LEMON LAYER CAKE
This, when properly gummy, is as good for a comedian to throw as a custard pie. Only it’s too good for that sort of treatment—which sounds rather like an Irish bull!
The layer cake doesn’t interest me especially. After all, it’s only an excuse for the frosting. Any sort of layer cake recipe will answer—and, according to the best cook I know, my grandmother—there are a hundred such recipes. It’s the filling that I find important. Here is the rule, and it sounds too simple to be true!
Take one beaten egg, one cup of sugar, the juice and grated rind of one lemon. Mix them all together, hit or miss, and place them in a double boiler over a hot fire. Cook until the mixture begins to get very thick, stirring constantly. Then take from the stove and beat until the whole assumes a creamy texture. Spread between the layers of any cake. This recipe makes enough filling for two thin layers, or one thick one—which I prefer. It can be doubled, tripled, and so on—ad infinitum—depending entirely upon the number of layers in the cake.
Editor’s Note:—This is a good, and unusual, recipe for layer cake. To two eggs, well beaten, add gradually one cup of granulated sugar. To one cup of unsifted flour add one teaspoonful cream of tartar and one half teaspoonful of soda. Sift. Then add one half cup of boiling milk with one teaspoonful of melted butter in it, and one teaspoonful of vanilla. The mixture will be almost like batter, and should be baked in two layers.
XCVI
Luther Burbank
TURKEY Á LA BURBANK
“The best ever.”[A]