Rules for Cake.—Have every thing ready before mixing the material—i. e., the ingredients all measured and prepared, and the tins buttered. The sooner the cake is mixed (after the ingredients are ready) and put into the oven, the better. Sift the flour, and have it dry. Mix baking-powder or cream of tartar, if used, well into the flour, passing it through the sieve several times, if particular. Roll the sugar; mix sugar and butter together to a cream. The eggs must then be very, very well beaten separately. If one person makes the cake, beat the yolks first. If soda is used, dissolve it in the milk, or, if no milk is used, in a little lukewarm water; add it the last thing, unless fruit is used, when it should always be rolled in flour, and added the last thing. Cake, to be light, should be baked slowly at first, until the batter is evenly heated all through. Many leave the oven door slightly open for the first ten or fifteen minutes. The prepared flour is especially good for cake.

Sponge-cake.

This is the most perfect of sponge-cakes, when properly made.

Ingredients: Ten eggs, one pound of pulverized sugar, half a pound of flour, juice of half a large lemon, with the rind grated.

After all the ingredients are quite ready—i. e., the flour and sugar sifted, the lemon-peel grated, the half lemon squeezed, and the tins buttered—the success of this cake is in the beating of the eggs. Two persons should beat them at least half an hour, one beating the whites, and the other the yolks and half of the sugar together. Next cut the yolks into the whites, then stir in lightly the remainder of the sugar, then the flour and lemon by degrees.[J]

The oven heat should be rather moderate at first. Much of the success depends upon this, as the batter should be evenly heated throughout before it begins to rise. When baked, spread over the cakes a wafer thickness of icing (see page 304) slightly flavored with vanilla.

White Cake (Miss Eliza Brown).

I venture to say there is not to be found a better receipt for white cake than the following. The cake is mixed contrary to the usual rules for making cake, but it is the best mode for making it fine-grained and delicate.

Ingredients: Whites of six eggs, scant three-quarters of a cupful of butter, one and one-quarter cupfuls of pulverized sugar, two cupfuls of flour, juice of half a lemon, one-quarter of a tea-spoonful of soda.

If soda is used, mix it well with the flour, and pass it through the sieve several times to distribute it equally. Beat the butter to a light cream, and add the flour to it, stirring it in gradually with the ends of the fingers until it is a smooth paste. Beat the whites of the six eggs to a stiff froth, and mix in them the pulverized sugar; now stir the egg and sugar gradually into the flour and butter, adding also the lemon-juice, and mix it smoothly together with the egg-whisk. As soon as it is perfectly smooth, put it into the oven, the heat of which should be rather moderate at first. When done and still hot, spread over it a frosting made with the white of one egg, pulverized sugar (see page 304), and a flavoring of lemon. The frosting is a decided improvement, and, according to the receipt, only requires a few minutes to prepare.

This cake may be made with one tea-spoonful of baking-powder, or with prepared flour, or with the one-quarter tea-spoonful of soda and one-half tea-spoonful of cream of tartar, when the essence of lemon should be used instead of the lemon-juice.

Jumbles (Mrs. Wadsworth).

Ingredients: Two cupfuls of sugar, three eggs (beaten separately); one cupful of butter, just enough flour to roll it out.

Mix quickly, and roll it thin. Cut out the cakes with a round cake-cutter, cutting them out again in the centre with the top of the pepper-glass of the caster. When they are in the pans, wet the tops, using a paste-brush or feather, with the white of an egg slightly beaten. Then sprinkle over very coarse-pounded lump-sugar; the sugar, in fact, in little lumps.

Almond Jumbles.

Ingredients: One pound of sugar, one-half pound of butter, one pound of almonds blanched and chopped fine, two eggs, flour enough to mix stiff.

Roll thin. Moisten the top of each one with the white of eggs, and sprinkle with sugar. Bake quickly.

Some persons wet the jumbles with a brush or a little cloth saturated with sherry-wine after they are cooked, and then return them to the oven a few moments to dry.

Cocoa-nut Cake (Miss Emma Witt, of Cleveland).

Ingredients: One-half coffee-cupful of butter, two small tea-spoonfuls of cream of tartar, two and one-half coffee-cupfuls of sugar, one small tea-spoonful of soda, four and one-half coffee-cupfuls of flour, two grated cocoa-nuts, one coffee-cupful of sweet milk, the whites of seven eggs.

Reserve a large handful of the grated cocoa-nut to sprinkle on the frosting. This cake looks most beautiful mixed with fruit-cake in a cake-basket.

Fruit-cake (Miss Abbie Carpenter, of Saratoga).

Ingredients: One pound of flour, one pound of sugar, one and one-eighth pound of butter, one-half pound of candied citron, four pounds of currants, four pounds of raisins (stoned and chopped), nine eggs, one table-spoonful each of ground cloves, of cinnamon, of mace, and of nutmeg, and three gills of brandy.

