Rosanna Recipe: Cold Water White Cake

COLD WATER WHITE CAKE

Rosanna Bauman recently wrote about Cold Water White Cake in one of her recent columns. This cake is our family's favorite. It will show up at family gatherings as a shortcake, or as cupcakes iced with whipped topping. Several of our family (my parents included) chose this for their wedding cake, with a butter-cream icing.  We don’t dare use any other recipe for our shortcake other than the old family standby: Cold Water White Cake. This is a moist, dense, yet airy cake best described as a cross between a pound cake and an angel food cake. Our family does  not get real excited about cakes in general; our boys consume a lot of food, but a cake will just sit on the counter unless they are really hungry, and even the the boys are more likely to fry an egg than eat a piece of cake! This cake, however, is one that gets eaten within the day, and we never, ever apply any icing. I kind-of snicker at the name, as if anyone would use hot water to mix up a cake! But this is a very old cake recipe, over a.hundred years, which may explain how the cake got its unusual name- I do not know of any cake that specifically requests warm water when mixing, but this cake is certain to request that only cold water be used. It may be that, in the old days the water used for cooking had gotten lukewarm from sitting in a bucket, and was not typically drawn fresh from the well

COLD WATER WHITE CAKE

4 egg whites

2 tablespoons baking powder

2 cups sugar

½ cup shortening

1 cup cold water

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1 /2 cups flour

Beat egg whites with baking powder until stiff peaks form. In a separate bowl, cream sugar with shortening. Add cold water, vanilla, flour, and pinch of salt.

Fold in egg whites. Pour batter into 9" round cake pans that are greased and floured. Bake at 350 for 35 to 40 minutes. Frost with your favorite frosting when cool.