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Velvet Cake
Mrs. D. McCraney.
Half pound of butter, one pound of pulverized sugar, one pound of flour, four eggs, one teacup of cold water, half teaspoonful of soda, one of cream of tartar, flavour to taste; bake an hour, add fruit and spice if desired, or make into chocolate cake by being baked as jelly cake.
A butter cake from the era just before commercial baking powder, so the leavening arrives as separate soda and cream of tartar. The instructions assume a cook who already knows how to cream butter and sugar; what needs translating is the weights, the vessel and the oven.
- The weights in cupsHalf a pound of butter is 2 sticks (about 225 g). A pound of pulverized sugar is roughly 2 1/4 cups; a pound of flour is about 3 1/2 cups, measured by spooning into the cup and levelling. Weighing is far more reliable here, since the whole balance of the cake rests on the flour-to-butter ratio.
- Pulverized sugarThis means granulated sugar ground fine — what is now sold as caster or superfine sugar. It is not modern confectioners' sugar, which contains cornstarch and will give a dense, pasty crumb.
- One teacup of waterA Victorian teacup in American receipts runs about 3/4 cup; some books use it for a full 8 ounces. Start with 3/4 cup and hold back the last spoonfuls if the batter is already dropping easily from the spoon.
- Soda and cream of tartarHalf a teaspoon of soda to one of cream of tartar is the standard 1:2 ratio, roughly equivalent to about 2 teaspoons of modern double-acting baking powder. Sift both thoroughly into the flour rather than dropping them into the batter — undissolved soda leaves yellow, soapy streaks.
- Work quickly once mixedThis is single-acting leavening: the acid and the soda react as soon as they meet the water. Have the pan greased and the oven at temperature before the flour goes in, and bake at once.
- The ovenThe receipt gives no oven direction at all, only the hour of baking. As a modern working figure, treat it as a moderate oven: 325-350F, with 325F safer against a scorched crust on a rich butter cake in a deep tin; test at 55 minutes with a skewer in the centre.
- Pan and yieldThe quantity fills a 10-inch tube pan or two 9-inch loaf tins, serving 12 to 16. Line the base with parchment; the sugar content makes it prone to sticking.
- As jelly cakeBaked in thin layers for stacking, the same batter needs 12 to 18 minutes only, not an hour. The chocolate version of the period meant grated unsweetened chocolate melted into part of the batter or spread between the layers as a filling.
- Fruit and spiceIf adding raisins or currants, toss them in a spoonful of the measured flour first so they hold their place in the batter. Half a teaspoon each of mace and cinnamon suits this cake without overwhelming the flavouring.
"Velvet" in nineteenth-century cake naming is a claim about texture rather than an ingredient: a fine, close, even crumb, achieved by well-creamed butter, finely ground sugar and quick handling. This receipt sits at a transitional moment in American baking, using cream of tartar and soda in the classic two-to-one pairing that commercial baking powders would soon package together. The Home Cook Book was assembled in Chicago in the 1870s from receipts contributed by named local women and sold to raise money for a local charity — it is generally credited as one of the earliest of the American community fundraising cookbooks, and the format explains the terse style here. Mrs. McCraney was writing for neighbours who shared her assumptions about creaming, teacups and what a moderate oven felt like, so none of it needed saying.