KB's and Emily's Favorite Spice Cake
NOW THIS IS HOW EMILY WOULD HAVE MADE THE SAME CAKE:
She first checks the temperature by inserting hand into oven, carefully. She learned from her mother how to tell the temperature by the effects of the heat on her hand. The temperature is regulated by opening or closing dampers and the oven door, and by adding coal to the fire. She can also change the position of the cake in the oven, as it will be hotter closer to the fire box.
After making sure the stove is ready, she sets out all the ingredients. She may have to grind or grate the spices. She shaves the chocolate and sets the bowl on the ice in the icebox. She sifts and measures the flour, spices, baking powder and soda. She may sift again after she measures the dry ingredients.
She creams butter and sugar in an earthen bowl using either the back of a fork, or a special tool for creaming butter. She pours the molasses over the butter-sugar mixture. She breaks each egg, individually, into a cup, discarding any bad eggs, and adds the eggs to the butter-sugar mixture. She alternates adding dry ingredients and sour milk to the butter-sugar-egg mixture and beats, not stirs, with a slotted wooden cake spoon. Emily would not have to sour her milk, as I did; she planned to make this cake when she had sour milk to use up. Long beating gives finer texture, shorter beating gives lighter cake. Now she dredges the chocolate with flour and beats it into the mixture. She pours this mixture into two buttered pans, making sure the sides are higher than the center so the top of the cake will be flat. She sets the pans in a moderate (not slow or hot) oven until the top is firm and dry and a straw pulled from the broom comes out clean when inserted into the cake. While the cake bakes, she must tend the stove to make sure the temperature remains constant, and she must check the cake at least four times to make sure the baking proceeds properly. She must be very careful not to slam the oven door or the cake will fall.
She uses more salt than I do because she believes that the body always needs more salt. Her cake will be heavier than mine, but they will both be delicious.
Emily's recipe is adapted from Aunt Caddie's Cake in, The Original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer, Boston, 1896. home