According to the food historians, the precursors of modern cakes (round ones with icing) were first baked in Europe sometime in the mid-17th century. This is due to primarily to advances in technology (more reliable ovens, manufacture/availability of food molds) and ingredient availability (refined sugar). At that time cake hoops--round molds for shaping cakes that were placed on flat baking trays--were popular. They could be made of metal, wood or paper. Some were adjustable. Cake pans were sometimes used. The first icing were usually a boiled composition of the finest available sugar, egg whites and [sometimes] flavorings. This icing was poured on the cake. The cake was then returned to the oven for a while. When removed the icing cooled quickly to form a hard, glossy [ice-like] covering. Many cakes made at this time still contained dried fruits (raisins, currants, citrons).
It was not until the middle of the 19th century that cake as we know it today (made with extra refined white flour and baking powder instead of yeast) arrived on the scene. A brief history of baking powder. The Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book [London, 1894] contains a recipe for layer cake, American (p. 1031). Butter-cream frostings (using butter, cream, confectioners [powdered] sugar and flavorings) began replacing traditional boiled icings in first few decades 20th century. In France, Antonin Careme [1784-1833] is considered THE premier historic chef of the modern pastry/cake world. You will find references to him in French culinary history books.
Cake recipes, Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cook Book [1918]
What is the difference between cake, gateau and torte?
Gateaux is a French word for cake. It generally denotes items made with delicate ingredients which are best consumed soon after the confection is made (gateaux des roi). Cakes can last much longer, some even improving with age (fruit cake). Torte is the German word for cake, with similar properties. When tortes are multilayerd and fancifully decorated they are closer to gateaux EXCEPT for the fact they can last quite nicely for several days.
Cake & gateau: definitions & examples
"Cakes and gateaux. Although both terms can be used for savoury preparations (meat cakes or vegetable gateaux) their main use is for sweet baked goods. Cakes can be large or small, plain of fancy, light or rich. Gateau is generally used for fancy, but light or rich, often with fresh decoration, such as fresh fruit or whipped cream. Whereas a cake may remain fresh for several days after baking or even improve with keeping, a gateau usually includes fresh decoration or ingredients that do not keep well, such as fresh fruit or whipped cream. In France, the word 'gateau' designates various patisserie items based on puff pastry, shortcrust pastry (basic pie dough), sweet pastry, pate saglee, choux pastry, Genoese and whisked sponges and meringue...The word 'gateau' is derived from the Old French wastel, meaning 'food'. The first gateau were simply flat round cakes made with flour and water, but over the centuries these were enriched with honey, eggs, spices, butter, cream and milk. From the very earliest items, a large number of French provinces have produced cakes for which they are noted. Thus Artois had gateau razis, and Bournonnais the ancient tartes de fromage broye, de creme et de moyeau d'oeulz. Hearth cakes are still made in Normady, Picardy, Poitou and in some provinces in the south of France. They are variously called fouaces, fouaches, fouees or fouyasses, according to the district...Among the many pastries which were in high favor from the 12th to the 15th centuries in Paris and other cities were: echaudes, of which two variants, the falgeols and the gobets, were especially prized by the people of Paris; and darioles, small tartlets covered with narrow strips of pastry...Casse-museau is a hard dry pastry still made today'...petits choux and gateaux feuilletes are mentioned in a charter by Robert, Bishop of Amiens in 1311."
---Larousse Gastronomique, completely revised and updated [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 198-199)
"Cake. The original dividing line between cake and bread was fairly thin: Roman times eggs and buter were often added to basic bread dough to give a consistency we would recognize as cakelike, and this was frequently sweetened with honey. Terminologically, too, the earliest English cakes were virtually bread, their main distinguishing characteristics being their shape--round and flat--and the fact that they were hard on both sides from being turned over during baking...in England the shape and contents of cakes were graudally converging toward our present understanding of the term. In medieval and Elizabethan times they were usually quite small...Cake is a Viking contribution to the English language; it was borrowed from Old Norse kaka, which is related to a range of Germanic words, including modern English cook." ---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 52)
"Gateau. English borrowed gateau from French in the mid-nineteenth century, and at first used it fairly indiscriminately for any sort of cake, pudding, or cake-like pie...Since the Second World War, however, usage of the term has honed in on an elaborate 'cream cake': the cake element, generally a fairly unremarkable sponge, is in most cases simply an excuse for lavish layers of cream, and baroque cream and fruit ornamentation...The word gateau is the modern French descendant of Old French guastel, 'fine bread'; which is probably of Germanic origin. In its northeastern Old French dialect from wasel it as borrowed into English in the thirteenth century, where it survived until the seventeenth century." ---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 138)
"The word 'gateau' crossed the Channel to England in the early 19th century...In Victorian England cookery writers used 'gateau' initially to denote puddings such as rice baked in a mould, and moulded baked dishes of fish or meat; during the second part of the century it was also applied to highly decorated layer cakes. Judging by the amount of space given to directions for making these in bakers' manuals of the time, they were tremendously popular...Most were probably rather sickly, made from cheap sponge filled with 'buttercream'...and coated with fondant icing. Elaborate piped decoration was added. Many fanciful shapes were made...The primary meaning of the word 'gateau' is now a rich and elaborate cake filled with whipped cream and fruit, nuts, or chocolate. French gateau are richer than the products of British bakers. They involve thin layers of sponge, usually genoise, or meringe; some are based on choux pastry. Fruit or flavoured creams are used as fillings. The later are rarely dairy cream; instead creme patissiere (confectioner's custard--milk, sugar, egg yolks, and a little flour) or creme au buerre (a rich concoction of egg yolks creamed with sugar syrup and softened butter) are used. Gateau has wider applications in French, just as 'cake' does in English...it can mean a savoury cake, a sweet or savoury tart, or a thin pancake." ---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 332)
Related foods? Choux/ puff paste, sponge, French cremes, Gateau St. Honore, Gateau des roi
Why are cakes round?
