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 the egg yolks very light with the yellow sugar and creamed butter. Add the rich sour cream with a teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in it. Alternatively, for a lighter cake, add the cream alone and dissolve the soda in a teaspoon of boiling water, adding this mixture at the very last moment.
2. Flavor to taste; grated lemon rind is recommended. Gradually add the four cups of flour that have been sifted at least three times.
3. Beat hard for ten minutes. Bake in well-greased pans lined with buttered paper until well done. Let cool partly in the pans, then turn out. Dust lightly with flour or cornstarch and frost.