CHAPTER XVI.
CAKE.
The multiplication of recipes for cakes, pies, puddings, and desserts is troublesome and needless, inasmuch as a little generalization will reduce them to a comparatively small compass, and yet afford a large variety.
Cake is of three classes, as raised either by eggs, or by yeast, or by powders; and different proportions of flour, sugar, shortening, and wetting make the variety, as it appears in what follows.
_General Directions_.
Sift flour, roll sugar, sift spices, and prepare fruit beforehand. Break eggs that are to be whipped, one at a time, in a cup, and let none of the yelk go in. Have them _cold_, and you will get on faster.
Excepting dough-cake, never use the hand in making cake, but a wooden spoon, and in an earthen vessel.
The goodness of cake depends greatly on baking. If too hot at bottom, set the pan on a brick; if too hot at top, cover with paper. If top-crust is formed suddenly, it prevents what is below from rising properly; and so, when the oven is very hot, cover with paper.
When fruit is used, sprinkle the fruit with a little flour to keep it from sinking when baking. Some put fruit in in layers, one in the middle and another near the top, as this spreads it evenly. Put in the flour just before baking.
When using whites beaten to a froth separately, put in the last thing, so that the bubbles of air which make the lightness may be retained more perfectly. Bake as soon as the cake is ready.
Water is as good as milk for most cakes as well as for bread; a mixture of new and stale milk injures the cake.
Streaks in cake are made either by imperfect mixing, or unequal baking, or by sudden decrease of heat before the cake is done. Try when cake is done, by inserting a splinter or straw; if it comes out clean, the cake is done.
The best way to keep cake is in a tin box or stone jar.
Do not wrap cake or bread in a cloth.
In baking, move cake _gently_ if you change its place, or it will fall in streaks. Cake is more nicely baked when the pan is lined with oiled paper, especially in old pans, which often give a bad taste to the bottom and sides of the cake.
CAKE RAISED WITH POWDERS.
Although it is unhealthful to use powders in bread for daily food, the small quantity used for cake will do no harm.
The cake most easily made is raised with soda and cream tartar or other baking powders, and many varieties can be made by the following recipes:
=One, Two, Three, Four Cake.=—Take one cup of butter, (half a cup is better,) two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, and four eggs. Mix butter, sugar, and yelks. Then add the flour very thoroughly, and lastly the whites in a stiff froth. Bake immediately, and the cake will be light, with nothing added. But it is equally light to omit the eggs and work two tea-spoonfuls of cream tartar into the flour, and then mix well first the butter and sugar, and then the flour. When ready to bake, mix very thoroughly and quickly a tea-spoonful of soda, or a bit of sal volatile dissolved in a cup of warm (not hot) water. This makes two loaves. The following are varieties made by this recipe, using raising either with eggs or powders:
=Chocolate-Cake.=—Bake the above in thin layers, only a little thicker than carpeting. When nearly cool, spread over the cake a paste made of equal parts of scraped chocolate and sugar wet with water. Place the cake in layers one over another, frost the top, and then cut in oblong pieces for the cake-basket.
=Jelly-Cake.=—Proceed as above, only using jelly instead of chocolate.
=Orange-Cake.=—Proceed as for jelly-cake, having flavored the cake when making with a little grated orange-peel. The oranges must be peeled, chopped fine, and sweetened.
=Almond and Cocoa-nut Cake.=—Blanch three ounces of almonds, (that is, pour on boiling water and take off the skins.) Chop or pound them with an equal quantity of sugar, make a thin paste with water, and use this instead of the jelly. Cocoa-nut, chopped fine, can be used instead of almonds. _Straw__berries_, _Peaches_, _Cranberries_, and _Quinces_, and any other fruit, mashed or cooked, can be used in place of the jelly, being first sweetened.
This cake can be made richer by adding spices and fruit before baking. Cream can be used in place of butter. Chopped almonds, citron, or cocoa-nut may be put in the cake for baking, making still another variety.
CAKES RAISED WITH EGGS.
=Pound-Cake=, (very rich.)—One pound of flour, one pound of sugar, half a pound of butter, nine eggs, a glass of brandy, one nutmeg, one tea-spoonful of pounded cinnamon. Mix half the flour with the butter, brandy, and spice; add the yelks of eggs beaten well into the sugar. Beat the whites to a stiff froth, and add them in alternate spoonfuls with the rest of the flour: then beat a long time, and bake as soon as done.
=Plain Cake raised with Eggs.=—Take a pound or quart of flour, half as much sugar, half as much butter as sugar, four or five eggs, one nutmeg, and a tea-spoonful of cinnamon. Mix well the sugar, butter, yelks, and spice; then the flour, and last the whites as stiff froth.
These two cakes are varied by adding citron, fruit, or other spices, making them more or less rich.
=Fruit-Cake.=—This to be made either like pound-cake, with fruit added; or like plain cake, raised with eggs or yeast, adding fruit.
_Walnut-meats_ or _Almonds_ may be chopped and put in the cake instead of fruit, making another variety.
=Huckleberry-Cake.=—One quart of huckleberries, three cups of sugar, three cups of flour, six eggs, one cup of sweet milk, and one tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in a little hot water. Cream the butter and sugar, and add the beaten yelks. Then add the milk, flour, and two grated nutmegs. Then add the whites, whipped to a stiff froth, and the berries, gently, so as not to mash them. An excellent cake.
