Jane Austen, Tea and Sponge Cakes

Apparently there are two books called Tea With Jane Austen, and possibly more. Not surprising since the title is a sure-fire winner, combining Jane Austen with visions of cake. 

One is by Kim Wilson and the other, Tea With Jane Austen: Recipes Inspired by Her Novels and Letters, by Pen Vogler.  The latter has fallen into my hands. It has charming illustrations showing china and kitchenware on which are displayed cakes, buns, pies and sweetmeats. But its recipes are terribly inaccurate and anachronistic. I really do not believe that "toasted cheese" in Jane Austen's day would have been made with ciabatta, olive oil or garlic! The Georgian recipe quoted does not mention garlic but does include both anchovies and orange or lemon juice. Don 't knock it till you've tried it. I haven't.

Ms Vogler's book quotes the Oxford English Dictionary as saying that the first known use of the word "sponge-cake" is in a letter of Jane Austen's to her sister in 1808. That may be the first known example of that spelling but the word "spunge-cake" was widely used for at least fifty years before. And it may be that an editor altered the spelling in Austen's manuscript letter anyway. Then the book claims that sponge cake and pound cake are the same thing, and goes on to give a recipe for pound cake.

They are actually very different, as Jane Austen surely knew if she took anything like the same interest in cookery as did Elizabeth Craven. Sponge cake is ...well, like a sponge, light and open textured, and never has fruit in it. Pound cake is dense and heavy.

In The Art of Cookery and Pastery Made Easy and Familiar, by J. Skeat, published in 1769, we find along with recipes for Marrow Pudding, Lobster Pie and instructions for Roasting a Swan (in case royalty drop in) this recipe :

“To make a Spunge Cake

Take three quarters of a pound of sugar, and a quarter of a pint of water, boil and scum it well, then break seven eggs, taking out two of the whites, and beat them well; pour the water and sugar to them, and when the oven is ready stir in a pound of flour. One hour will bake it.”

In The practice of Cookery, Pastry, Pickling, Preserving, etc by Mrs. Frazer (1795, p. 185) we find a similar recipes for sponge cake.

A Spunge-cake, or Savoy Biscuits. Break twelve eggs, keeping out fix of the whites, and cast them till they are thick and light; then mix in a pound of fifted fugar; cast them for fifteen minutes, and ftir in half a pound of flour; feafon it with the grate of three or four lemons; butter a Turk’s cape [a sort of mould like a jelly-mould] and bake in it. The only difference between the cake and bifcuits is that the former is baked in a large fhape and the latter in small oval frames glazed over with fifted fugar.”

It is clear that a sponge cake in this period meant a crisp, light biscuity type of cake that contained a lot of sugar and eggs but very little flour and no butter, so it was almost like a meringue. It relied entirely on the eggs to make it rise. Later in the Victorian period what we call a “sponge-cake” today evolved, meaning a cake with more flour and some butter in it, just enough to avoid dryness, plus the addition of some bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar to make it rise. It is always cooked in a round tin or a series of flat round tins and cut into wedges to serve.

Neither of these is anything like a Pound Cake, which means a cake made with equal amounts of all five main ingredients i.e. flour, sugar, butter, eggs and fruit. The result is a solid, heavy rather rich cake, which takes a long time to cook and and is served cut into slabs. Sponge-cake is a dainty, elegant confection for ladies to nibble. Pound cake is a hearty cake for a hungry family or for a hunting party returning from the field.

In The Universal Cook; Or, Lady's Complete Assistant ... Near Eight Hundred of Very Valuable Receipts ... Together with Directions for Roasting and Boiling; Also the Complete Art of Clear-starching, Etc (1773), John Townshend, master of the Greyhound Tavern, Greenwich,  gives a recipe for pound cake:

"To make a pound cake. -  TAKE a pound of butter, beat it in an earthen pan with your hand one way, till it is like a fine thick cream, then have ready twelve eggs, but half the whites; beat them well, and beat them up with the butter, a pound of flour, beat in it a pound of sugar, and a few carraways. Beat it all well together for an hour with your hand, or a great wooden spoon, butter a pan and put it in, and then bake it an hour in a quick oven.

For change, you may put in a pound of currants, clean washed and picked."

It must have been a very popular recipe, as it was copied word for word in many other cookery books including The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, by Hannah Glasse (1774) and Every Woman Her Own House-keeper; Or, The Ladies' Library, by John Perkins in 1796. It was repeated again in The Housekeeper's Instructor; Or, Universal Family Cook  by William Augustus Henderson (1795).

They assumed of course that the well-to-do had cooks and kitchen maids would stand for hours beating butter, eggs, sugar and flour together in huge bowls so that the gentlefolk could ruin their teeth on sweet cakes and puddings. I would imagine that the cake served at Pemberley when Elizabeth Bennett visited it in the company of the Gardiners was likely to be a pound cake, something hearty for guests who had walked around the park in the fresh air, rather than a mere sponge cake which was more likely to turn up on the tea table of the Bingleys in town.

"The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruits in season; but this did not take place till after many a significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been given, to remind her of her post. There was now employment for the whole party; for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches, soon collected them round the table..."