This cake is perhaps not too large, as it will keep for years.

English Pound-cake.

Ingredients: One pound of butter beaten to a cream, one pound of pounded sugar, ten eggs (whites and yolks beaten separately), one pound of dried flour, eight ounces of almonds, eight ounces of candied peel, two wine-glasses of brandy.

When all are well beaten together, add three pounds of English currants and one pound of raisins (both dredged in flour). Set it immediately in a moderate oven, and bake three hours at least.

Boston Cream-cakes.

Paste.—One pint of water, half a pound of butter, three-quarters of a pound of flour, ten eggs.

Boil the water and butter together; stir in the flour while boiling, and let it cook a moment; when cool, add the eggs, well beaten, with a tea-spoonful of saleratus and a little salt. Drop with a spoon on buttered tins, forming little cakes some distance apart. Bake in a quick oven; they will puff in baking. When done and cold, cut one side large enough to insert the cream with a spoon. This will make about sixty cakes.

Cream.—One cupful of flour, two cupfuls of sugar, four eggs, one quart of milk.

Beat the eggs and sugar together, then add flour and enough of the milk to make a smooth and thin paste; pour this into the remainder of the milk when it is boiling, and stir constantly until it is sufficiently thickened; flavor with vanilla. Do not use it until it is cold. It is better to make this, as indeed all custards, in a custard-kettle.

Crullers (Miss Amanda Newton).

Beat three eggs well with four table-spoonfuls of sugar; add four or five table-spoonfuls of melted lard, then flour enough to make it not too stiff. Roll rather thin (one-third of an inch). Cut the cakes into shapes, and throw them into boiling lard, like doughnuts. They may be simply shaped, as in Fig. 1. To give them the shape of Fig. 3, first cut the paste, as in Fig. 2; hold the first line with the thumb and finger of the left hand, then with the right hand slip the second line under the first, then the third under the second, and so on until they are all slipped under; pinch the two ends together, and the cruller will be in form of Fig. 3.

Doughnuts (Mrs. Bartlett).

Ingredients: Two eggs, one cupful of sugar, one cupful of sour milk, half a tea-spoonful of soda, four table-spoonfuls of melted lard; add flour, making the dough rather soft.

Fry them in hot lard, and sprinkle pulverized sugar over them while still hot.

Bread-cake.

Ingredients: Three cupfuls of bread-dough, one cupful of butter, three scant cupfuls of sugar, one cupful of raisins or English currants, three eggs, a nutmeg grated, one tea-spoonful of soda, two of cream of tartar, a wine-glassful of brandy.

Gingerbread (Mrs. Lansing), No. 1.

Ingredients: Two cupfuls of molasses, one cupful of butter, one cupful of sugar, one cupful of milk (sour or sweet), five eggs, five cupfuls of sifted flour, two table-spoonfuls of ginger, half a tea-spoonful of cloves, one tea-spoonful of soda.

Gingerbread (No. 2).

Ingredients: One cupful (half a pint) of molasses, one cupful (half a pint) of boiling water, butter the size of an egg, one tea-spoonful each of ground cloves, ground cinnamon, ginger, and soda, half a pound of flour (light weight).

First, put butter (partly melted) into the molasses, then spices. Dissolve the soda in the boiling water; stir it into the molasses, etc.; then the flour. Cream of tartar should not be used with molasses.

Chocolate-cake.

Make a cup-cake with the following ingredients: One cupful of butter, two cupfuls of sugar, three cupfuls of flour, one cupful of milk, four eggs beaten separately, one tea-spoonful of soda, two tea-spoonfuls of cream of tartar, or two tea-spoonfuls of yeast powder.

Cut the cup-cake, when baked, through the middle, or bake it in two or three parts. Put a layer of the chocolate mixture between and on the top and sides of the cake.

Chocolate Mixture.—Five table-spoonfuls of grated chocolate, with enough cream or milk to wet it, one cupful of sugar, and one egg well beaten. Stir the ingredients over the fire until thoroughly mixed; then flavor with vanilla.

Mountain-cake.

Ingredients: Whites of six eggs, one and a quarter cupfuls of sugar, one and a quarter cupfuls of flour, half a cupful of butter, half a cupful of sweet milk, half a cupful of corn starch, a little vanilla, two tea-spoonfuls of baking-powder.

Bake it in two or three parts, like jelly-cake; put a frosting between the layers and on top of the cake, made of the whites of four eggs, nine table-spoonfuls of pulverized sugar, and a little vanilla; or use grated cocoa-nut, mixed thickly in the frosting, without vanilla; or use the chocolate mixture in the preceding receipt; or make it a jelly-cake.

