Pound Cake

Why is pound cake called pound cake? Because the traditional recipe for pound cake is very, very simple. This is one such recipe in its entirety.

Pound Cakes
One pound of flour, one of sugar, one of butter, ten eggs.

Simple. A pound each of flour, sugar, butter, and eggs. Yes, a full pound of eggs. Modern pound cake only contains a couple eggs and usually less butter. Wussy.


Here is the recipe I followed, from The Good Housekeeping Woman's Home Cook Book [1909].

Pound Cake as Our Mothers Made It
One pound of flour, one pound of butter, one pound of sugar, ten large eggs and about one-fourth of a nutmeg. Cream the butter and sugar together well (our mothers' rolled and sifted loaf sugar is better, but granulated sugar will answer the purpose), then add the well-beaten yolks of the eggs, and add the flour, a little at a time, beating very thoroughly all the while, lastly add the whites of the eggs which have been beaten to a stiff froth that can be cut with a knife, or that will adhere to the vessel in which it has been beaten, being careful not to beat the cake after the whites have been added, but merely to fold in the puff. Flavor with one-fourth of a grated nutmeg, which should be put in before the whites of eggs. Bake in a very moderate oven for one hour. The only improvement that could be made on this recipe would be to use pastry flour (which was not used in mother's time). The best authorities on cake baking declare that good results cannot be obtained without the use of pastry flour.--Mrs P. L. Sherman, Chicago.


Verdict: Yum. Another example of simple ingredients yielding tasty results. It helps if one of the simple ingredients is butter. I also added a li'l orange blossom water, which was very nice. I actually quartered the recipe, so technically I suppose it is Quarter Pound Cake. Nonetheless.

If you ever find yourself with a desperate need for cake, but with absolutely no access to recipes, this is the cake for you!

For funsies, let us compare this traditional cake recipe to a recipe list of one of Martha Stewart's.

Cardamom Pound Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
3/4 cup almond flour
3/4 cup semolina flour
1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
3 cups granulated sugar
6 large eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup plain yogurt, preferably Greek
1 tablespoon sanding sugar

Yikes. So needlessly fussy! Butter, flour, sugar, eggs. Done. You do not have to live under the tyranny of needless complication!

Gentle readers

There will be no meal this week. We had family visiting, 2/3 of which were kids. I didn't think it would be kind to inflict No. 3 Pot Liquor Soup or whathaveyou on them. Next week I'll be back though! And it will be entertaining.

With gelatin.

Aunt Jenny makes cookies

I'm sure Elmer's mother will be just thrilled to have Aunt Jenny tell her aaaaaaaaaall about her Spry cookies. Elmer's lip curls into a sneer as he reveals to Aunt Jenny Mother's secret shameful sub-standard cookie-making. Why can't Mother be more like Aunt Jenny? Aunt Jenny's grin widens over her glistening, oddly sharp teeth at this news. She will tell Mother. Oh yes. And one more soul will be saved by the power of Spry.

Brown Rim Cookies
A pretty brown edge around each cookie just takes my eye!
1 cup Spry
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
2 1/2 cups sifted flour

Combine Spry, salt, and vanilla. Add sugar, then beaten eggs, and beat thoroughly. . . . Add flour and mix well. . . . Drop from teaspoon on Spry-coated baking sheets. (Or press though pastry bag.) Let stand a few minutes, then flatten cookies by stamping with a glass covered with a damp cloth. . . . Bake in a moderately hot oven (375 degrees F.) 8 to 10 minutes, or until delicately browned. . . . Makes 4 1/2 dozen.


These have got to be like the most boring cookies ever.

Yorkshire Pie-Clates

Remember No. 3 Economical Pot Liquor Soup? This is from the same cookbook, A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes [1852], by Charles Elme Francatelli.

He looks sad. Maybe he's been living on No. 3 Economical Pot Liquor Soup for a while. Anyway, this recipe is a lot better.

Yorkshire Pie-clates [pikelets] for Tea.
Ingredients, one pound of flour, two ounces of grocer's currants, three gills* of milk, and a pinch of baking-powder. Mix the above ingredients together in a pan into a firm, smooth, compact paste. Divide this into eight equal parts, roll each into a ball with the hand previously dipped in flour, then roll them out with a rolling-pin, with a little flour shaken on the table to prevent the paste from sticking, to the size of a tea-saucer, and bake the pie-clates upon a griddle-iron fixed over a clear fire to the upper bar of the grate. In about two or three minutes' time they will be done on the underside; they must then be turned over that they may be also baked on the other side, then taken off the griddle-iron, placed on a plate, and a little butter spread upon each as they are done out of hand.



