Real Gold Cake

History

"Real Gold Cake" is recorded in Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" (1913), and it is a yolk cake at scale: the yolks of sixteen eggs beaten very light with a full pound of yellow sugar and a scant pound of creamed butter, then a cup of rich sour cream with a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in it. She offers a refinement — put the cream in alone and add the soda dissolved in a teaspoonful of boiling water at the very last, which "makes lighter cake so is worth the extra trouble."

It is printed alongside "Real Silver Cake," its whites-only counterpart, and the pairing is practical rather than decorative: sixteen yolks and sixteen whites, two cakes, nothing wasted. That economy runs through the book — her Baked Eggs exists for the same reason, using up yolks left when cake frosting took the whites.

The historical record does not document a specific earlier origin for this particular recipe. The book itself gives the simpler explanation: the cake is gold because it is made of yolks.

McCulloch-Williams was a white writer born near Clarksville, Tennessee, who grew up on a plantation before the Civil War; the book's dedication is "to our Mammys," and much of the cooking it records is the work of enslaved and formerly enslaved Black women it does not name.

Ingredients

• 16 whole eggs, yolks only
• 1 pound yellow sugar
• 1 pound (scant) butter, creamed
• 1 cup sour cream, rich
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• flavoring
• 4 cups flour, sifted

Instructions

1. Beat very light the yolks of sixteen eggs, with a full pound of yellow sugar, and a scant pound of creamed butter.
2. Add a cup of rich sour cream with a teaspoonful soda dissolved in it.
3. Or, if you like better, put in the cream solus, and add the soda dissolved in a teaspoonful of boiling water at the very last. This makes lighter cake, so is worth the extra trouble.
4. Flavor to taste — grated lemon rind is good.
5. Add gradually four cups flour sifted three times at least.
6. Beat hard for ten minutes.
7. Then bake in well-greased pans, lined with buttered paper, until well done.
8. Let cool partly in the pans, then turn out, dust lightly with flour or corn starch, and frost.