Buttermilk Cake
A favorite genre of cakes was white cake, made with egg whites (lots of them), soft white winter wheat flour, sugar, butter, baking soda and cream of tartar. There were many variations of the formula, all aiming to get a light crumb, sweet flavor, and white appearance. Often covered in white icing, the standard white cake was a fixture on the sideboard of a polite parlor prior to 1950. Some sought to make the flavor more plush by adding vanilla to the mix. But there was more than a whiff of artifice to this path of white cake making. A solider path to a rich tasking white cake was to make buttermilk an ingredient, which with cream of tartar and baking soda would activate enough gas to aerate the crumb of the cake.
There are many good recipes floating about the South for a buttermilk white cake. The one found on page 112 of the Columbia Cook Book has a forthrightness that is winning.
I admire the act of Mrs. Shelton’s phrase “Lastly add flavoring (your own choice)” in the final paragraph. This doesn’t preclude vanilla, but doesn’t condone it, and allows some creative leeway for the baker to experiment with mint, citrus, spice . . . whatever. But a good buttermilk cake does not need extras to impress.
So would the egg whites be whipped before being added to the batter?