Revised Yorkshire Pie-Clates [pikelets] for Tea
4 C. flour
1/2 C. currants (or raisins)
1 t. baking powder
15 oz. milk

Mix flour, currants, and baking powder together, then stir in milk until it is a doughy ball. Divide into eight pieces and roll out to... well, the size of a very small plate. Don't get fussy with me, precision is not called for. Cover the bottom of a frying pan with oil and fry on both sides, like a pancake. Rub or spread with butter. Sprinkle with sugar if you like as well, it is tasty.

Verdict:
These are much like Navajo tacos, only with raisins. It was fast, easy, cheap, didn't require very many ingredients, and tasted like fry bread. I call this one a victory. Mr. Francatelli has redeemed himself a little, although the soup wasn't that bad either. I made half a recipe, and we ate all of them right away. I imagine this would be smashing with jam as well.


Moo.


*1 gill = 5 oz.

Savoury Tosted or Melted Cheese

Behold, Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight. He does not hold with Mr. Alcott's views on food, no! About 95% of his recipes are booze or booze-related. But who is this man?

With the waning of Sir Kenelm Digby's philosophic reputation his name has not become obscure. It stands, vaguely perhaps, but permanently, for something versatile and brilliant and romantic. He remains a perpetual type of the hero of romance, the double hero, in the field of action and the realm of the spirit. Had he lived in an earlier age he would now be a mythological personage; and even without the looming exaggeration and glamour of myth he still imposes. The men of to-day seem all of little stature, and less consequence, beside the gigantic creature who made his way with equal address and audacity in courts and councils, laboratories and ladies' bowers.-THE CLOSET OF SIR KENELM DIGBY KNIGHT OPENED [1669, reprinted with foreward in 1910]

Following that is an account of his various dalliances with Spanish and English ladies after he was not allowed to marry his True Love, Venetia, who then became the mistress of a string of men. When he returned, he fought a duel for her honor and married her.

"To read nearly all his Memoirs is to receive the impression that he looked on his wife as a wronged innocent. To read the whole is to feel he knew the truth and took the risk, which was not very great after all; for the lady of the many suitors and several adventures settled down to the mildest domesticity. They say he was jealous; but no one has said she gave him cause. The tale runs that Dorset [her former employer] visited them once a year, and 'only kissed her hand, Sir Kenelm being by.' But Digby was a good lover. All the absurd rhodomontade of his strange Memoirs notwithstanding, there are gleams of rare beauty in the story of his passion, which raise him to the level of the great lovers. His Memoirs were designed to tell "the beginning, progress, and consummation of that excellent love, which only makes me believe that our pilgrimage in this world is not indifferently laid upon all persons for a curse."

"On his tour among Italian courts, one of the grandees said that, 'having no children, he was very willing his wife should bring him a Prince by Sir Kenelme, whom he imagined the just measure of perfection.'"

Oh, Sir Digby! So, other than booze, booze, more booze, and things soaked in booze, what recipes can we find?
SAVOURY TOSTED OR MELTED CHEESE
Cut pieces of quick, fat, rich, well tasted cheese, (as the best of Brye, Cheshire, &c. or sharp thick Cream-Cheese) into a dish of thick beaten melted Butter, that hath served for Sparages or the like, or pease, or other boiled Sallet, or ragout of meat, or gravy of Mutton:

and, if you will, Chop some of the Asparages among it, or slices of Gambon of Bacon, or fresh-collops, or Onions, or Sibboulets, or Anchovis, and set all this to melt upon a Chafing-dish of Coals, and stir all well together, to Incorporate them; and when all is of an equal consistence, strew some gross White-Pepper on it, and eat it with tosts or crusts of White-bread. You may scorch it at the top with a hot Fire-Shovel.



Hello, lover. Purrrrrr


Revised Savoury Tosted or Melted Cheese
I fried up some pieces of bacon, drained off most of the grease, then melted in a half-tablespoon of butter. Then I dropped slices of Monterey Jack in and stirred it around until it was melted.

Verdict:
Bacon grease, crispy bacon, butter, and cheese. Most perfect food ever? Almost, but not quite. The butter didn't melt into the cheese, so too bad there. But other than that... ahhh. Nice. Ron could not finish, he said it was too rich. I generously finished it off. Crispy bacon bits trapped in melted cheese floating in buttery bacon grease. Oh, Sir Kenelm Digby. You naughty thing you.

Cold potato and unfermented wheat cake

I... I can't... why can't I... I... I can't... Why can't I... I... I... ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream.

THE YOUNG-HOUSE-KEEPER, OR THOUGHTS ON FOOD AND COOKERY. BY WM. A. ALCOTT, Author of the Young Husband, Young Wife, Young Woman's Guide, House I Live in, &c. &c. [1846]. All right. Okay. This guy has some pretty good ideas. For instance, one should not consume one's body weight in meat every day, and vegetables and whole grains are good. After that, things get a little... different.

*All food must be eaten at room temperature.