Excellent question! Food historians offer several theories. Each depends upon period, culture and cuisine. Generally, the round cakes we know today descended from ancient bread. Ancient breads and cakes were made by hand. They were typically fashioned into round balls and baked on hearthstones or in low, shallow pans. These products naturally relaxed into rounded shapes. By the 17th century, cake hoops (fashioned from metal or wood) were placed on flat pans to effect the shape. As time progressed, baking pans in various shapes and sizes, became readily available to the general public. Moulded cakes (and fancy ices) reached their zenith in Victorian times.
"For the cakes of the seventeenth century onwards tin or iron hoops were increasingly used and are mentioned with great frequency in the cookery books. These hoops were similar to our modern flan rings but much deeper...The hoop was placed on an iron or tin sheet, and a layer or two of paper, floured, was put at the bottom. The sides of the hoop were buttered, These or similar directions offer over and over again in E. Smith's The Compleat Housewife, first published in 1727, which gives recipes for forty cakes, the large ones nearly all being yeast-leavened. In her preface this author says that her book was the fruit of upwards of thirty years' expereince, so her recipes and methods must often date well back into the previous century, for quite often the reader is directed to bake the cake in a 'paper hoop'--and paper was a feature of the kitchens of those days. Wooden hoops were also fairly common. Some cooks, the seventeenth-century Sir Kenelm Digby among others, evidently preferred them to tin, perhaps because they didn't rust, and so were easier to store. Probably they would have been rather like the frames of our present-day drum sieves. Writing a century after Digby, Elizabeth Raffald calls them 'garths' and advises her readers that for large cakes they are better than 'pot or tin', in which the cakes, so Mrs. Raffald found, were liable to burn more easily. Alternatively, spice cakes were baked like bread, without moulds."
---English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David [Penguin:Middlesex] 1979 (p. 212)
Symbolism of round cakes
Ancient breads and cakes were sometimes used in religious ceremonies. These were purposely fashioned into specific shapes, according to the observance. Round shapes generally symbolize the cyclical nature of life. Most specifically, the sun and moon.
"People have consumed cakes of all kinds throughout history and at all sorts of ceremonial occasions. In today's world, people traditionally serve cakes at holidays, birthdays, weddings, funerals, and baptisms--in short, at all significant times in the cycle of life. The tradition of eating cake on ceremonial occaisions has its basis in ancient ritual. Cakes, in the ancient world, had ties with the annual cycle, and people used them as offerings to the gods and spirits who exercised their powers at particular times of the year...The Chinese made cakes at harvest time to honor their moon goddess, Heng O. They recognized that the moon played a crucial role in the seasonal cycle, so they made round cakes shaped like the moon to reward the lunar goddess, with an image of the illustrious Heng O stamped on top... "The Russians traditionally pay their respects in spring to a deity named Maslenitsa by making blini, thin pancakes they call sun cakes...The pagan Slavs were not the only people to make round cakes to celebrate the spring sun. The ancient Celts, who celebrated Beltane on the first day of spring, baked and ate Beltane cakes as a important part of their celebration...At the Beltane festival, the ancient Celts also rolled the cakes down a hill to imitate solar movement. Rolling the cakes, they hoped, would ensure the continued motion of the sun. This activity also served as a form of divination: If the cake broke when it reached the bottom of the hill, the Celts believed that whoever rolled it would die within a year's time; but if the cake remained intact, they believed that person would reap a year's good fortune...Agricultural peoples around the globe made offerings of cakes prepared from the grains and fruits that arose from the soil. The types of ingredients used to make these cakes contributed to their symbolism...The cake's size and shape were equally symbolic of its ritual purpose...round cakes symbolized the sun or the moon...All of these cakes had definative links to the myths the people embraced."
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 52-54)
Ring-shaped cakes, such as Twelfth Night cakes (aka King Cakes), are also full of history and symbolism.
Recommended reading
- Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Solomon H. Katz editor, William Woys Weaver, associate editor
- "Cake and pancakes," (p. 288+)
- English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David
- "Regional and Festival Yeast Cakes and Fruit bread," (p. 424-472)
- The History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat (p. 223-246)
- "History of bread and cakes," includes baking methods, symbolism, and special cakes (holidays/religion/ethnic cuisine).
- Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews (p.52-54)
- The history of cake as religious offering
- The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson (p. 122-124)
- Short history from ancient times to the present. Separate entries for specific kinds of cakes (chiffon, devil's food, fruitcake, gingerbread etc.) are most helpful.
What Pillsbury/Betty Crocker hoped to achieve after World War II initally backfired because home cooks felt compelled/obligated to return to the way things were. Like mom used to cook. They say good salesmen don't take "no" for an answer. America's largest food concerns obviously hired these men. Despite the fact that early mixes often produced less than satisfactory results and invoke a complicated set of psycho-social baggage, they prevailed. Eventually mixes were accepted. Today? Most people who make cakes for people they love regularly employ mixes (universally perceived as home-made, as in "made in the home") instead of buying a premade "cake in the box." The real "scratch cake" is very nearly lost.
"The very marketable premise behind cake mixes was, and still is, the ability to have a fresh, "home-made" cake with very little time and effort. Though Betty Crocker--like her competitors--promised that cake mixes offered freshness, ease, and flavor in a box, the market was slow to mature. Puzzled, marketers reiterated the message that homemakers need only drop this scientific marvel into a bowl, add water, mix, and bake. But that was still a little too good to be true for Mrs. Comsumer America. Certainly, cake mixes sold, but--compared with the early performance of Bisquick or Aunt Jemima pancake mix--not up to industry expecations. The "quick mix"...industry, eager to correct the shortfall, conducted research even as the development of new mixes continued. General Mills considered the market research of the business psychologists Dr. Burleigh Gardner and Dr. Ernest Dichter to explain the mediocre sales of cake mixes. The problem, according to the psychologists, was eggs. Dichter, in particular, believed that powdered eggs, often used in cake mixes, should be left out, so women could add a few fresh eggs into the batter, giving them a sense of creative contribution. He believed...that baking a cake was an act of love on the woman's part; a cake mix that only needed water cheapened that love. Whether the psychologists were right, or whether cakes made with fresh eggs simply taste better than cakes made with dried eggs, General Mills decided to play up the fact that Betty Crocker's cake mixes did not contain...dried eggs of any kind...Before long, cake mix started to gain some acceptance and notoriety; even Mamie Eisenhower instructed her cooking staff to use this novel invention at the White House."
---Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food, Susan Marks [Simon & Schuster:New York] 2005 (p. 168, 170)
What did Consumer Reports think of these early mixes?
[1944]
"Three types of cake mixes were found by CU's shoppers: two brands of devil's food, two lemon-flavored yellow cakes and a spice cake. All four included vegetable shortening, sugar, powdered egg, powdered skim milk, salt, baking powder (or soda and phosphate) and flavoring in their ingredients. The devil's food types added cocoa, and the spice cake, various spices and cocoa. Helen's Red-E Devil Food Mix, which received the highest rating, was made with enriched wheat flour and oat flour. The Spiced Cake Mix of the same brand, considered fairy good, contained some soya flour. The cake mixes were tested for rising quality, color of crust and crumb, grain, texture, flavor and aroma. The last three, considered together as a palatability,were the chief factors in the ratings."
Cake Mixes Acceptable (In estimated order of quality)
Helen's Red-E Devil Food Mix (Gann Prod. Co.). 30 cents for 16 oz. (30 cents). Enriched wheat flour and oat flour. Excellent flavor. Available in California, Oregon and Nevada.
X-Pert Devil's Food Mix (Modern Foods, Inc.). 18 cents for 14 1/4 oz. (19.9 cents). Excellent flvor. Grain rather coarse, but probably normal for this type of cake. Available East of the Mississippi.
Joy Golden Layer Cake (Cramer Products Co., NYC). 20 cents for 14 oz. (33.1 cetns). Very good flavor, slightly lemon. Available nationally.
---"Baking Mixes," Consumer Reports, July 1944 (p. 179-180)
[1948]
"Delectable-looking cakes, biscuits, muffins, rolls, pies and other baked goods peer forth these days, not only from the baker's showcase, but from the paper labels on the grocer's shelves. They are "come on's" for the prepared flour mixes now appearing in ever greater numbers and variety. When CU's shoppers throughout the nation had bought all of the types and brands of mixes containing flour (except pancake mixes) which they found on the market, they had 76--more than three times as many as were available in 1944 when CU last tested these products. How good are they? The value of any mix to a housewife is based on the quality of the finished product--how good it is to eat--plus ease and conveninece of preparation, and cost. CU consultants subjected all products to actual baking tests, following the directions given on the packages. The scores for cake, gingerbread, biscuit, muffin and hot roll mixes were based on flavor, volume or the amount of rise, texture, or tenderness of crumb to feel and taste, aroma while warm from baking, grain or physical structure of the crumb and color of crust and crumb...CU found some mixes that were good, many that were satisfactory, and only two that were "Not Acceptable." Many brands were neither consistently good nor consistently poor...The preparation of mostt of these mixes calls for the addition only of water or milk, and they can be stirred up so simply that, if directions are followed, there is little danger of their being spoiled. The time required is negligible compared to that for mixing a cake from the basic ingredients. They are particularly useful for emergencies, for yougnsters just trying their culinary wings, or for the gang of teen-agers who what to take over the kitchen for an evening. Cost varied considerably among different brands of the same type of mix, and while in some cases it was greater than the comparable homemade product, in many cases, it was not more, or even less.
