I like making recipes from the late 1800s - early 1900s and this recipe is no exception. I enjoy seeing what types of food they came up with back then and compare it to how we make and eat food today.



This one is called Feather Cake and is from 1921.

Here's the recipe:



1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp. flavoring



Cream butter together and then add the sugar gradually. Beat the eggs and add them into the mixture.



Next, sift the flour and baking powder together. Add this mixture alternately with the milk to the whole mixture.



Add the flavoring. I use vanilla as the flavoring but you could really use any extract flavoring for this recipe. Beat rapidly for a few minutes and then pour into a loaf-cake pan and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. This recipe didn't actually specify a time or temperature to bake at, so I used a general temperature and time and it came out just fine.



The recipe also says to ice the cake with a simple white icing. I found another old recipe for icing that compliments this cake well.



Simple white or colored icing:



1/2 tsp. butter

2 tbsp. hot milk

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. baking powder



Add the butter to the hot milk. Slowly add sugar until it is the right consistency to spread. Add the baking powder and vanilla. Once thoroughly mixed, spread on top and sides of cake.



If you want to color the icing, such as pink, add 1 tbsp. strawberry or other fruit juice to the icing mixture. For yellow icing add 1 tsp. egg yolk and flavor with orange rind and 1 tsp. lemon juice.