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Maple Sugar Cake
Beat together one and one-half cupfuls of finely shaved maple sugar, one egg and one-third cupful of butter, add one cupful of sour milk, one-half teaspoonful of soda and two cupfuls of flour. Bake in layer tins. For this filling, cook together until the syrup hardens in water, one-half pound of maple sugar and one-half cupful of water. After removing from the fire turn it slowly over one egg, beating constantly. When nearly cold spread it on the cake layers.
A sour-milk layer cake sweetened entirely with maple sugar, finished with a poured-syrup frosting of the boiled-icing type. Two things decide whether it works: the state of the maple sugar going into the batter, and how far you cook the syrup for the filling.
- Maple sugar, shavedHard cake maple sugar was sold in blocks and had to be shaved fine so it would cream with the butter; granulated maple sugar does the same job and is what you will find now. Weight varies with how coarsely it is shaved -- figure roughly 9-11 oz for the one and one-half cupfuls -- and the half pound for the filling is a little over a cup granulated.
- The filling is the hinge"Cook together until the syrup hardens in water" is the old cold-water test: a drop dripped into cold water should set firm rather than flatten, which puts it around 250-265F on a thermometer. Undercook it and the filling never sets; overcook past about 270F and it turns brittle and grainy on the cake.
- Pouring over the eggAdd the syrup in a thin stream to the beaten egg with the mixer running, or the egg scrambles. If you are uneasy about a frosting built on a whole egg that is heated only by the syrup, use pasteurized eggs; note also that the modern version of this icing generally uses the white alone, which whips lighter and holds better.
- Sour milk and sodaSour milk here means naturally soured raw milk, thick and acidic. Buttermilk is the direct substitute; a cup of whole milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar, left ten minutes, also works. The half teaspoonful of soda is the only leavening, so it must be fresh and lump-free.
- Oven and tinsThe original gives no temperature; 350F is the usual modern equivalent for a cake of this kind. "Layer tins" of the period were shallow rounds, commonly 8 or 9 inches; this quantity should fill two 8-inch pans and take about 20-25 minutes, until the centre springs back.
- No salt, no vanillaThe original lists neither, which is common in recipes of the period, when butter was usually sold salted. A quarter teaspoon of salt in the batter sharpens the maple considerably if your butter is unsalted.
- YieldA two-layer 8-inch cake, eight to ten servings. Spread the filling when it is nearly cold and still spreadable; it stiffens fast once it cools completely.
Maple sugar, not maple syrup, was the usual storable form of the sweetener through much of the nineteenth century in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada: syrup boiled down further, stirred, and cast into cakes or tubs, it could be kept and shipped without spoiling. Cooks bought it in blocks and shaved or grated what they needed, which likely explains why the instruction here specifies "finely shaved" rather than a simple measure. American cookbooks of the period do use maple sugar in cakes and candies, though by 1900 cheap cane sugar had made it as much a regional and thrifty choice as a staple sweetener.