[Sca-cooks] Reasons why period cakes aren't modern cakes

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> ...I thought one paragraph in there brought home why a period cake is not a modern cake and 
> vice-versa. 
>
><<< Although the cake has a reputation as being difficult to make, this is no longer true.[3] When the recipe originated, there were no stand mixers, nor electric hand mixers, and even hand-crank eggbeaters were not universally available, which meant a lot of hard labor beating egg whites to frothy soft peaks. The wood-fired ovens of the time had no thermostats, making it difficult to produce a white cake. Modern refrigeration also makes it easier to produce a stiff filling, allowing one to build an orderly multi-layer cake, rather than a sticky, lopsided dessert. >>>

To me another significant difference is the lack of chemical leavening. There was what is now called Baker's Ammonia (Ammonium Carbonate), but that only works in fairly thin things - cookies, wafers, etc. (& it still is used in some northern European baking). There are late period cakes leavened with yeast, but they will have a VERY different texture than a modern chemically leavened cake. The things often called "cakes" in late period cookbooks are close to what we call "cookies".

Urtatim (that's oor-tah-TEEM!)