---"Flour Mixes: Almost all are "Acceptable," but some taste better and cost less than others," Consumer Reports, August 1948 (p. 355-7)
[1951]
"CU's consultants tested 20 bands of prepared cake mix--gingerbread, white cake, and devil's food. In the opinion of the home economists who sampled them for taste and other qualities, none were as good as "mother used to bake." However, the best of the mixes made cakes nearly as good as those obtained with standard recipes. While they fall short of the best products of the baker's art, ready mixes do have a number of advantages which may decide you to keep them on your pantry shelf. They are time savers. In CU's tests the time saved by making a cake from prepared mix rather than a recipe, was about 15 minutes. Counting wash-up and put-away time of utensils, the mixes have an even greater edge. They are work savers. Use of a prepared mix eliminates many of the steps necesary with standard recipes, such as the sifting of flour and the measuring of ingredients. Only one bowl is required. However, too little or too much mixing, or incorrect oven temperature, may still result in an unsuccessful cake. They are economical. The average cost of a two-layer devil's food cake (eight-inch layers) made from a ready mix was 38c, including the cost of milk and eggs when their addition was required. This was appreciably less than the cost of a standard recipe devil's food cake, which was 47c at the time of the tests in late January 1951. On the white cake and ginger cake, however, the saving was less--only 2c in each case, on the average. Convenience, more than price, favors the use of the prepared mix. With ready mixes, you ares saved the necessity of storing ingredients used only occasionally...or remembering to buy ingredients not normally used...In many cakes, you do not even have to have milk or eggs on hand to bake a cake. Ten of the 20 mixes tested--all of the ginger cakes and several of the others--required the addition of water only. Occident Devils Food Cake Mix required the addition of one egg; Betty Crocker Devil's Food Cake Mix and white cake, each required the addition of two eggs...Mixing directions are given for both hand beating and for the use of an electric mixer in most cases. A few brands even carry directions for use in high altitude regions. Swans Down, and some others, provide a "special formula" mix for high altitude baking. Packaging also carry instructions for making cookies, cup cakes, or glamorized versions of the basic cake for which the mix was intended. It is apparent that there are good reasons for the growing popularity of the mixes. However, if you have the skill to bake a really fine cake, and your taste or the occasion demands the best, you should follow your own prized recipe."
---"Cake Mixes: CU Tested 20 Brands of Prepared Cake Mixes and Foundy Many Good Ones," Consumer Reports, June 1951(p. 261-2)
[1953]
"Not so very long ago, the housewife who went to the bakery store to get her family's dessert, instead of producing it from her own oven, was looked at askance by her more industrious neighbors. Today there seems to be at least a fair prospect that the situation will be reversed. For the grocery store shelves are replete with ready-mix-cake packages in great variety, and the description of their preparation sounds so simple as to make a trip to the bakery store, by comparison, a major chore. In an attempt to answer the question of whether or not the ready-mix cakes are indeed as easy to prepare as package instructions indicate, and whether the end products are of such quality as to justify their use, CU surved the field of prepared mixes for white cake, yellow cake, devil's food cake, and gingergread. Eight brands of devil's food mix, seven brands of white and of yellow cake mix, and three brands of gingerbread were tested. Four samples of each mix were stirred up and baked, two operators preparing two samples of each. These were submitted, without band identification, independently to each of three judges, along with a piece of cake of similar character made from home-mixed batter. Judgement was passed on each piece about two hours after its removal from the oven, and again (to determine keeping qualities) a day later. The judges, who are trained home economists, used a score system to rate flavor, texture, appearance, grain, color, and shape of the cakes; in addition, they expressed an overall opinion of each cake's quality. There was suprisingly little disagreement, among the individual judges, as to the visible characteristics of the various products, but in flavor preference they often did not agree, which is hardly surprising. However, in the extremes of taste-- cakes rated either oudstandingly good or very poor--there was little dispute among them. In terms of general quality, many of the the cakes made from the packaged mixes competed successfully against the home-made cakes, which were carefully prepared form well- tested recipes. (The recipes were for cakes of average richness in the selected types. This is not to say that your own favorite recipe won't produce a cake finer than any mix on the market!). Most of the ready-mix cakes were a pleasing in shape, volume, and general appearance as the home-made cakes, and mnay had very good texture and fine grain-structure, too. It was in flavor that the home-made cakes outranked most--but not all--of the mixes. As for the preparation of the mix-made cakes, it's almost as simple as the advertisiments claim. For most of the mixes, the housewife need only add a measured amount (usually a cupful, more or less) of milk or water to the solid ingredients in the box, stir the two together, pour the mixture into greased pans, and bake in a preheated oven. For a few, an egg or two, or some flavoring, is required in addition. Only one brand, Betty Crocker, received a Good rating in all four of the varieties tested...None of the others were consistently superior, though there were individual cake types of other brands which were at least equal of Betty Crocker."