Currants and other berries may be used in the same way. If very sour, add more sugar. If doubtful of raising it enough, add a tea-spoonful of soda; or, more surely, a bit of sal volatile the size of a hickory-nut.
=Gold and Silver Cake.=—This makes a pretty variety when cut and placed together in a cake-dish. For each, take one cup of sugar (for the silver, white; and for the gold, brown), half a cup of butter, half a cup of milk, two cups of flour, one tea-spoonful of cream tartar, and half as much soda. For the one, use the yelk of three eggs; and the white, as stiff froth, for the other. Mix the cream tartar very thoroughly in the flour, and put in the soda last. Bake immediately. This makes one loaf of each kind, in flat pans, and is to be frosted. If more is wanted, double the quantity of each ingredient.
=Rich Sponge-Cake.=—Take twelve eggs, and the weight of ten in sugar, and six in flour. Beat the sugar into the yelks, add the juice and grated peel of one lemon, then the flour, and then the whites cut to a stiff froth, and bake as soon as possible. Bake in brick-shaped pans, and line them with buttered paper.
=Plain Sponge-Cake=, (easily made.)—Mix thoroughly two cups of sifted flour and two cups of white sugar with one tea-spoonful of cream tartar. Beat four eggs to a froth, not separating the whites, and add some grated lemon-peel, or nutmeg, or rose-water. Just before baking, add half a tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in three great-spoonfuls of warm water. Beat quick, and set in the oven immediately.
GINGERBREAD, FRIED CAKES, COOKIES, AND OTHER CAKES.
=Aunt Esther’s Gingerbread.=—Take half a pint of molasses, a small cup of soft butter, a gill and a half of water, a heaping tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in a table-spoonful of hot water, and one even table-spoonful of strong ginger, or two if weak. Rub butter and ginger into the flour, add the water, soda, and molasses, and while doing it, put in two table-spoonfuls of vinegar. Roll it in cards an inch thick, and bake half an hour in a quick oven.
=Sponge Gingerbread.=—Add to the above two beaten eggs, and water to make it thin as pound-cake, and bake as soon as well mixed.
=Ginger-Snaps and Seed-Cookies.=—One cup of butter, two cups of sugar or molasses, one cup of water, one table-spoonful of ginger, one heaping tea-spoonful of cinnamon and one of cloves, one tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in a small cup of hot water. Mix and add flour for a stiff dough, roll and cut in small round cakes. Omit the spices, and put in four or five table-spoonfuls of caraway seeds, and you have _seed-cakes_. Leave out all spice and seeds, and you have plain cookies.
=Fried Cakes=.—For _Doughnuts_, use the recipe for Plain Sponge-Cake, adding flour enough to roll. Or take Plain Cake raised with eggs, and add flour enough to roll. Or take Dough-Cake, or Plain Loaf-Cake, and thicken so as to roll. Roll about half an inch thick and cut into oblong pieces. For _Crullers_, take plain cake raised with eggs, and thicken stiff with flour; roll it thin, and cut into strips, and form twisted cakes. More sugar and butter make it richer, but less healthful.
Have plenty of lard, or, better, strained beef-fat, quite hot; try with a small piece first, and, if right, there will be a bubbling. Turn two or three times to cook all alike, break open one to try if done, and when done, take up with a skimmer and drain well. If the fat is too hot, it will brown too quick; if not hot enough, the fat will soak into the cake. Remember that frying is the most unhealthful mode of cooking food, and the one most likely to be done amiss.
CAKE RAISED WITH YEAST.
=Plain Loaf-Cake.=—Two pounds of dried and sifted flour, a pint of warm water in which is melted a quarter of a pound of butter, half a tea-spoonful of salt, three eggs without beating, and three quarters of a pound of sugar, well mixed; and then add two nutmegs, two tea-spoonfuls of cinnamon, and two gills of home-brewed or half as much distillery yeast. When light, add two or three pounds of fruit, and let it stand half an hour.
=Rich Loaf-Cake= is made like the above, only adding more butter and sugar. The following are specimens of the diverse proportions: Four pounds of flour, three of sugar, two of butter, a quart of water or milk, ten unbeaten eggs, half a pint of wine, three nutmegs, three tea-spoonfuls of cinnamon, and two cloves; two gills of distillery yeast, or twice as much home-brewed. This is what in New-England would be called Election or Commencement-Cake. Two or three risings used to be practiced, but one is as good if the mixing is thorough.
=Dough-Cake.=—Three cups of raised dough, half a cup of butter, two cups of sugar, two eggs, fruit and spice to the taste. When light, bake in loaves. This can be made more or less sweet, and shortened by lessening or increasing the quantity of dough. It must be mixed with the hands.
=Icing for Cake.=—Put the whites of eggs into a dish, and for each egg use about a quarter of a pound of sugar. Beat the whites, slowly adding the sugar. This is better than beating the whites first, and then adding sugar. A little lemon-juice or tartaric acid makes it whiter and better. Spread the icing, after pouring it upon the centre, with a knife dipped in water. If you can, dry in an open, sunny window. Otherwise, harden it in the oven. It improves it by mixing, when adding sugar, some almonds pounded to a thin paste.