SC - Pound cake

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 09:38:12 -0500
> From: "Gedney, Jeff" <Gedney at executone.com>
> Subject: SC - Whipping cream 

> To return to topic though, Does anyone have any Ideas when whipping egg
> whites and/or cream started?   I would like to know how pound cake was
> done in period, if whipped whites were not a technique. I have in mind a
> dessert with whipped cream, fruit compote, and a base of sponge or pound
> cake.  

I seem to recall pound cake (named as such) is a product of the late
eighteenth / early nineteenth century. The type of technology used to
give added lightness to many pound cakes today (i.e. whipped egg whites)
seems to me to be more prevalent as something that would go into a baked
pudding or biscuits, rather than a cake, which seem exclusively to be
leavened with yeast in period.

True pound cake is what we now call a "cream" cake, which refers to the
butter and sugar being beaten together to a creamy, white mass,
incorporating air in the process. It really doesn't require any
additional leavening. Modern cooks sometimes include some baking powder,
in proportion to the flour.

Your dessert sounds kind of like trifle without the custard. Propbably
the most period attitude to this would be to think in terms of a berry
fool served over sliced sponge biscuit. Yum, BTW!

Adamantius 
troy at asan.com
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