---"Cake Mixes: CU's consultants tasted and examined ready-mix cakes to find which brands were best," Consumer Reports, September 1953 (p. 385-7)
"Angel CakePrior to the this time, recipes for cakes similar to angel food [calling only for egg whites] were known by different names:
One cup of flour, measured after one sifting, and then mixed with one teaspoonful of cream of tartar and sifted four times. Beat the whites of eleven eggs, with a wire beater or perforated spoon, until stiff and flaky. Add one cup and a half of the fine granulated sugar, and beat again; add one teaspoonful of vanilla or almond, then mix in the flour quickly and lightly. Line the bottom and funnel of a cake pan with paper not greased, pour in the mixture, and bake about forty minutes. When done, loosen the cake around the edge, and turn out at once. Some persons have been more successful with this cake by mixing the sugar with the flour and cream of tartar, and adding all at aonce to the beaten egg."
---The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, Mrs. D. A. Lincoln [1884] (p. 374)
"Silver cake
The whites of one dozen eggs beaten very light, one pound of butter, one pound of powdered sugar; rub the butter and sugar together until creamed very light, then add the beaten whites of the eggs, and beat all together until very light; two teaspoonfuls of the best yeast powder sifted with one pound of flour, then add the flour to the eggs, sugar and butter, also add one-half teacupful of sweet milk; mix quickly, and beat till very light; flavor with two teaspoonfuls of the extract of almond or peach, put in when you beat the cake the last time. Put to bake in any shape pan you like, but grease the pan well before you put the cake batter in it. Have the stove moderately hot, so as the cake will bake gradually, and arrange the damper of stove so as send heat to the bottom of the cake first. This instruction of baking applies to all cakes except tea cakes."
---What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking, [1881] (p. 28-9)
NOTE: Mrs. Fisher was the first American ex-slave to author a cookbook
"Devil's Food, though a new cake in our household, had made its dashing appearance in Chicago in the middle eighties, and by the time it reached our quiet little community, was quite the rage. Maud's receipt was the original one, and made a large, dark, rich cake. Here it is:
Chocolate Cake, No. 3
One and a half cups of sugar, half cup of butter, three-quarters cup of milk, three eggs and yolk of another, two cups of flour, two teaspoons baking powder, one full cup of Baker's chocolate. Break up the chocolate and put in a cup over the tea kettle until it melts. This will make four layers, and use the following recipe for boiled icing between the layers.
The earliest recipe we have for Devil's Food printed in an American cookbook is dated 1902:
"Devil's Food
1/2 cup of milk
4 ounces of chocolate
1/2 cup butter
3 cups pastry flour
1 1/2 cups of sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder
[1946]
Red Devil's Food
Generally popular--but not with me, which is not to be taken as a criterion.
Measure:
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
Resift with:
1 1/2 teaspoon tartrate phosphate baking powder or 1 teaspoon combination type
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
Cream until light and fluffy:
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup sugar
Add one at a time and beat well:
2 eggs
Melt: 2 ounces chocoloate in 1/2 cup boiling water
Cool slightly, then stir these ingredients into the egg mixture. Add the dry ingredients in about three parts alternately with:
1/2 cup sour milk
Add: 1 teaspoon vanilla
Stir the batter after each addition until it is well blended. Bake it in two greased 9 inch layer pans in a moderate oven 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. Spread the cake with Seven Minute Morocco Icing."
---Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer [Bobbs-Merrill:Indianapolis] 1946 (p. 542)
Of course? There's always chocolate angel food! (Joy of Cooking [1931] p. 234)
Baba
[1828] Ude's recipe
"Baba.
Dilute this paste the same as the brioche. Take eight grains of saffron, which infuse in a little water, and then pour out this water into the paste; add two glasses of Madeira, some currants, raisins, and a little sugar; then make the cakes as you do the brioches. You must butter the mould when you put them in; the oven must be moderately hot, as the babas must remain a long time in; after one hour you must look at them, and preserve the colour by putting some paper over them."
---The French Cook, Louis Eustache Ude, photoreprint of the 1828 ed. published by Carey, Lea and Carey, Philadelphia, [Arco Publishing:New York] 1978 (p. 406)
What is the relationship between baba and savarin?
"Savarin...is essentially an enriched yeast dough baked in a ring mould. A syrup with kirsch or rum is used to soak it whe cool, and the central hole may be filled with fruit or cream. There is also a solid, holeless form, mazarin, which is split and filled with cream. The savarin derived from the E. European baba, as naturalized in Alsace in the 18th century. What happened was that in the mid-or late 1840s one of the brothers Julien, Parisian patissiers, experimented with the baba in a slightly different form. He used the same dough, but removed the dried fruits and soaked the savarin in his own 'secret' syrup. He named his new confection in honour of the famous gastronomic writer Brillat-Savarin, although the name for it does not seem to have been recorded until the 1860s."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 697)
Who was http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/brillat/savarin/b85p/part1.html"> Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin and what did he write?
[1869]
"Savarin.
