Mrs. Moody’s Wonder Cake

…And some Afternoon Tea Cakes, too. Both dainty, yet substantial. Just like Mrs. Moody, no doubt. The pictures and recipes are from Any One Can Bake (1929), “Compiled by the Educational Department of the Royal Baking Powder Co., 100 East 42nd St., New York City.”

AFTERNOON TEA CAKES
Baked in frilled paper cases

1 egg
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tb butter, melted
1 1/2 squares chocolate, melted
1 cup pastry flour
1 tsp Royal Baking Powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup milk

Separate egg.  Beat yolk well; add sugar slowly, continuing to beat. Add melted butter and chocolate. Sift flour, baking powder and salt and add alternately with milk. Fold in stiffly beaten egg white.

Partly fill the paper cups, set each in muffin tin and bake in moderate oven at 34 degrees for fifteen minutes. Decorate with nuts or cherries in white frosting.

Very nice for parties and when used for children’s party, decorate each cake with a teaspoon of confectioner’s sugar frosting, the sugar being moistened with hot milk, teaspoon butter, flavored and pushed out of spoon with forefinger to make a little mound. On each mound stand an animal cracker.

Makes 32 very small cakes.

MRS. MOODY’S WONDER CAKE

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 cups pastry flour
2 tsp Royal Baking Powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 egg whites

Cream butter with powdered sugar; add alternately a little at a time, milk and pastry flour which has been sifted with baking powder. Add vanilla and fold in beaten egg whites. Bake in three buttered layer tins in moderate oven at 325 degrees F, twenty minutes. Increase to 350 F last half of making.

Fruit Filling and Frosting

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
3 egg whites, beaten
1/2 cup muscatel raisins (cut in pieces)
1/2 cup shaved pecans
1/2 cup chopped figs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Boil sugar wirh water until syrup spins a thread at 238 degrees F. Add slowly to egg whites, beating continually until cool. Add raisins, pecans, figs and vanilla. Spread between layers and on top and sides of cake.

Makes three 8-inch layers.

I’ll tell you something that I wonder – i wonder if Mrs. Moody stole her recipe from Mrs. Lane of Lane Cake fame, which John Mariani describes in A Dictionary of American Food (1983) as “a layer cake with a fluffy frosting and containing coconut, chopped fruits and nuts in the filling.” The original recipe was first printed in 1898, and the book that I used came out in 1929. Although Mrs. Moody did omit the coconut – so it is a little bit different.

Still, let’s hope that Mrs. Lane has other plans for afternoon tea.

Explicit Answers, But Polite Regrets

Here are some hints from the Boston Herald-Traveler on how to be well-bred, circa 1929. Some of these I just had no idea about, or example:

Know how to give an At Home. I was under the impression that for this you merely had to have a clean sitting room and some tea and cookies out – that you were “in” to callers. What else does one do? (I will find out and let you know!)

Have your afternoon tea dainty, not hearty. So ixnay on the waffles, doughnuts and meat sandwiches. This afternoon’s post will focus on a few suggestions for dainty-tea refreshments (I wonder if mini doughnuts would work?)

Train your children to wait at table if you have not a maid. Insert laughter here.

Eat vegetables with a fork. As opposed to a spoon. If one needs to be told to do this, one probably ought to hold off on the intricacies of things like the At Home, don’t you think?

Answer invitations promptly. Answer invitations explicitly. Answer invitations explicitly ? Oh my, in what sense?

Remember party calls. But I don’t even know what a party call is, so how will I remember it? (Again, will go see what I can find out in my other old etiquette books. If you know, please let me know!)

And finally, here’s a must-do that is elsewhere in the book, but not on The List:

Do you know how to refuse an invitation? A good question…sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Must work on assertiveness in certain situations and….

No no no! Never mind all that. Because retro etiquette has something better for you than assertiveness training (you can tell that I dragged that phrase out of the 1970s, can’t you? Oh dear, that makes it rather retro, too…)

The answer in fact is: “We never, in fact, ‘refuse’ and invitation, we always ‘regret,’ most politely.” And you have to write it out. You may also “regret extremely” or “regret that a previous invitation prevents [your] accepting” whatever it is you don’t want to go to.

And you write it out beautifully and irrefutably. There you go. You know, I think I like this sort of thing.

I just wish that I didn’t have to wear a hat.

Source: Home-Maker’s Guide, by Marjorie Mills and Associate Women Editors (Boston: Boston Herald-Traveler, 1929)

Picture Source: New York Public Library Digital Gallery, link is here.