Munchie Monday: A Cheap Cake

Nineteenth century author who is recognized as the main advocate for the creation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday, Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788-1879), devoted an entire chapter to “Cheap Dishes” in her 1839 book, The Good Housekeeper. In Chapter 10 she writes “I shall take pains to prepare receipts for dishes combining the greatest economy of cost with the most nourishing and healthy materials…[for] the rich, who intend to continue so, the thriving, who mean to be rich, the sensible and industrious, who love comfort and independence, the benevolent, who wish to do good—these classes all practice economy, and will not despise ‘cheap dishes’.”

We have made the recipe for the Macculloch-Miller family’s “A Cheap Cake” even cheaper by cutting the ingredients of the original recipe in half to make the original recipe more manageable.

Original Recipe—A Cheap Cake

6 eggs beaten sep

1 lb. sifted sugar

1 lb. sifted flour

1 cup milk

½ lb. butter

2 teaspoons cr. tart.

¾ teaspoon soda

Dissolve the soda with milk

Mix cr. tart. with the flour.

 

Adapted Recipe- A Cheap Cake

3 eggs, separate yolks and whites

1 cup sugar

1 ¾ cup flour, sifted

½ cup milk

1 stick of butter, softened

1 tsp. of cream of tartar

½ tsp. of baking soda

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9 x 9 baking pan with spray. Cream butter and sugar. Add yolks, one at a time, mixing after adding each yolk. Sift cream of tartar and flour. In a measuring cup or bowl stir baking soda into milk. Add dry ingredients alternately with wet ingredients to the creamed butter, sugar, and egg yolks. In a separate bowl whip egg whites until they form peaks. Fold in whipped egg whites into cake batter until combined. Pour cake batter into greased baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Serve with fresh fruit, whipped cream, or ice cream.

 

Similar recipe shared by the Enfield Shaker Museum in New Hampshire: Enfield Shaker Nice Cheap Cake Recipe – Enfield Shaker Museum with additional options of sauces to serve over the cake.