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Walnut Cake
One pound of sugar, one pound of flour, one-half pound of butter, six eggs, one coffee cupful of milk, one teaspoonful soda dissolved in milk, two teaspoonfuls of cream tartar in the flour, one pint bowl of walnut meats, the same of raisins, one-half coffee cup of brandy. Stir butter and sugar together to a cream, then add yolks, milk, then two-thirds of the flour, whites, remainder of flour, walnuts, raisins and brandy alternately, mix well together.
A pound-cake-scale batter with nuts, raisins and brandy, written for a cook who already knew how to bake a large cake. The original gives no pan, no temperature and no time, so those are the first things to settle.
- Pan and ovenThis is close to five pounds of batter. Divide it between two 9-inch loaf pans or bake it in a 10-inch tube pan, greased and lined, at 325F. Loaves take about 1 hour 15 minutes, a tube pan closer to 1 hour 45 minutes; test with a skewer in the deepest part.
- Weights, not cupsA pound of sugar is about 2 1/4 cups granulated; a pound of flour is about 3 1/2 to 4 cups of modern all-purpose. Weigh both if you can, since the ratio of flour to a half pound (2 sticks) of butter is what keeps this cake from being greasy or dry.
- Coffee cupA coffee cupful in books of this period runs from about 3/4 cup to a full cup. Use 1 cup of milk and 1/2 cup of brandy, and expect a thick batter that drops rather than pours.
- Soda and cream of tartarThis is homemade baking powder: the acid is dissolved in the flour, the alkali in the milk, and they meet in the bowl. It works, but it starts reacting immediately, so get the cake into the oven as soon as it is mixed. About 4 teaspoons of modern double-acting baking powder in the flour gives comparable lift with more margin for delay.
- A pint bowl of nuts and fruitA pint of shelled walnut halves is roughly 6 to 7 ounces; a pint of raisins is closer to 10 or 11 ounces. Chop the walnuts coarsely and toss the raisins with a spoonful of the measured flour so they do not sink.
- The whitesBeat the egg whites to soft peaks and fold them in where directed, alternating with the last of the flour. Along with the creamed butter and sugar, this is the batter's mechanical lightening; beating the whites stiff and dry, or stirring them in hard, gives a heavy crumb.
- Brandy lastAdded at the end with the fruit, the brandy thins the batter slightly and carries flavor rather than raising the cake. Most of the alcohol bakes off over an hour and a half; the cake keeps well wrapped for a week and improves after a day.
- YieldTwo generous loaves, or one large tube cake serving 16 to 20 in thin slices. It is rich enough that thin slices are the intention.
Walnut cake sits at the point where the American fruit cake tradition met cheap chemical leavening. The soda-and-cream-of-tartar pairing here is the older home method of making baking powder in the bowl, still printed in turn-of-the-century books long after packaged powders were on grocery shelves. The nuts may in some American kitchens of the period have been black walnuts, gathered rather than bought, and stronger in flavor than the English walnuts sold today. In any case a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, six eggs and a half cup of brandy was an expensive cake, made for holidays and callers, and cut thin.