Cream Cake or Pie (Mrs. Arnold).

This is an excellent dessert cut as a pie, or it may be served as a cake for tea.

Crust.—Three eggs, one cupful of sugar, one cupful of flour, one-third of a tea-spoonful of soda, and one tea-spoonful of cream of tartar. Beat the whites and yolks well separately; stir all together as quickly as possible, and bake in two pans (if rather small; if large, use only one), the batter three-quarters of an inch thick.

Cream.—Two and a half cupfuls of sweet milk, four even table-spoonfuls of sugar, two table-spoonfuls of flour, and one egg. Boil this a few moments until it has thickened, and flavor with vanilla or lemon.

When the crust is cold, split it, and put the custard between.

This cake is much improved with a boiled icing.

Sponge Jelly-cake (Mrs. Pope).

Ingredients: Five eggs, one cupful of sugar, one cupful of flour, two even tea-spoonfuls of yeast-powder, and grated rind of a lemon.

Beat the yolks, sugar, and lemon together to a cream; add whites of eggs beaten to a stiff froth; then the flour and yeast-powder perfectly mixed. Bake in a dripping-pan, and when done spread jelly (not sweet) over the bottom of the cake, roll it from the side, and sprinkle sugar over the top; or bake it in two or three jelly-cake pans, and spread jelly between. The cake may be iced on the bottom. The rolled jelly-cake may be cut into slices, and served with a sweet sauce for dessert.

Cocoa-nut Cones.

Ingredients: One pound of cocoa-nut grated, half a pound of sugar, the whites of two eggs, and the yolk of one egg.

Beat the yolk well; add the sugar to it; then the cocoa-nut and whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Drop by the tea-spoonful on sheets of buttered paper placed on tins. Form each little cake into the shape of a cone, and bake in a moderate oven about half an hour.

Croquante Cake (Mrs. Lackland).

Ingredients: Three-quarters of a pound of shelled almonds, half a pound of citron, three-quarters of a pound of sugar, three-quarters of a pound of flour, and six eggs.

Blanch and halve the almonds, and slice the citron; mix them well together, and roll them in flour; add to them the sugar, then the eggs (well beaten), lastly the flour. Butter shallow pans, and lay in the mixture two inches thick. After it is baked in a quick oven, slice the cake into strips one inch wide, and turn every strip. Return the pan to the oven, and bake the sides a little. When cold, put it away in tin boxes. This cake will keep a year or more, and for reserve use is quite invaluable.

To Blanch Almonds.

Put them over the fire in cold water, and let them remain until the water is almost at the boiling-point, not allowing them to boil; then throw them into cold water. Remove the skins, and dry the almonds in a cloth before using.

When they are to be pounded for macaroons, mÉringues, etc., they should be first dried for two or three days in a gentle heat.

Rebecca Cake (Mrs. North).

Ingredients: Half a cupful of butter, one cupful of sugar, one cupful of sweet milk, one egg, one pint of flour, one tea-spoonful of soda, and two tea-spoonfuls of cream of tartar.

For a change, a cupful of raisins or of English currants, or a mixture of both, or an addition of sliced citron, may be added.

Ginger-snaps (Mrs. Leach).

Ingredients: One pint of molasses, one coffee-cupful of brown sugar, one coffee-cupful of butter, one table-spoonful of ginger, and one heaping tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in one table-spoonful of hot water.

Mix very thick with flour, and roll them very thin.

Plain Cookies.

Ingredients: One cupful of butter (or half butter and half lard), two cupfuls of sugar, one cupful of milk, two eggs, about a quart of flour (cookies are better to have no more flour than is necessary for rolling them thin without sticking), three tea-spoonfuls (not heaping) of yeast-powder, or one tea-spoonful of cream of tartar and half a tea-spoonful of soda.

Sour milk can be used, when add the half tea-spoonful of soda, and omit the cream of tartar. Bake in a quick oven.

Almond Macaroons.

Blanch and skin eight ounces of Jordan almonds and one ounce of bitter ones; dry them on a sieve, and pound them to a smooth paste in a mortar, adding occasionally a very little water, to prevent them from getting oily; add to them five ounces of pulverized sugar, one tea-spoonful of rice flour, and the whites of three eggs beaten to a stiff froth; with a spoon, put this on paper in drops the size of a walnut; bake in a slow oven until they are of a light-brown color, and firmly set; take them from the paper by wetting the under side of it.

Lady’s-fingers.

Mix six yolks of eggs with half a pound of powdered sugar; work the preparation with a spoon until it is frothy; then mix into it the whites of six eggs well beaten, and at the same time a quarter of a pound of flour, dried and sifted. Put this batter into a mÉringue bag, and squeeze it through in strips, two or three inches long, and sprinkle over some fine sugar; bake in a slack oven twelve or fourteen minutes.

