May 23: Snow Cake

I love shopping at estate sales.  They are the best sources for inexpensive cookware, books of all types, vintage table linens, vintage hats, and vintage sewing notions.  It is sometimes difficult to see a person's belongings exposed and for-sale once he or she can no longer use them, their home thrown open to the public.  I admit that it makes me sad to see framed family photos or diplomas for sale when I imagine that the owner had always assumed that personal treasures like those would go to their next-of-kin.  But, I am sure that the owner kept all of their books (or hats, or buttons) because they valued them and I would like to think that he or she would be happy that someone else values those items, even if it is not a family member.

Two weeks ago, I made a terrific find at an estate sale!  I purchased a 1929 edition of The White House Cook Book.    Of the cookbooks for sale at the home, it was the only cookbook that looked as if it had gotten any use at all.  Judging from the other cookbooks and the appearance of the house, I believe that this cookbook was a family heirloom, not a cooking companion.  The owner of estate was an avid ballroom dancer with closets full of dance costumes and well-worn, gorgeous dance shoes.  She had flair!  Although her kitchen indicated that she did cook, it obviously wasn't her primary passion.

I bought The White House Cook Book even though it looks a little worse for wear, because I already own the revised and updated edition from 1996 and I had never seen another copy of the original for sale.  On the front and back covers there a rings of damage where an earlier cook had used the book as a trivet.  On the back cover, a yellowed paper doily has found itself permanently fused.  The previous owner, or perhaps the estate broker, attempted to repair the cover-to-spine joint with Scotch tape.

The original version was a 1887 copyright, written by the White House steward to Grover Cleveland.  My revised and updated version is a mere shadow of the original.  I purchased it from the Smithsonian Institution gift shop on an excursion to the museum.  When I lived in Washington, DC, I would spend many of my days off from the Secret Service visiting historical sites and museums.  Accompanying me on most of my adventures was another special agent, my friend, Darcy.  Since we worked at the White House and the book contained excerpts from the original book, we decided that I needed a copy.  As part of updating the book, Bazel and Ross included Hillary Rodham Clinton's cookie recipe and updated versions of the recipes they chose to reprint from the original.  The updated versions of the recipes read like methods of torture; using "liquid Butter Buds" reduced-calorie margarine and egg substitute to try convert an 1887 recipe on each page into a health-consious version printed on the facing page.  Grover Cleveland was, no doubt, turning in his very ample grave when this book came out.

Two versions, side-by-side, on my antique enamel topped table that I bought on a excursion with Darcy

As I very carefully perused the fragile pages of my newest acquisition, I found one page of the cake recipes that, judging from the stains on the paper, got a lot of use.  In the middle of the page is a recipe for Snow Cake with "delicious" in parentheses next to the title.  It caught my eye for both the parenthetical epithet and the fact that it uses arrowroot as the flour thereby making it gluten-free.

The instructions are minimal and antiquated, but I have grown accustomed to recipes of this sort.  It calls for "pounded white sugar" which would be granulated sugar, historically sold in cakes then pounded down to the flowing grains of sugar we recognize.  I decided to use caster sugar in case the pounded sugar turned out finer than our granulated sugar today.

In addition to being old-fashioned, the instructions seemed contrary to baking science.  I creamed the butter and sugar and gradually added the arrowroot as instructed.  Then I beat six egg whites to "a stiff froth."  Then I aded "them to the other ingredients and beat well for twenty minutes."  Two problems:  The other ingredients, when combined, had the consistency of dry oatmeal and I had always been admonished that over beating a dough or batter after adding eggs made the texture tough.  But, I decided to forge ahead as instructed in the book and get a workout by beating the batter by hand (no Kitchen Aid in 1887) for twenty minutes.  It calls for baking in a buttered mold or tin and I chose my larger tube pan.  I only baked it for forty minutes instead of the prescribed "one to one and a half hours."

My better judgement told me that twenty minutes of beating would overwork the eggs and I was right.  The resulting cake rose hardly at all and had a rubbery internal texture and a crispy dry crust.
But the flavor was sublime.  It tasted buttery, without feeling buttery like a pound cake.  It was not very sweet and would go beautifully with coffee or toasted and topped with jam or lemon curd.  So, rather than accept a terrible texture for a cake with flavor potential and gluten-free ingredients, I decided to make a second cake today in an attempt to remedy the problems I found with the original recipe.

I added 3/4 cup of whipping cream (alternately with the arrowroot) to moisten the batter before adding the egg whites.  I gingerly folded the egg whites in until just combined with the arrowroot mixture.  I used my smaller tube pan to give more height to the rising cake.  Although this improved the rise and the texture, the result was still rubbery evidence of overworked egg whites.  I think I will have to put some more work into salvaging this recipe to live up to its "delicious" hype.

A couple of days ago, I went to collect mail from our post office box and found a pleasant surprise.  Darcy had sent me a cookbook as a belated birthday present.  The book was a reprint of Ellen Emlen's handwritten recipe book from the collection of the  Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

As a contemporary of Grover Cleveland, Mrs. Emlen will be happy in her eternal rest knowing that no one printed her book with low-fat, low-cholesterol facsimiles included.  I hope that she will also be happy that I hope to use a recipe from her book in some future posting here.




Next Saturday: Pecan Molasses Bundt Cake with Bourbon Glaze