One-Egg Cake: or, Economizing never tasted so good!

The cost of eggs this last winter made it almost prohibitive for the housewife of moderate means to do much baking, yet most folk just love a bit of homemade cake. Therefore I am giving you a recipe for a one-egg cake.

...Aside from the fact that food columnists no longer assume that only housewives bake at home, that recipe introduction hasn't aged a bit since it appeared in 1919.

One-Egg Cake ¾ cup sugar 1 egg 4 tbsp shortening 2 cups sifted flour 4 tsp baking powder 1 tsp flavoring of your choice ¾ cup water Heat oven to 350°. Grease a loaf pan or two 8" round pans. Place all ingredients into a bowl. Beat with a whisk until well mixed. Pour into the pan(s). If baking a layer cake, spread the batter a little thinner in the center and a little higher on the sides. Bake until it springs back when lightly pressed in the center, about 20 minutes for round pans. The cake will not turn as golden as you may expect, so check it even if it still looks too pale to be fully baked. To make a raisin cake, spread ¾ cup raisins on top of the cake when it's ready to put into the oven. Then dust it lightly with flour (sprinkle a very little bit through a sifter). The raisins will sink into the rising cake and distribute themselves as it bakes. Instead of raisins, you can use any of these: ½ cup currants, 1 cup finely chopped nuts, or ½ cup finely chopped candied citron. If making a layer cake, Mrs. Wilson suggests spreading the bottom layer with jelly and then sprinkling coconut on it, and then topping the stacked cake with more jelly and a thick layer of coconut. Or, you can use finely chopped nuts instead of coconut. Note: To halve this recipe and make a small cake, beat the egg well, then measure out half of it. You can refrigerate the other half of the egg for up to two days, or freeze it. (Thaw it in the refrigerator, not at room temperature.) Source: Ask Mrs. Wilson, Philadelphia Evening Ledger, April 23 1919, p. 12

Philadelphia Evening Ledger, April 23 1919, p. 12

While a lot of Mrs. Wilson's columns suggest that she had very strong opinions about the Right and True way to prepare food, she was definitely looking out for everyone whose purses had gotten a bit lightweight. She ran a half-page of suggested variations under the recipe so that everyone could have the cake they wanted without using up all the eggs.  In case you weren't in the mood for a one-egg Boston cream pie, fruitcake, or shortcake, she even had little cake-drop spice cookies. Mrs. Wilson may have been powerless against high grocery prices, but she absolutely would not let the bills get between her readers and a good dessert.

I wanted to try the one-egg cake as all the people subscribing to the Evening Public Ledger would have tasted it in 1919, but I was leery of using shortening instead of butter. Shortening tastes like nothing and has an unnaturally long shelf life. I went online and poked through a lot of old books, trying to find some period-correct justification for using anything but that scientifically white miracle fat. But ultimately (and because shortening was cheaper anyway), we went with the shelf-stable option. 

I should note that since I am halving the recipe, this is not a one-egg cake but a half-egg cake. I don't even mind splitting eggs in half anymore. After one does it enough times, the task of beating an egg in a small cup and then measuring out half of it becomes quick and easy.

Here I started to wonder whether I would regret following this recipe to the letter. We're supposed to dump water into this. While it certainly will do the job of turning these ingredients into a nice, fluid cake batter, water literally tastes like nothing unless the pipes in your walls need a good cleaning. Was I currently resurrecting written proof of how bland the food was in home economics class before the Jazz Age?

The use of shortening and tap water instead of butter and milk may seem like an attempt to modernize baking by moving away from those old-fashioned farmhouse ingredients and toward modern, scientific ones. Or maybe dairy had gotten as expensive as eggs. After all, the war had barely ended and there was a pandemic on.

Like Louise Bennett Weaver would direct readers to do for her spice cake recipe, Mrs. Wilson has us just put everything in the bowl all at once and then give it the cement-mixer treatment. I decided that a whisk would probably make this faster. Was I ever right! We had this completely beaten together in about thirty seconds.

At first I was unsure of what to do here. Mrs. Wilson directs us to "Beat hard to mix for five minutes." But we had this mixed in about one-tenth of the time. Were we supposed to beat the snot out of the cake batter for another four and a half minutes to develop the texture or something? Then I thought about how Louise's spice cake took a similarly long time because I used a spoon instead of a whisk. Perhaps Mrs. Wilson didn't think everyone following her recipes at home had whisks. They may have been more associated with whipped cream and other frivolities than everyday cooking, and therefore a somewhat rarer find in the average kitchen of 1919.

I do not think I have the forearm strength that Mrs. Wilson lacked. You can't convince me that with a whisk instead of a spoon, Mrs. Wilson couldn't have this cake batter beaten completely smooth in less time than it takes to crack open the one egg required to make it. Does she look like someone whose arms gave out halfway through a recipe?

Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, December 5 1918, page 12

I gave the batter a careful tasting and... it was a lot better than I expected. Given that this cake contains shortening and tap water, I thought it would be hopelessly bland. Instead, it tasted like a very good cake. I should stop doubting Mrs. Wilson.

Perhaps because it contains no milk, this cake stayed very pale the whole time it baked. That may be another reason Mrs. Wilson used water instead of dairy. A lot of cookbooks in those days had helpful tips on how to keep your cake from browning too much on the outside, such as putting the cake pan in a larger pan full of sand. Apparently people cared a lot about that at the time. This cake almost didn't brown at all. In fact, it looked like one of the cakes from a microwave cookbook instead of something I baked at 350°.

I should have baked this in a smaller pan--- say, an 8" one instead of the 9" pan that I used. It's true that the cake is a bit domed on top, but Mrs. Wilson did say to "spread the mixture higher on the sides, leaving the center shallow." Unfortunately, I didn't see that instruction until it was too late. 

I was going to top this cake with the icing from the graham-coconut cake since I like it a lot, but it uses an egg white. I didn't want to defeat this cake's entire purpose for existing by cracking open another egg to ice it. Instead, I chose to top this cake with cinnamon icing. It uses zero eggs, meaning that this entire cake, including the icing, contains just half an egg.

Also, to be quite honest, I was dead certain that a cake made with shortening and tap water would be the blandest thing I've ever served for dessert. I figured the cinnamon icing would help make up for what I was quite sure the cake lacked.

To Mrs. Wilson's credit, this cake was delightfully light and fluffy when we cut into it.

Upon tasting this cake, it was.... unexpectedly delicious. I was not prepared for this cake to taste as good as it does. And I know I'm not the only one who thought so. Others tried some of the cake and told me that I need to type the recipe onto a card and keep it on file. Even if we weren't economizing on eggs, it's really good.

After all, the cost of eggs these days has made it almost prohibitive for anyone on a tight budget to do much baking, yet most folks just love a bit of homemade cake. Therefore I definitely recommend this recipe for a one-egg cake.