Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 (206 page)

An 8-cup bread pan or two 4- to 5-cup pans, heavily buttered and bottom lined with buttered waxed paper

Turn the mixture into the pan or pans. Dip your fingers in cold water, and smooth top of batter. Pans should be ½ to ⅔ filled. Bake in middle level of preheated 325-degree oven. Batter will rise to fill pan and top will probably crack slightly; it is best not to open oven door for 45 minutes or to touch anything, for fear of releasing the soda-engendered gases that are pushing the batter up. Four- to 5-cup pans will take 50 to 60 minutes; the 8-cup pan, about 1¼ hours. The spice bread is done when a skewer plunged to bottom of pan comes out clean, and when bread begins to show faint lines of shrinkage from edges of pan.

Let cool in pan for 10 to 15 minutes, then unmold on a rack. Immediately peel paper off bottom and gently turn the bread puffed-side up. When cold, in about 2 hours, wrap airtight in plastic.
Pain d’épices
improves in flavor when aged, so do not serve it for at least a day; a wait of several days is actually preferable. It will keep for several weeks under refrigeration, or may be frozen for several months.

LE QUATRE QUARTS

[Pound Cake—Yellow Butter Cake]

The French name for this cake,
Le Quatre Quarts
, or “Four Quarters,” comes from its original proportions, which are
un quart de livre
, a quarter
pound each, of its four ingredients—eggs, sugar, flour, and butter. The English like the formula so much that they use a pound of everything—hence, of course, pound cake. Of the several methods for making pound cake, we find by far the best one results from beating the eggs and sugar in an electric mixer until they double in volume and have enough body so that they keep that volume when the flour is rapidly blended in, followed by the softly creamed butter; the batter should look like a rich mayonnaise as you turn it into the pan. Besides beating the eggs, which presents no problem when you do it electrically, your other important object is to cream the butter so that it is soft enough to mix easily and rapidly into the batter without deflating it, yet has enough body so that it remains in suspension throughout the mixture rather than sinking to the bottom of the pan like melted butter.

For a 4-cup pan
,
such as the standard, round, 8 by 1½-inch American pan

1)
Preliminaries

A 4-cup cake pan, buttered and floured

6 ounces (1½ sticks) butter

A small saucepan or bowl

A wire whip

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and set rack in middle level. Prepare the cake pan. Either beat room-temperature butter into a smooth cream, or cut chilled butter into ½-inch slices and beat over low heat until it begins to soften and continue beating until it is a mayonnaise-like cream. If it softens too much, beat over a bowl filled with ice and water. Butter must be like a heavy mayonnaise. Set aside.

2)
The cake batter

3 “large” eggs (⅔ cup)

1 cup sugar

The grated rind of 1 lemon or orange

An electric mixer and large (3-quart) bowl

Blend the eggs and sugar with the lemon or orange peel for a minute at low speed to mix, then increase speed to high and beat for 4 to 5 minutes or more, until mixture is pale, fluffy, doubled in volume, and looks like whipped cream. If you are using a mixer on a stand, measure the flour while the eggs are beating.

1¼ cups (6 ounces) cake flour (measure by scooping dry-measure cup into flour and sweeping off excess with a knife)

A sieve or sifter set on waxed paper

Measure out the flour and sieve or sift onto the paper. Beat the eggs and sugar again for a moment if they have lost their body or volume. Turn speed to low and gradually sprinkle in the flour as you mix. Do this rapidly, and do not try for a perfect blending at this point; the operation should not take more than 15 to 20 seconds (for a mixer on a stand—longer for a hand-held model.)

The creamy mayonnaise-like butter

2 rubber spatulas

Still at low speed, and using 1 spatula to remove the butter from its bowl, and a second to dislodge it from the first, rapidly incorporate the butter into the egg mixture, taking no more than 15 to 20 seconds (with a mixer on a stand), and, again, not trying for a perfect blend.

Remove bowl from stand, if you have that kind of mixer, and rapidly cut down through batter and out to side with rubber spatula, rotating bowl and repeating the movement 2 or 3 times to complete the blending. Turn batter into prepared pan; run it up to rim all around with spatula, and bang pan lightly on table to deflate any bubbles.

3)
Baking—about 40 minutes at 350 degrees

Immediately set pan in middle level of preheated oven and bake for about 40 minutes, until a skewer or toothpick plunged down into top center of cake comes out clean. Cake will have risen slightly over top of pan, top will have browned nicely, and cake will feel lightly springy when pressed. Cool 10 minutes in pan, then unmold onto a rack; if you wish to serve it plain, immediately reverse it onto another rack so its puffed side will be uppermost.

4)
Serving

The
Quatre Quarts
may be served as is, sprinkled with powdered sugar. Or fill and ice it with anything you wish. Here is a quick and simple filling.

Crème au Citron or Crème à l’Orange

[Lemon- or Orange-cream Filling]

For about 1 cup, enough for an 8- to 9-inch cake