Real Gold and Real Silver Cakes

From "Dishes and Recipes of the Old South", 1913

Real Gold Cake: Beat very light the yolks of sixteen eggs, with a full pound of yellow sugar, and a scant pound of creamed butter. Add a cup of rich sour cream with a teaspoonful soda dissolved in it. Or if you like better put in the cream solus, and add the soda dissolved in a teaspoonful of boiling water at the very last. This makes lighter cake so is worth the extra trouble. Flavor to taste—grated lemon rind is good. Add gradually four cups flour sifted three times at least. Beat hard for ten minutes, then bake in well-greased pans, lined with buttered paper, until well done, let cool partly in the pans, then turn out, dust lightly with flour or corn starch and frost.

Real Silver Cake: Wash and cream to a froth a pound of fresh butter, work into it a pound of sifted sugar, and a pound of flour, sifted thrice with a teaspoonful of baking powder. Add flavoring—vanilla, lemon or rose water, following it with a wineglass of whiskey. Then fold in the whites of sixteen eggs beaten with a pinch of salt to the stiffest possible froth. If the batter looks too thick add half a cup sweet cream—this will depend on the size of the eggs and the dryness of the flour. Bake in deep pans, else in layers. By baking gold and silver batter in layers, and alternating them you can have a fine marble cake. Or by coloring half the white batter pink with vegetable color to be had from any confectioner, you can have rose-marble cake. This should be iced with pink frosting else with plain white, then dotted over with pink. Very decorative for birthday parties or afternoon teas.

General Advice on Baking Cakes

The following advice to bakers from "Dishes and Beverages of the Old South", 1913, is still relevant today. Enjoy!

Here are a few cardinal helps. Have the eggs very cold, butter soft but not oily, flour dry and light—sun or oven-dry it in muggy weather. Sift it three times for ordinary cakes, twice for tea cakes, and so on, four to five times for very light things, sponge cake, angel's food, and measure it before sifting, and don't forget the needed amount—then you will be in no danger of putting in too much or too little. Always put a pinch of fine salt in the bottom of the mixing bowl, which ought to be freshly scalded and wiped very dry. A damp bowl clogs with either sugar or flour, making the stirring much harder. Unless specifically directed otherwise, separate the eggs, set the whites on ice till time to whip them, beat the yolks very, very light—to a pale, frothy yellow, add the sugar, free of lumps, a cupful at a time, then the butter washed and beaten to a creamy froth, beat hard together for five minutes, then add alternately the flour and the egg-whites beaten to the stiffest possible froth. Add a pinch of salt as beating begins, and if the egg supply is scant, a teaspoonful of cold water to each white. This will increase the quantity, and help to make the cake lighter, as it is the air-bubbles imprisoned in the froth which give it its raising virtue. Add fruit and flavoring last thing. Fruit should be well floured but never clotted. If batter appears to be too stiff a little whiskey thins it excellently, and helps to make it lighter. Put in two tablespoonfuls to six eggs, using more in proportion. Rose water or a liqueur have the same effect but give their own flavor—which whiskey does not.

If strong butter needs must be used, it can be mitigated to a degree, by washing and kneading well in cold water barely dashed with chloride of lime solution, then rinsing well in cold water, and afterward in sweet milk. The milk may be half water. Rinse it out clean. Let the butter soften well before undertaking to cream it. A stout, blunt wooden spoon is the best for creaming, along with a deep bowl very narrow at the bottom. Grease deep cake tins plentifully, with either lard or butter—using only the best. For heavy cakes such as fruit, spice and marble cake, line them with double thicknesses of buttered paper and either set shallow pans of water in the oven while baking or stand the pans themselves in other pans with a quarter inch of water in the bottoms. If cakes brown too fast, open the oven door, a trifle, and lay over the pan a thick, well buttered paper until the oven cools. Never jar the oven while cake is baking in it—neither by banging the doors, nor dumping heavy vessels on top of it. Beware likewise slamming kitchen doors, or bumping things about in the room. Fine cake demands as many virtues of omission as of commission. Indeed the don'ts are as essential as the doings.

Spice Cake

Cream a coffee cup of well washed butter, with two cups yellow sugar and one cup black molasses. Add to it one after the other, seven egg-yolks, beating hard between. When all are in, add one tablespoonful whiskey, or brandy, one teaspoonful grated chocolate, teaspoonful each of powdered cloves, allspice, ginger, mace, and cinnamon, a grated nutmeg, and half a saltspoonful of powdered black pepper. Add also a pinch of salt, and the barest dusting of paprika. If whiskey is for any reason disapproved, use strong, clear coffee instead, putting in two spoonfuls, and leaving out the chocolate. Beat all together hard for ten minutes, then add four scant cups flour browned in the oven but not burned. Sift after browning, adding to it two teaspoonfuls baking powder. Beat hard five minutes after the flour is all in, then pour in a deep, well greased pan, lined with buttered paper, let rise ten minutes with the oven door open, then bake in quick heat until done through.

