Sponge Cake
Many persons suppose that sponge cake must be very easy to make, because there is no butter in it. On the contrary, the want of butter renders it difficult to get light. A really good sponge cake is a very different thing from those numerous tough leathery compositions that go by that name, and being flavored with nothing, are not worthy of eating as cake, and are neither palatable nor wholesome as diet, unless too fresh to have grown dry and hard. The best sponge cake we know of is made as follows, and even that should be eaten the day it is baked. Sift half a pound of flour, (arrow-root is still better,) in a shallow pan; beat twelve eggs till very thick, light, and smooth. You need not separate the yolks and whites, if you know the true way of adding the flour. Beat a pound of powdered loaf sugar, gradually, (a little at a time) into the beaten eggs, and add the juice and grated yellow rinds of two large lemons or oranges. Lastly stir in the flour or arrow root. It is all important that this should be done slowly and lightly, and without stirring down to the bottom of the pan. Hold the egg-beater perpendicularly or quite upright in one hand, and move it round on the surface of the beaten egg, while with the other hand you lightly and gradually sprinkle in the flour till all is in. If stirred in hard and fast it will render the cake porous and tough, and dry and hard when cold. Have ready either a large turban mould, or some small oblong or square tins. Butter them nicely, transfer to them the cake mixture, grate powdered sugar profusely over the surface to give it a gloss like a very thin crust, and set it immediately into a brisk oven. The small oblong cakes are called Naples biscuits, and require no icing. A large turban cake may be iced plain, without ornament.
A very light sponge cake, when sliced, will cut down rough and coarse grained, and it is desirable to have it so.
Lady Fingers—Are mixed in the same manner, and of the same ingredients as the foregoing receipt for the best sponge cake. When the mixture is finished, form the cakes by shaping the batter with a tea-spoon, upon sheets of soft white paper slightly damped, forming them like double ovals joined in the centre. Sift powdered sugar over them, and bake them in a quick oven till slightly browned. When cool, take them off the papers. They are sometimes iced.