Put 1 lb of sifted flour in basin;
Make a hole in the middle, and put in 1/2 oz. of German yeast, and 1/4 gill of warm milk; mix it with the flour immediately surrounding it, about one quarter of the whole quantity, to make the sponge, and stand the basin in a warm place;
When the sponge has risen to twice its original size, add 1 gill of warm milk and 2 eggs; work the contents of the basin with a spoon, and mix in another egg; then add 3/4 lb. of worked butter, 14 oz. salt, 1/2 oz. of sugar, and 1/2 gill more warm milk; continue working with a spoon, and adding one egg at a time, until 5 eggs have been used;
Cut 2 oz. of candied orange peel in very small dice, and mix it in the paste;
Butter a fluted cylinder-mould; strew a tablespoonful of chopped almonds on the butter, and half fill the mould with the paste; let it stand, and when it has risen to the top of the mould, put the savarin to bake in a moderate oven;
When done, turn it out of the mould; let it cool for twenty minutes; pour over it some syrup, flavoured with Anisette; and serve."
---The Royal Cookery Book, Jules Gouffe, translated from the French and Adapted for English by Alphonse Gouffe [Sampson, Low, Son, and Marston:London] 1869 (p. 503-4)[1874]
"Savarin Cake.
Put one pound of dried and sifted flour into a pan, and make a hollow in the centre. Dissolve half an ounce of German yeast in a small quantitiy of warm milk, and set the sponge by pouring this into the hollow, and beating into it with the fingers about a quarter of the flour. Sprinkle four over the batter thus made, put the basin in a warm place, and let the sponge rise slowly to twice its size. Work into it with a spoon or with the right hand a quarter of a pint of warm milk and two eggs, and add gradually three-quarters of a pound of butter beaten to a cream, half an ounce of salt dissolved in a little warm water, two ounces of powdered sugar, the eighth of a pint additional milk, and three more eggs. Lastly, add two ounces of candied peel cut small. The additions should be made very gradually, the eggs being put in one at a time, and the preparation being beaten well until it leaves the sides of the bowl easily. Butter the inside of a fluted mould rather thickly, and sprinkle a table-spoonful of blanched and chopped almonds on the butter. Beat the paste up again, and half fill the mould with it; let it stand in a warm place till it has risen level with the top of the mould. Tie a broad band of buttered paper round the top of the mould, to keep the paste from running over the sides, and bake the cake in a moderate oven. When done enough, turn it out carefully, run a skewer into several parts of it, and our over and into it a thick syrup flavoured with curacoa or any other suitable liquer. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the surface, and send to the table warm. Time to bake, one hour or more. Probable cost, 3s., exclusive of the liquer. Sufficient for five or six persons."
---Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery with Numerous Illustrations [Cassell, Petter, Galpin:London] 1874 (p. 837)[1919]
French Coffee Cake (Savarin)
Related items? Bundt cake & gugelhopf, kulich, brioche & Sally Lunn.
Banana nut cake
ABOUT BANANAS & BANANA COOKERY
Mrs. Rorer's Banana Cake [1902]
"Banana Cake
Beat to a cream a quarter of a cup of butter, add a half cup of sugar and one egg; when very light, stir in enough flour to make a stiff dough; roll into a thin sheet and line a square, shallow baking pan. Peel five good, ripe bananas, and chop them very fine; put them over the crust in a pan, sprinkle over a half cup of sugar, the pulp of five tamarinds soaked in a quarter of a cup of warm water; squeeze over the juice of two Japanese oranges, put over a tablespoonful of butter cut into pieces, a saltspoonful of mace, and two tablespoonfuls of thick cream. Grate over the top two small crackers, bake in a moderate oven a half hour, and cut into narrow strips to serve."
---Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book, Sara Tyson Rorer [Arnold and Company:Phildadelphia] 1902 (p. 697)
The earliest recipe we find for banana bread is dated 1933:
Banana nut bread
Recipe makes 1 large loaf, 8X4X2
Temperature: 350 degrees F.; Time: about 1 1/4 hours
2 cups Pillsbury's Best flour
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup chopped nutmeats
1/2« Pillsbury's Wheat Bran
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons thick sour cream
1 1/2 cup mashed bananas
1. Sift four, soda, salt and baking powder together; stir in nut meats and wheat bran.
2. Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
3. Combine mashed bananas and sour cream; add alternately with flour to first mixture.
4. Bake in a greased loaf pan lines with waxed paper, in a moderate oven."
---Balanced Recipes, Pillsbury Flour Mills Company, Minneapolis, MN [1933] (breads, recipe #3)
Birthday cake
Cake history expert Simon R. Charlsey makes this observation:
"Birthday cakes might still in the nineteenth century be of the same kind [as wedding cakes], but as their use spread, their composition became typically simpler. For preference of the child or other person celebrating, or of the cook, or whatever the confectioner had used for a decorated shop cake."
---Wedding Cakes and Cultural History, Simon R. Charsley [Routledge:London] 1992 (p. 61)
[1871]
"Little Folks' Joys
One cupful of white sugar, one cupful of rich sour cream, one egg, two cupsful of flour, half a teaspoonful of soda, and flavor to taste; bake about half an hour; nicest eaten fresh and warm."
---Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book, Mrs. M.E. Porter, 1871 , [Promentory Press:New York] 1974 (p. 242)
The oldest recipe in an American cookbook we find specifically named "birthday cake" was published in 1870.
[1906]
"Birthday Cakes for Children.
