[Sca-cooks] cakes

Sun May 15 23:24:25 PDT 2005

I don't know which edition of the OED that Bear used, but this is what the current edition says:

[f. POUND n.1 + CAKE n.] 

    A rich cake so called as originally containing a pound (or equal weight) of each of the
principal ingredients, flour, butter, sugar, fruit, etc. 

  1747 H. GLASSE Art of Cookery xv. 138 Pound Cake. Take a Pound of Butter..twelve Eggs..a Pound 
of Flour..a Pound of Sugar [etc.]. 1807 M. E. RUNDELL New Syst. Domestic Cookery 217 (heading) A
good pound cake. 1841 THACKERAY Men & Coats Wks. 1900 XIII. 601 It will have a great odour of 
bohea and pound-cake. 1876 F. E. TROLLOPE Charming Fellow II. ix. 138 [He] begged to recommend the
pound-cake, from his own personal experience. c1900 Beeton's Every-day Cook. Bk. 396 Pound
Cake.Ingredients of large cake: 1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of flour, 1 lb. of pounded loaf sugar, 
1 lb. of currants, 9 eggs, 2 oz. of candied peel [etc.]. 1942 B. ROBERTSON Red Hills & Cotton iii.
69 We liked..cornbread with chitterlings, ambrosia, stuffed eggs, pound cake. 1951 T. CAPOTE Grass
Harp (1952) i. 12 Dolly, who lived off sweet foods, was always baking a pound cake. 1977 Time 24
Jan. 5/2 Pound cake will remain just that, no matter how many grams the ingredients weigh.

Huette

--- Ron Carnegie <r.carnegie at verizon.net> wrote:
>     This just sounded wrong, so I pulled out one of my 18th century
> cookbooks.  Just the first one I grabbed, which happened to be Hannah
> Glasse, THE ART OF COOKERY MADE PLAIN AND EASY.  This book, on page 309, has
> a receipt for pound cake.  Most of the ingredients are in the quantity of a
> pound.  This is the revised version of 1796 Though the forward says that
> only the soap and beer receipts were added to the previous 1745 edition.  I
> have no idea when pound cakes first appear, and would not be surprised if
> they are not period to the SCA, but they do predate Thackery and 1841.
> 
> Ranald de Balinhard
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: sca-cooks-bounces+r.carnegie=verizon.net at ansteorra.org
> > [mailto:sca-cooks-bounces+r.carnegie=verizon.net at ansteorra.org]On Behalf
> > Of Terry Decker
> > Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2005 5:39 PM
> > To: Cooks within the SCA
> > Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cakes
> >
> >
> > According to the OED, pound cake is a cake containing one pound
> > each of the
> > principle ingredients with the first reference in a work by Thackery in
> > 1841.
> >
> > A cake in period would have been a round, flattened loaf like a galette.
> >
> > Bear
> >
> > >I have a question in regards to cakes that I thought I
> > > would pose to the list.  I know cakes as we know
> > > them, the texture of birthday cakes you get at the
> > > bakery, or from a store bought mix  or home made cake
> > > are not period.  My question is, when abouts did cakes
> > > w/ the texture of pound cake come into play?  I have
> > > only found a recipe for 'an excellent cake' and by no
> > > means was it cake like we know of today, more like a
> > > cookie type of thing.
> > >
> > > Alexa
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
> > http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks
> 
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