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Tea Cakes
Mrs E. S. Chesebrough.
One quart of sifted flour, one pint sweet milk, butter size of egg, two eggs, two teaspoons sugar, one of soda, two of cream tartar; bake in small patty-pans.
A plain contributor's formula from an era when a cook was trusted to know her own oven and her own batter. The measurements are all volume, the leavening is mixed from scratch, and no temperature or time is given.
- The quantities in modern termsA quart of sifted flour is 4 cups, a pint of sweet (that is, unsoured) milk is 2 cups, and butter "size of egg" is usually reckoned at about 2 ounces, so somewhere between 2 and 4 tablespoons. Sifted flour is lighter than scooped flour, so sift first if you want the ratio the recipe intends.
- Soda and cream of tartar are baking powderOne teaspoon soda with two of cream of tartar is the standard homemade equivalent of roughly 4 teaspoons of modern double-acting baking powder. Whisk both thoroughly through the dry flour; unblended soda leaves yellow, soapy patches.
- Mix and bake at onceCream of tartar reacts with the soda as soon as liquid is added and does not hold a second rise the way modern double-acting powder does. Have the tins greased and the oven hot before the milk goes in.
- Patty-pansSmall shallow tins for individual cakes and tarts, closest today to a standard or mini muffin tin. Fill about two-thirds.
- Oven and timeNo temperature is given; small quick-bread cakes of this kind want a fairly hot oven, somewhere around 400-425F, for about 15 to 20 minutes, until risen and lightly browned.
- SaltNone is called for. Butter of the period was often salted, which may account for it. With modern unsalted butter add about half a teaspoon to the flour or the cakes taste flat.
- Not a sweet cakeTwo teaspoons of sugar in a quart of flour is barely sweetening at all. These are closer to a soft muffin or a raised biscuit than to a dessert.
- YieldThe batter makes roughly 18 to 24 standard muffin-sized cakes. They are best within an hour of baking and turn dry by the next day.
The Home Cook Book (Chicago, 1874) was among the earliest American charity cookbooks, assembled from recipes signed by the women who contributed them and sold to raise money for a home for the friendless; the format was widely imitated by later community books, which is why so many nineteenth-century examples read as lists of named neighbours. The soda-and-cream-of-tartar pairing here belongs to the period when commercial baking powder was available but the two components were still often bought and combined separately: chemical leavening was widely accepted by the 1870s. "Tea cakes" is used loosely in this period, and the near-absence of sugar in Mrs Chesebrough's version puts this one at the plain end of the range.