One and one-half cups of sugar, a half-cup of butter or clarified drippings, two eggs, one cup of milk, two cups flour, one teaspoon baking powder, one-half teaspoonful of vanilla. Beat together the butter and sugar, add the eggs, then the flour, baking-powder and nutmeg sifted together. Place in small well-greased tins and just before putting into the oven drop a few seeded raisins on top of each cake. Spread on the top a few drops of boiled icing and on top of these some colored candies or cinnamon drops, as they are favorites with the little folks. Aunt Mary."
---The Blue Ribbon Cook Book, Annie R. Gregory [Monarch Book Company:Chicago] 1906 (p. 258)
[1911]
Fannie Merritt Farmer's Catering for Special Occasions devotes an entire chapter to "Birthday feasting." Adult menus do not include cake. Child menus do. Ms. Farmer suggests children's parties include Angel Birthday Cake and Sunshine Birthday Cake. Both are simple, iced angel cakes. The difference? Sunshine cake is a little richer. This recipe includes yolks and almond extract. Recipes here:
Angel cake
Whites 5 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup bread flour
1 teaspoon vanillaBeat whites of eggs until stiff and dry and add gradually, while beating constantly, sugar (fine granulated) mixed and sifted with cream of tartar. Sift flour into mixture, add vanilla, and cut and fold until blended. Turn into a buttered and floured angel-cake pan and bake in a moderate oven. Remove from pan, cover with White Mountain Frosting, and ornament with small candles placed in flower cases. The little cases may be bought of first-class city grocers or dealers in confectioners' supplies."
---Catering for Special Occasions, Fannie Merritt Farmer [David McKay:Philadelphia] 1911 (p. 222)
[NOTE: Ms. Farmer's the candle decoration notes suggest this practice was primarily enjoyed by wealthy people in 1911. Many middle/laboring-class families and isolated farm cooks could not afford to purchase goods from first-class city grocers or specialty suppliers.]Sunshine Birthday Cake
Whites 5 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
Yolks 3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup pastry flourAdd salt to whites of eggs and beat until light. Sift in cream of tartar and beat until stiff. Beat yolks of eggs until thick and lemon colored and add two heaping beaten whites. To remaining whites add gradually sugar measured after five siftings. Add almond extract and combine mixtures. Cut and fold in flour measured after five siftings. Bake in angel-cake pan, first dipped in cold water, in a slow oven one hour. Have a pan of hot water in oven during the baking, Remove from pan, frost and decorate, same as Angel Birthday Cake."
---Catering for Special Occasions, (p. 228-9)White Mountain Frosting
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
Whites 2 eggsPut sugar and water in saucepan, and stir to prevent sugar from adhering to saucepan; heat gradually to boiling-point, and boil without stirring until syrup will thread when dripped from tip of spoon or tines of silver fork. Pour syrup gradually on beaten white of egg, beating mixture constantly, and continue beating until of right consistency to spread; then add flavoring and pour over cake, spreading evenly with back of spoon. Crease as soon as firm. If not beaten long enough, frosting will run; if beaten too long, it will not be smooth. Frosting beaten too long may be improved by adding a few drops of lemon juice or boiling water. This frosting is soft inside and has a glossy surface."
---Catering for Special Occasions, (p. 222)
Contrast the above recipes with this pioneer-era birthday cake [Texas 1851]
"Pioneer Birthday Cake
This recipe was used to make a birthday cake for a small girl eighty-five years ago. There was no flour to be had, and corn was ground on a handmill. The meal was carefully emptied from one sack to another, and fine meal dust clinging to the sack was carefully shaken out on paper; the sack was again emptied and shaken, and the process was repeated labouriously time after time until two cupsful of meal dust was obtained. The rest of the ingredients were as follows: 1/2 cup of wild honey, 1 wild turkey egg, 1 teaspoonful of homemade soda, 1 scant cupful of sour milk and a very small amount of butter, to all of which was added the meal dust. The batter was poured into a skillet with a lid, and placed over the open fire in the yard, the skillet lid being heaped with coals. To a little girl's childish taste the cake was very fine, but looking back through the years, the nonoree said relfectively, "It was none too sweet."
---Cooking Recipes of the Pioneer, Bandera Library Association [Frontier Times:Bandera TX] 1936 (p. 23)
Pound cake
Historic evidence confirms recipes for pound cake first surface in 18th century English and American cookbooks. Then, as now, there were variations on the recipe. Early recipes sometimes included alcohol and currants. Many are flavored with a hint lemon. Then, as now, proportions varied. Many recipes for pound cake call for more or less than a pound! Cup cakes & 1234 cake are related.
"Pound-cake. A rich cake so called as originally containing a pound (or equal weight) of each of the principal ingredients, flour, butter, sugar, fruit, etc."
---Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Volume XII (p. 247)
"Pound cake. A Plain white-cake loaf whose name derives from the traditional weight of the ingredients--one pound of flour, one pound of butter, one pound of sugar, and one pound of eggs--although these measurements are generally not followed in most modern recipes. Its first printed mention was in 1740 according to Webster's Ninth, and it has remained a popular and simple cake to make to this day."
---Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 254)
"Pound cake a cake of creamed type, is so named because the recipe calls for an equal weight of flour, butter, sugar, and eggs; in old recipes, a pound of each, making a large, rich cake...Pound cake has been favoured in both Britain and the USA for over two centuries. Recipes for it were already current early in the 19th century...The German Sandtorte is similar to pound cake; and a French cake, quatre quarts (four quarters), uses the same principles..."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 631)
A survey of pound cake recipes through time:
"To make a Pound Cake
Take a Pound of Butter, beat it in an earthen Pan, with your Hand one Way, till it is like a fine thick Cream; then have ready twelve Eggs, but hald the Whites, beat them well, and beat them up with the Butter, a Pound of Flour beat in it, and a Pound of Sugar, and a few Carraways; beat it all well together for an Hour with your Hand, or a great wooden Spoon. Butter a Pan, and put it in and bake it an Hour in a quick Oven. For Change, you may put in a Pound of Currants cleaned wash'd and pick'd."
---The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse, facsimile 1747 London reprint [Prospect Books:Devon] 1995 ( p. 139)
[NOTE: this book has been reprinted in recent years. If you want to study other cake recipes from this time period ask your librarian to help you find a copy of this and colonial American cook books. You might also want to compare this recipe with modern ones]
[1803]
Pound Cake, Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter
[1817]
"A Pound cake, plain.
Beat a pound of butter in an earthen pan till it is like a thick cream, then beat in nine whole eggs till it is quite light. Put in a glass of brandy, a little lemon-peel shred fine; then pork in a pound and a quarter of flour. Put it into your hoop or pan, and bake it for one hour."
---The Female Instructor or Young Woman's Guide to Domestic Happiness, [Thomas Kelly:London] 1817 (p. 462)
[1824]
"Pound cake.
Wash the salt from a pound of butter and rub it till it is soft as cream, have ready a pound of flour sifted, one pound of powdered sugar, and twelve eggs well beaten; put alternately into the butter, sugar, flour, and the froth from the eggs; continuing to beat them together till all the ingredients are in, and the cake quite light; add some grated lemon peel, a nutmeg, and a gill of brandy; butter the pans and bake them. This cake makes an excellent pudding if baked in a large mould, and eaten with sugar and wine. It is also excellent when boiled, and served up with melted butter, sugar, and wine."
---The Virginia Housewife, Mary Randolph, with historical notes and commentaries by Karen Hess [University of South Carolina Press:Columbia] 1984 (p. 161)
[1857]
Pound cake, Great Western Cook Book, Anna Maria Collins
[1861]
Pound cake, Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, Isabella Beeton (recipe 1770)
[1884]
Pound cake, Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Mrs. D. A. Lincoln
[1896]
Pound cake, Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Fannie Farmer
[1908]
"Pound Cake.
The old rule--and there is none better--calls for one pound each of butter, sugar and flour, ten eggs and a half wine glass of wine and brandy. Beat the butter to a cream and add gradually a pound of sugar, stirring all the while. Beat ten eggs without separating until they become light and foamy. Add gradually to the butter and sugar and beat hard. Sift in one pound sifted flour and add the wine and brandy. Line the cake pans with buttered paper and pour in the well beaten mixture. Bake in a moderate oven. This recipe may be varied by the addition of raisins, seeded and cut in halves, small pieces of citron or almonds blanched and pounded in rose water. Some old fashioned housekeepers always add a fourth of a teaspoon of mace. The mixture may be baked in patty tins or small round loaves, if preferred, putting currants into some, almonds or raisins in the rest. Pound acake is apt to be lighter baked in this way. The cakes may be plain or frosted, and they will grow richer with the keeping in placed in stone jars."
---The New York Evening Telegram Cook Book, Emma Paddock Telford [Cupples & Leon:New York] 1908 (p. 126)
[1926]
"Pound Cake
3/4 lb butter
3/4 lb sugar (sifted three times)
3/4 lb flour (sifted three times
1 tablespoon whisky
9 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
Pinch salt
Cream together butter and sugar very light and creamy. Stir in whisky. Add well-beaten egg yolks. Add salt and vanilla. Add alternately flour and stiffly-beaten egg whites. Add baking powder to last flour. Begin the baking in slow oven, increase heat as baking progresses, one to one and a quarter hours."
---Every Woman's Cook Book, Mrs. Chas. F. Moritz [Cupples & Leon:New York] 1926 (p. 415-6)
[1936]
"Old-Fashioned Pound Cake
1 pound cake flour (4 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 pound butter (2 cups), scant
1 pound sugar (2 1/4 cups)
1/4 cup lemon juice of 2 tablespoons brandy
1 pound eggs (10), separated
Mix flour, baking powder and nutmeg, and sift three times. Cream butter until soft and smooth; add sugar gradually, creaming until very fluffy; add lemon juice and well-beaten egg yolks, beating very thoroughly. Fold in thoroughly the stiffly beaten egg whites, then flour. Turn into greased, paper-lined, loaf pans and bake in slow oven (300-325 F.) For 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Yield: 2 loaves."
---America's Cook Book, The Home Institute of the New York Herald Tribune [Charles Scribner's Sons:New York] 1937 (p. 547)
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