Food should not be of a high temperature. I will not say, indeed, that it should be as cold as ice; but it should be cool...Above 60 or 70°, they are, as a general rule, more or less injurious; and they would probably be better at a much lower temperature still... What, then, must be the effect of hot tea, hot coffee, hot soups, hot bread, &c.

*No condiments. Including salt.
*No oils or fats.
*Only water shall be drunk, and it must not be drunk during your meal.
*Bread must be aged at least 24 hours, preferably a few days to let it dry out, as fresh bread is heating and injurious to the system.
*Only one food item must be eaten in a meal. At most, if you must, you can eat two kinds of things.
*Vast pots of gruel or potatoes must be made every week or two weeks, so as you can eat them without having to wait hours for them to cool down to room temperature.
*No meat
*Only white fruits and vegetables

Let this be a sample:
There is a great variety of forms of cookery, into which Indian meal [cornmeal], notwithstanding its supposed vulgarity, sometimes enters, but I forbear to mention them here. The very name of pancakes or fritters, whether with or without apples or other fruits, and whether with or without oysters, is enough, almost, to give one an attack of dyspepsia; and fried hasty pudding is still worse. There is no special, or at least serious, evil in warming over a mass of cold hasty pudding; but when we add the frying process, it is too much; and if I ever wish for sumptuary laws at all, it is when I think of that parent of a thousand evils, fried hasty pudding.

Parent of a thousand evils. Wow. Okay! Well. I chose to make potatoes and unfermented wheat cake.



Potatoes
To the pure appetite, there is a richness of the potatoe roasted in hot embers, for which we look in vain elsewhere. Perhaps it is owing to the fact, that all its properties are preserved unimpaired; whereas, in boiling, if none of its properties are actually lost, some of them may be impaired...This method is also preferable for those who eat the skins. The latter I do not recommend; but like the skins of apples, as well as many other vegetables, if not too much changed by cookery, and if well masticated, the skins cannot be particularly objectionable...It is commonly said that a potatoe is most agreeable immediately after it is [cooked]; and to those who cannot eat anything which is not hot enough to endanger their mouths, it may be so. But it is more wholesome and scarcely less mealy a short time after boiling, when it has had time to cool a little; and to an unperverted taste and good appetite, quite as agreeable. It is even pleasant and wholesome for twenty-four hours or more after boiling, to those who are accustomed to its use.

Unfermented Cakes
My opinion is, that the best bread in the world is that which is made of recently and coarsely ground wheat meal, mixed with water, and baked in thin cakes, not unlike the unfermented cakes so common in many parts of the east, and so much used by the ancient Israelites. My preference for unleavened bread arises, in part, from the consideration that leaven is a foreign and partially decayed substance, which it were better to avoid unless some essential point is to be gained by its use.

Verdict:

Cold potato: As the recipe is written it is okay, but with the simple addition of butter, overpriced boutique seasoning, salt, and heat, it was great!



Unfermented wheat cake: Whole wheat flour... plus water. Yeah. The absence of leavening and oil made the inside gummy. Much like library paste. In fact, now that I think on it, precisely like library paste. The first bite balled up in my mouth like rubbery mud. I felt sorry for all the pioneers that trekked across the plains that had to live on this stuff.

However, with the simple addition of a solid quarter inch of butter and syrup, it was fine!


I don't know why those pioneers were so whiny.

I will only add a few thoughts on shell fish. How strange it is that people in a civilized community will perpetuate, by their example, such an uncivilized--I was going to say disgusting--practice as that of eating, on all occasions when they can get them, oysters, clams, lobsters, &c. We are disgusted with the Arab and the South Sea Islander for eating locusts and snails; yet, in what respect is eating whole oysters or clams a whit more decent?

Rejected:
This last is the state in which we ought to eat eggs, if we eat them at all. Some suppose they are best raw; but this is going to the other extreme. They should be boiled just long enough to coagulate slightly part of the white.


Next time: The Hyde to William A. Alcott's Jekyll. Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight.

Aunt Jenny's shortening steak

I know how you've missed Aunt Jenny and her love of Spry shortening. She just loves Spry SO MUCH.

Pennywise Steak
You'd never guess this steak is hamburg all dressed up!

1/2 cup fine bread crumbs
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 pounds hamburg
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon onion juice

Combine crumbs and milk. . . . Combine hamburg, salt, pepper, onion juice, and crumb mixture and mix well. . . . Shape meat in form of a steak, pressing firmly together, and spread surfaces with Spry (see picture above). Place steak on rack under broiler. Broil until browned (6 to 10 minutes). Turn and brown on other side. . . . Serves 6.

Yes. I'm sure no one will notice that their steak is really made of hamburger if you shape it like... a comma? With a thick frosting of sweet, creamy Spry shortening! Mmmmmmm.