MÉringues À la CrÈme.

Ingredients: Six whites of eggs, nine ounces of pulverized sugar, half a pint of cream (whipped), three ounces of sugar with the cream, a slight flavoring of vanilla.

Whip the eggs to a very stiff froth, add three or four drops of vanilla, and mix in the pulverized sifted sugar, by turning the sugar all over the eggs at once, and cutting it together very carefully. Sprinkle sugar over a tin platter, and on it place table-spoonfuls of this mixture at convenient distances apart; smooth the tops, and sprinkle a little sugar over them also.

The secret of making mÉringues is in the baking. Put them into a moderate oven, and leave the oven-door open for thirty-five minutes at least. They should not be allowed to color for that time, which would prevent them from drying properly, and a thin paper crust is very undesirable for a mÉringue; in fact, the longer they dry before coloring, the thicker will be the crust. They should be in the oven at least three-quarters of an hour, only allowing them to color slightly the last two or three minutes. While they are still hot, scoop out carefully the soft contents, and when they are cold fill them with whipped cream, press two of them together, forming a ball, and put them into the refrigerator to set the cream.

Whipped Cream.—Add the three ounces of sugar and a flavoring of vanilla, sherry, or any thing preferred, to the cream, and when whipped put the froth into a kitchen bowl, and whip it again with the egg-whip or a machine egg-beater; this makes it finer-grained and stiffer.

A much prettier arrangement for dessert is the mÉringue as it is fashioned at Delmonico’s. Instead of little mÉringues, each one is made a half ball, about six inches in diameter. They are dried very slowly, so that the crust is about one-third of an inch thick. When emptied of the soft interiors, and when cold, two shells are placed on a platter, like an open clam-shell. The whipped cream, when about to serve (already set, by being on the ice), is banked between them, reaching as high above as suits the fancy. The cream may be decorated with strawberries, raspberries, etc., or it may be served without ornamentation.

German Cake (Mrs. Schulenburg).

Ingredients: One pound of flour, three-quarters of a pound of butter, six ounces of sugar, one egg, half a cupful of rum.

Bake in a pie-pan, pressing the cake until it is about one-quarter of an inch high. Before baking, sprinkle sugar and ground cinnamon on top; after it is baked, cut it into squares while it is yet warm.

Ranaque Buns.

Ingredients: One pound of butter, one and a quarter pounds of sugar, two pounds of flour, six eggs, four table-spoonfuls of ground cinnamon.

Mix the cinnamon into the flour; rub the butter to a cream, then mix the flour with it. Beat the sugar with the eggs, then all together, as little as possible. Distribute this by the spoonful into rough-looking cakes on buttered tins placed at a little distance apart. This is a very nice lunch-cake.

Frosting.

The old way of making frosting was a half-day’s work. I now laugh at the extra exertion once made to be sure that the eggs were sufficiently and properly beaten. The following is the true way to make frosting, which is done and dried on the cake in ten minutes, allowing three minutes for the making:

Use a heaping tea-cupful of fine pulverized sugar to the white of each egg, or, say, a pound of sugar to the whites of three eggs. Beat the whites until they are slightly foaming only; do not beat them to a froth. The sugar may all be poured on the egg at once, or, if considered easier to mix, it may be gradually added. Either way, as soon as the sugar and eggs are thoroughly stirred together, and flavored with a little lemon or vanilla, the icing is ready to spread over the cake. It would be advisable to ice the cakes as soon as they are taken from the oven. The icing made with the white of one egg is quite sufficient to frost an ordinary-sized cake.

It is very little extra trouble to decorate a frosted cake. One can purchase funnels for the purpose with different shaped ends. In place of no better funnel, make a cornucopia of stiff writing-paper; fill it with the frosting, and press it out at the small end, forming different shapes, according to taste, over the cake. Little centre-pieces or leaves can always be purchased at the confectioner’s to aid in the decoration.

For a cocoa-nut-cake, mix plenty of the grated cocoa-nut into the frosting, which spread over the cake; decorate it then with plain frosting.

For a chocolate-cake, after spreading over the chocolate frosting mentioned in the receipt for chocolate-cake, decorate it with delicate lines of the white frosting.

The appearance of boiled icing (which is generally flavored with lemon) is much improved also by a decoration with the plain white frosting.

Boiled Icing.

Ingredients: One pound of sugar, whites of three eggs.

First, boil the sugar with a little water; when it is ready to candy, or will spin in threads when dropping from the end of a spoon, take it off the fire, and while it is still boiling hot add the whites of the eggs well beaten, stirring them in as fast as possible. Flavor with lemon (if preferred), vanilla, Jamaica rum, or any of the flavorings, and it is ready for use.

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