This is a very old recipe. It is called 1 2 3 4 because originally people could remember the ingredients by the numbers. This cake is good as it stands, but also was served with lemon butter.

3 cups sifted cake flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened at room temperature

2 cups sugar

4 eggs, separated

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup milk

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 9 x 2 round cake pans, dust with flour and tap out the excess.

Mix together flour, baking powser and salt in a large bowl.

Beat butter at medium speed in large bowl, gradually adding in sugar until very light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks until just blended. Do not overbeat. Add vanilla.

Sift half the flour mixture over butter mixture, light stir in. Stir in half of the milk. Repeat with the remaining flour and milk.

Beat the egg white in a medium bowl with clean beaters until soft peaks form. Stir in a little of the beaten egg white at a time into the cake batter. Gently fold in the remaining whites. Divide this batter into your two cake pans equally.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until the top is lightly brown and the center comes out clean with a wooden toothpick inserted into the center of the cake.

Transfer the two cakes to wire racks to cool. Remove the cakes from the pans. Sandwich the two cakes together with the lemon butter filling . Dust the top with powdered sugar.

The ladies would take a plate, and trace the circle on some paper. Folding the cut out circle in half and quarters, and eights into the cone shape they would cut out designs, and when opened would provide a snowflake like design. This would be used as a stencil, and the powdered surgar would be sprinked into the cut out holes to lay a design down on the cake top.

I have some of these original designs, which I would put on the web if any would like to see them.

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