Home › Dainty Dishes › Orange Cake
Orange Cake
One and one-half cupfuls of sugar, beaten with onehalf cupful of butter, three-quarters of a cupful of sweet milk, the whites of five eggs, two tablespoonfuls of baking powder, two and one-quarter cupfuls of flour.
A bare ingredient list in the style of its day, written for a cook who already knew that a butter cake meant creaming, alternating additions and a moderate oven. Two things need attention before you bake: the leavening, and the missing orange.
- The baking powder is out of scaleTwo tablespoonfuls (six teaspoons) to two and a quarter cupfuls of flour is two to three times what a modern cake needs. Period baking powders were weaker and not double-acting, but with today's product the cake will dome, crater and may taste soapy. Use 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons.
- Where is the orangeNothing in the list is orange-flavoured. Cakes of this name were commonly assembled with an orange filling or icing between layers — the grated rind and juice of an orange or two beaten into a boiled or confectioners' icing. Add the grated zest of one orange to the batter as well if you want the flavour to carry.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh unsoured milk, specified to distinguish it from the buttermilk or sour milk used with saleratus. Whole milk, at room temperature so it does not seize the creamed butter.
- Method the list assumesCream butter and sugar, add milk and flour alternately, then fold in the whites beaten stiff last. Sift the baking powder with the flour rather than adding it loose.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction. Bake at a moderate 350F; two 8-inch layers take 25 to 30 minutes, a single loaf or tube pan closer to 45.
- Five yolks left overThe recipe is a white cake by design. The yolks will do for a boiled orange filling or a custard; period cookbooks often print white and gold cake recipes near one another, which at least suggests the leftovers were meant to be used up.
- YieldAbout 10 to 12 slices from two layers.
"Orange cake" in older American cookbooks often meant not an orange-flavoured batter but a plain white butter cake in which the fruit lived in the filling, where its juice and rind could be used raw and fresh — a simple culinary advantage, since raw juice and rind keep their flavour better than baked. The recipe's shorthand is characteristic of the genre: these books were written for cooks who needed the proportions, not the procedure, and a great many turn-of-the-century cake entries give nothing but a list. The heavy hand with baking powder is equally of its period, when commercial powders varied widely in strength between brands.