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French Cream Cake
Three eggs, one cupful of granulated sugar, one and one-half cupfuls flour, two tablespoonfuls cold water, one teaspoonful of cream of tartar, one-half teaspoonful of soda. Beat eggs until whites and yolks are well mixed; add sugar and beat over and over until light and frothy. Sift cream of tartar in flour and soda in water, add water and flour; stir just enough to mix the flour in well. Bake in three layers.
Cream for Cake-One cup of milk, the yolks of two eggs, one tablespoonful flour, one-half cup of sugar. Flavor with vanilla, and cook in double boiler.
A fatless sponge in three thin layers, filled with a stovetop pastry cream. Neither part is difficult, but the original gives no pan size, oven heat, or baking time.
- Oven heatBake at 375F. Thin fatless layers set in 10 to 14 minutes and are done when the centre springs back and the edges just begin to pull from the pan.
- PansThree 8-inch round pans, greased and floured or lined. The batter is scant by modern standards because these were meant as thin layers, not the tall ones we expect now.
- LeaveningOne teaspoon cream of tartar plus half a teaspoon soda is a from-scratch baking powder. If you would rather, use one and a half teaspoons of double-acting baking powder sifted into the flour and two tablespoons of plain cold water. Do not use both.
- The hinge: beat the eggs long enoughThere is no butter or oil here, so all the lift comes from air beaten into the whole eggs with the sugar. Beat until the mixture is pale, thick, and falls in a ribbon, five to eight minutes with a mixer. Then fold the flour in with a light hand, exactly as the recipe warns.
- FlourModern all-purpose flour is generally stronger than much of the soft-wheat flour home bakers of this period used. Cake flour, or all-purpose with two tablespoons per cup swapped for cornstarch, gives a closer texture.
- The creamOne tablespoon of flour to a cup of milk makes a pourable custard, not a pipeable one. Whisk the sugar, flour and yolks together, add the hot milk gradually, and cook in the double boiler until it visibly thickens and coats a spoon, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the vanilla off the heat.
- Chill before fillingCool the cream fully, with a sheet of plastic on the surface, or it will soak the layers and slide out. If you want a firmer filling, raise the flour to two tablespoons.
- Yield and keepingOne three-layer cake, eight to ten slices. Because it holds an egg custard, keep it refrigerated and eat it within two days.
In American cookbooks of the late nineteenth century "French cream cake" often meant this: a plain sponge in layers filled with a cooked egg-and-milk cream rather than butter frosting or jam. The "French" is usually taken to point at the filling, a household version of the pastry cream that professional bakers called crème pâtissière. The same construction appears elsewhere as cream cake or custard cake, and is related to what we now call Boston cream pie. Cream of tartar and soda measured separately were one of the ways a cook could leaven a cake without commercial baking powder.