthand rather than a full recipe: it assumes you already know how a sponge cake goes together and how thick the batter should be. Here is what the gaps mean in practice.
- "Flour to thicken"This is genuinely unspecified, and no honest conversion exists. Cakes of this proportion in the same period take roughly 1 to 1 1/4 cups of flour for three eggs and a cup of sugar, giving a batter that ribbons thickly off the spoon rather than pours. Add it in stages and stop when it mounds slightly.
- Cream of tartar and sodaOne teaspoon cream of tartar to half a teaspoon soda is the standard home-mixed baking powder of the 1870s, before commercial powders were universally trusted. Sift both with the flour; the acid and alkali start reacting the moment liquid hits them, so the pan should be ready.
- "One-half of soda"Read as half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, matching the teaspoon of cream of tartar above it. Spoon measures were not standardised in this period, so treat the quantity as approximate.
- The boiling waterThree tablespoons of boiling water is characteristic of this style of cake: it loosens the foam so the batter stays light without butter or milk. The recipe does not say at what stage it goes in; recipes of this type variously beat it into the eggs and sugar or add it towards the end.
- Beating the eggsThe recipe names no fat, so the eggs do much of the work, though the cream of tartar and soda supply real leavening. Beat whole eggs and sugar until pale and thick, then fold the flour in by hand; a mixer on high through the flour stage will knock the air back out.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction at all. A cake of this size would suit a moderate oven, around 350F, for roughly 20 to 25 minutes in an 8-inch round or small loaf tin, and is done when the top springs back and the sides begin to pull from the pan.
- YieldOne modest single-layer cake, six to eight servings. A plain sponge of this kind is best eaten fresh, with fruit, preserves or a sauce.
The Home Cook Book (Chicago, 1874) was one of the first great American community cookbooks, compiled from recipes contributed by named local women and sold in aid of the Home for the Friendless, and the format explains the terseness here: Mrs. Ira Metcalf was writing for neighbours who had made sponge cake all their lives and needed only her proportions, not her method. That is why the book carries several numbered sponge cakes. This particular type, with boiling water beaten into the eggs, was widely called hot-water sponge and prized because it needed no butter, an economy that mattered in a household churning or buying butter by the pound. The teaspoon of cream of tartar with half a teaspoon of soda is likewise a period marker: reliable canned baking powder existed by the 1870s, but a cook could still mix her own acid and alkali.