[Sca-cooks] cakes

[Carole Smith]

My mother used to make cakes with a large bowl and a wooden spoon, exactly as her mother and grandmother had done.  And yes, her arm got tired, although she never beat anything for hours.  She did use a handbeater for egg whites.  
 
I was a teenager when I talked Dad into buying her an electric mixer, which she had resisted for several years.  Once she got used to using the mixer we got cakes a lot more often.
 
That was in the late 1950's in southern Georgia (USA), fyi.
 
Cordelia Toser

Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de> wrote:

Am Sonntag, 15. Mai 2005 22:05 schrieb Pat:
> Hmmm, most authentic pound cake recipes do not call for any leavening other
> than a strong arm and much beating. Not so sure my Foster Mother in Law,
> Auntie Ruth ever owned an electric mixer, and her recipe did not call for
> baking soda or baking powder, just a pound of sugar, a pound of butter, a
> dozen eggs, and a pound of flour, vanilla or lemon flavoring. Butter was
> the preferred fat, but lard would do in a pinch. However, I've not seen a
> near period recipe like this.
>
You mean the ones that get their leavening by beating, beating, beating....? 
That is exactly my point - the method is so time-consuming and tiring that it 
must have been limited to exceptional occasions, or the tables of people who 
didn't have to do it themselves. 

BTW. I have traced the beaten-egg cake to the late 16th century, but it is 
used for rusks.

<snip>

Giano


		
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