From "Dishes and Beverages of the Old South", by Martha McCulloch Williams, 1913

Cake Recipes: Aunt Polly's Pound Cake

Take ten fresh eggs, their weight in fresh butter, white sugar, and thrice sifted flour. Separate the eggs, beat yolks to a cream-yellow, add the sugar, cupful at a time, beat hard, then the butter creamed to a froth, then half the flour, then two wineglasses of whiskey or brandy or good sherry or rose water, beat hard five minutes, then add the rest of the flour, taking care not to pack it in the handling. Beat fifteen minutes longer, then fold in with long strokes, the egg-whites beaten with a good pinch of salt until they stick to the dish. Barely mix them through the batter, then pour it into deep pans, or ovens, lined with double greased papers. The vessels also must be well buttered. Bake with quick heat, letting the cake rise well before browning. Slack heat when it is a very light brown, and cook until a straw thrust to the bottom comes out clean. Turn out upon a thick, folded cloth, cover with another thinner cloth, and let cool.

Frost when cool, either with the boiled frosting directed for cheesecakes or with plain frosting made thus. Beat three egg-whites well chilled to the stiffest possible froth with a pinch of salt, and a very little cold water. Add to them gradually when thus beaten a pound of sugar sifted with a teaspoonful of cream of tartar. Mix very smooth, and apply with a broad-bladed knife, dipping it now and then in cold water to keep the frosting smooth. It should dry a quarter-inch thick and be delicious eating. Frosted cake keeps fresh three times as long as that left naked.

Baltimore Cake

For this cake use one cupful butter, two cupfuls sugar, three and one-half cupfuls flour, one cupful sweet milk, two teaspoonfuls baking powder, the whites of six eggs and a teaspoonful of rose water. Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually, beating steadily, then the milk and flavoring, next the flour sifted with the baking powder, and lastly the stiffly beaten whites folded in at the last. Bake in three layer cake tins in an oven hotter than for loaf cake.

While baking prepare the filling. Dissolve three cupfuls sugar in one cupful boiling water, and cook until it spins a thread. Pour over the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs, stirring constantly. Add to this icing one cupful chopped raisins, one cupful chopped nut meats, preferably pecans or walnuts, and a half dozen figs cut in fine strips. Use this for filling and also ice the top and sides with it.

Miss Parola's Chocolate Layer Cake

Beat half a cupful of butter to a cream, and gradually beat into it one cupful of sugar. When this is light, beat in half a cupful of milk, a little at a time, and one teaspoonful of vanilla. Beat the whites of six eggs to a stiff froth. Mix half a teaspoonful of baking powder with two scant cupfuls of sifted flour. Stir the flour and whites of eggs alternately into the mixture. Have three deep tin plates well buttered, and spread two-thirds of the batter in two of them.

Into the remaining batter stir one ounce of chocolate, melted, and spread this batter in the third plate. Bake the cakes in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes. Put a layer of white cake on a large plate, and spread with white icing. Put the dark cake on this, and also spread with white icing. On this put the third cake. Spread with chocolate icing.

TO MAKE THE ICING. Put into a granite-ware saucepan two gills of sugar and one of water, and boil gently until bubbles begin to come from the bottom—say, about five minutes. Take from the fire instantly. Do not stir or shake the sugar while it is cooking. Pour the hot syrup in a thin stream into the whites of two eggs that have been beaten to a stiff froth, beating the mixture all the time. Continue to beat until the icing is thick. Flavor with one teaspoonful of vanilla. Use two-thirds of this as a white icing, and to the remaining third add one ounce of melted chocolate. To melt the chocolate, shave it fine and put in a cup, which is then to be placed in a pan of boiling water.

Cake Recipes: Spice Layer Cake

* 2 cups light brown sugar
* ½ cup shortening
* 2 eggs
* ¾ cup milk
* 3 tsp. baking powder
* 1 cup chopped raisins
* 2¼ cups flour
* 1 tsp. cinnamon
* ½ tsp. cloves
* ½ tsp. nutmeg
* ½ tsp. salt

Cream sugar and shortening and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until light. Sift the flour, add salt, spices, baking powder, then sift again. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture alternately with the milk. Beat thoroughly and add the floured raisins. Pour into 2 greased layer cake pans. Bake in moderate oven (350-f) for 25 or 30 minutes. For the icing use:

* 2 cups sugar
* ¾ cup milk
* 2 tblsp. butter

Cream together and boil until it forms a soft ball when dropped in water. Add vanilla and beat until cold. Spread between layers, over top and sides.

This recipe is from "Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking"