I recently had some friends over and wanted to serve a nice dessert (and, of course, I wanted to make a hundred-year-old recipe), so I pulled out my 1925 recipe books and found a lovely recipe for Maraschino Cherry Cake.
The cake was colorful with cherry fragments throughout that gave it a delightful sweet, yet tart, flavor.
Here’s the original recipe:
This recipe calls for 1 cup of liquid. When, I made it, I used 1/4 cup of liquid from a jar of Maraschino cherries and 3/4 cup of milk.
The stores where I shop do not carry pastry flour, so I used all-purpose flour. It worked fine.
When I updated this recipe, I reduced the amount of baking powder from 4 teaspoons to 3 teaspoons. Four teaspoons seems like a lot, and I had a little difficulty with the cake falling. A possible cause is the use of too much baking powder, so I decided to reduce the amount.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Maraschino Cherry Cake
4 egg whites
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup liquid from jar of Maraschino cherries
3/4 milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups pastry (or all-purpose) flour
1/2 cup Maraschino cherries, chopped
Preheat oven to 350◦ F. Beat egg whites until stiff, then set aside.
Put butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, then cream. Stir in Maraschino cherry liquid and milk. Add salt, baking powder, and flour; beat until smooth. Stir in the chopped Maraschino cherries, then fold in the beaten egg whites. Put into prepared pans. A large loaf pan, round layer cake pans, or a rectangular cake pan may be used. Bake until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean (about 35 minutes for cake pans or 45 minutes for a loaf pan). If desired, ice. (I iced the cake with a buttercream frosting. I substitute liquid from a jar of Maraschino cherries for some of the milk when making the frosting.)
Old-cookbooks occasionally refer to recipes as “receipts.” A hundred years ago, “receipt” was already considered an archaic term. Here’s what it said in a 1925 magazine: