Part 30

_Vanilla Syrup._--Take six fine fresh vanilla beans. Split, and cut them in pieces. Scrape the seeds loose in the pods with your finger nail, and bruise and mash the shells. All this will increase the vanilla flavor. Put all you can get of the vanilla into a small quart of what is called by the druggist "absolute alcohol." Cork the bottle closely, and let the vanilla infuse in it a week. Then strain it through a very fine strainer that will not let out a single seed. Have ready half a dozen pint bottles of simple syrup. Put into every bottle of the simple syrup a portion of the strained infusion of vanilla. Cork it tightly and use it for vanilla flavoring in ice creams, custards, blancmange, &c.

_Orange or Lemon Syrups_--Are made by paring off the yellow rind very thin (after the fruit has been rolled under your hand on a table to increase the juice,) then boiling the rind till the water is highly flavored. Strain this water over the best loaf sugar, allowing two pounds of sugar to a pint of juice. The sugar being melted, mix it with the juice.

WATER ICES OR SHERBET.--Water ices are made of the juice of fruits, very well sweetened, mixed with a little water, and frozen in the manner of ice cream, to which they are by many persons preferred. They are all prepared nearly in the same manner, allowing a pint of juice to a pint of water, and a quarter of a pound of sugar. Mix it well, and then freeze it in the manner of ice cream, and serve it up in glass bowls. For lemon and orange sherbet, first roll the fruit on a table under your hand; then take off a very thin paring of the yellow rind, and boil it slowly in a very little water, till all the flavor is extracted. Next, strain the flavored water into the cold water you intend to mix with the juice, and make it very sweet with loaf sugar. Squeeze the juice into it through a tin strainer to avoid the seeds. Stir the whole very hard, and transfer it to a freezer. Orange water-ice is considered the best, if well made. For pine-apple water-ice, pare, core, and slice fine _ripe_ apples very thin. Put them into a dish with thick layers of powdered loaf sugar; cover the dish, and let them lie several hours in the sugar. Then press out all the juice you can, from the pine-apple; mix it with a little water, and freeze it. To two large pine-apples allow a half pound of sugar, which has been melted in a quart of boiling water. This looks very well frozen in a mould shaped like a pine-apple. _Orange_ sherbet may be frozen in a pine-apple mould. It can be made so rich with orange juice as to perfume the whole table.

_Roman Punch_--Is made of strong lemonade or orangeade, adding to every quart a pint of brandy or rum. Then freeze it, and serve in saucers or a large glass bowl. Put it into a porcelain kettle, and boil and skim it till the scum ceases to rise. When cold, bottle it, seal the corks and keep it in a cool place.

Syrup of strawberries, raspberries, currants and blackberries, is made in a similar manner.

FLOATING ISLAND.--For one common-sized floating island have a round thick jelly cake, lady cake, or almond sponge cake, that will weigh a pound and a half, or two pounds. Slice it downwards, almost to the bottom, but do not take the slices apart. Stand up the cake in the centre of a glass bowl or a deep dish. Have ready a pint and a half of rich cream, make it very sweet with sugar, and color it a fine green with a tea-cupful of the juice of pounded spinach, boiled five minutes by itself; strained, and made very sweet. Or for coloring pink you may use currant jelly, or the juice of preserved strawberries. Whip to a stiff froth another pint and a half of sweetened cream, and flavor it with a large glass of mixed wine and brandy. Pour round the cake, as it stands in the dish or bowl, the colored unfrothed cream, and pile the whipped white cream all over the cake, highest on the top.

FINE CAKES.

PLUM CAKE.--In making very fine plum cake first prepare the fruit and spice, and sift the flour (which must be the very best superfine,) into a large flat dish, and dry it before the fire. Use none but the very best fresh butter; if of inferior quality, the butter will taste through every thing, and spoil the cake. In fact, all the ingredients should be excellent, and liberally allowed. Take the best bloom or muscatel raisins, seeded and cut in half. Pick and wash the currants or plums through two waters, and dry them well. Powder the spice, and let it infuse over night in the wine and brandy. Cut the citron into slips, mix it with the raisins and currants, and dredge all the fruit very thickly, on both sides, with flour. This will prevent its sinking or clodding in the cake, while baking. Eggs should always be beaten till the frothing is over, and till they become thick and smooth, as thick as a good boiled custard, and quite smooth on the surface. If you can obtain hickory-rods as egg-beaters, there is nothing so good; but if you cannot get _them_, use the common egg-beaters, of thin fine wire. For stirring butter and sugar you should have a spaddle, which resembles a short mush-stick flattened at one end. Stir the butter and sugar in a deep earthen pan, and continue till it is light, thick, and creamy. Beat eggs always in a broad shallow earthen pan, and with a short quick stroke, keeping your right elbow close to your side, and moving only your wrist. In this way you may beat for an hour without fatigue. But to stir butter and sugar is the hardest part of cake making. Have this done by a man servant. His strength will accomplish it in a short time--also, let him give the final stirring to the cake. If the ingredients are prepared as far as practicable on the preceding day, the cake may be in the oven by ten or eleven o'clock in the forenoon.

For a large plum cake allow one pound, (or a quart) of sifted flour; one pound of fresh butter cut up in a pound of powdered loaf sugar, in a deep pan; twelve eggs; two pounds of bloom raisins; two pounds of Zante currants; half a pound of citron, either cut into slips or chopped small; a table-spoonful of powdered mace and cinnamon, mixed; two grated nutmegs; a large wine-glass of madeira (or more), a wine-glass of French brandy, mixed together, and the spice steeped in it.

First stir the butter and sugar to a light cream, and add to them the spice and liquor. Then beat the eggs in a shallow pan till very thick and smooth, breaking them one at a time into a saucer to ascertain if there is a bad one among them. One stale egg will spoil the whole cake. When the eggs are very light, stir them gradually into the large pan of butter and sugar in turn with the flour, that being the mixing pan. Lastly, add the fruit and citron, a little at a time of each, and give the whole a hard stirring. If the fruit is well floured it will not sink, but it will be seen evenly dispersed all over the cake when baked. Take a large straight-sided block tin pan, grease it inside with the same butter used for the cake, and put the mixture carefully into it. Set it immediately into a well-heated oven, and keep up a steady heat while it is baking. When nearly done, the cake will shrink a little from the sides of the pan; and on probing it to the bottom with a sprig from a corn broom, or a splinter-skewer, the probe will come out clean. Otherwise, keep the cake in the oven a little longer. If it cracks on the top, it is a proof of its being very light. When quite done, take it out. It will become hard if left to grow cold with the oven. Set it to cool on an inverted sieve.

ICING.--Allow to the white of each egg a quarter of a pound of the best loaf sugar, finely powdered; but if you find the mixture too thin, you must add still more sugar. Put the white of egg into a shallow pan, and beat it with small rods or a large silver fork, till it becomes a stiff froth, and stands alone without falling. Then beat in the powdered sugar, a tea-spoonful at a time. As you proceed, flavor it with lemon juice. This will render the icing whiter and smoother, also improving the taste. You may ice the cake as soon as it becomes lukewarm, without waiting till it is quite cold. Dredge it lightly with flour to absorb the grease from the outside; then wipe off the flour. With a broad knife put some icing on the middle of the cake, and then spread it down, thickly and evenly, all over the top and sides, smoothing it with another knife dipped in cold water. When this is quite dry, spread on a second coat of icing rather thinner than the first, and flavored with rose. Set it a few minutes in the oven to harden the icing, leaving the oven-door open; or place it beneath the stove. When the icing is quite dry, you may ornament it with sugar borders and flowers; having ready, for that purpose, some additional icing. By means of a syringe, (made for the purpose, and to be obtained at the best furnishing stores) you can decorate the surface of the cake very handsomely; but it requires taste, skill, and practice. You may first cover the cake with pink, brown, green, or other colored icing, and then take white icing to decorate it, forming the pattern by moving your hand skilfully and steadily over it, and pressing it out of the syringe as you go. An easier way is to ornament the cake (when the top-icing is nearly dry, but not quite,) with large strawberries or raspberries, or purple grapes placed very near each other, and arranged in circles or patterns. Be careful not to mash the berries.

_Warm Icing._--This is made in the usual proportion of the whites of four eggs, beaten to stiff froth, and a pound of finely powdered loaf sugar afterwards added to it, gradually. Then boil the egg and sugar in a porcelain kettle, and skim it till the scum ceases to rise. Take it off the fire, and stir into it sufficient orange juice, lemon juice, or rose-water, to flavor it highly. Flour your cake--wipe off the flour, put on the icing with a broad knife, and then smooth it with another knife dipped in cold water. For this icing the cake should be warm from the oven, and dried slowly and gradually afterwards. Warm icing is much liked. It is very light; rises thick and high in cooling, and has a fine gloss. Try it. The mixture called by the French a _meringue_, and used for macaroons, kisses, and other nice articles, is made in the same manner as icing for cakes, allowing a quarter of a pound of powdered loaf sugar to every beaten white of egg.

POUND CAKE.--One of Mrs. Goodfellow's maxims was, "up-weight of flour, and down-weight of every thing else"--and she was right, as the excellence of her cakes sufficiently proved, during the thirty years that she taught her art in Philadelphia, with unexampled success. Therefore, allow for a pound cake a rather small pound of sifted flour; a large pound of the best fresh butter, a large pound of powdered loaf sugar, ten eggs, or eleven if they are small; a large glass of mixed wine and brandy; a glass of rose-water; a grated nutmeg, and a heaped tea-spoonful of mixed spice, powdered mace, and cinnamon. Put the sugar into a _deep_ earthen pan, and cut up the butter among it. In cold weather place it near the fire a few minutes, till the butter softens. Next, stir it very hard with a spaddle till the mixture becomes very light. Next, stir in, gradually, the spice, liquor, &c. Then beat the eggs in a shallow pan with rods or a whisk, till light, thick, and smooth. Add them gradually to the beaten batter and sugar, in turn with the flour; and give the whole a hard stirring at the last. Have the oven ready with a moderate heat. Transfer the mixture to a thick straight-sided tin pan well greased with the best fresh butter, and smooth the butter on the surface. Set it immediately into the oven, and bake it with a steady heat two hours and a half, or more. Probe it to the bottom with a twig from a corn broom. When it shrinks a little from the pan it is done. When taken out, set it to cool on an inverted sieve. When you ice it, flavor the icing with lemon or rose.

It should be eaten fresh, as it soon becomes very dry.

Pound cake is not so much in use as formerly, particularly for weddings and large parties; lady cake and plum cake being now substituted. A pound cake may be much improved by the addition of a pound of citron, sliced, chopped well, dredged with flour to prevent its sinking, and stirred gradually into the batter, in turn with the sifted flour and beaten egg.

QUEEN CAKE--Is made in the same manner as pound cake, only with a less proportion of flour, (fourteen ounces, or two ounces less than a pound) as it must be baked in little tins; and small cakes require less flour than large ones. Also, (besides a somewhat larger allowance of spice, liquor, &c.) add the juice and grated yellow rind of a lemon or two, and half a pound of sultana or seedless raisins, cut in half and dredged with flour. Butter your small cake tins, and fill to the edge with the batter. They will not run over the edge if well made, and baked with a proper fire, but they will rise high and fine in the centre. Ice them when beginning to cool, flavoring the icing with lemon or rose. Queen cakes made _exactly_ as above are superlative.

ORANGE CAKES.--Make a mixture precisely as for queen cake, only omit the wine, brandy, and rose-water, and substitute the grated yellow rind and the juice of four large ripe oranges, stirred into the batter in turn with the egg and flour. Flavor the icing with orange juice.

LEMON CAKES--Are also made as above, substituting for the oranges the grated rind and juice of three lemons. To give a full taste, less lemon is required than orange.

SPONGE CAKE.--Many persons suppose that sponge cake must be very easy to make, because there is no butter in it. On the contrary, the want of butter renders it difficult to get light. A really good sponge cake is a very different thing from those numerous tough leathery compositions that go by that name, and being flavored with nothing, are not worthy of eating _as cake_, and are neither palatable nor wholesome as diet, unless too fresh to have grown dry and hard. The best sponge cake we know of is made as follows, and even that should be eaten the day it is baked. Sift half a pound of flour, (arrow-root is still better,) in a shallow pan; beat twelve eggs till very thick, light, and smooth. You need not separate the yolks and whites, if you know the true way of adding the flour. Beat a pound of powdered loaf sugar, gradually, (a little at a time) into the beaten eggs, and add the juice and grated yellow rinds of two large lemons or oranges. Lastly stir in the flour or arrow root. It is all important that this should be done slowly and lightly, and without stirring down to the bottom of the pan. Hold the egg-beater perpendicularly or quite upright in one hand, and move it round on the surface of the beaten egg, while with the other hand you lightly and gradually sprinkle in the flour till all is in. If stirred in hard and fast it will render the cake porous and tough, and dry and hard when cold. Have ready either a large turban mould, or some small oblong or square tins. Butter them nicely, transfer to them the cake mixture, grate powdered sugar profusely over the surface to give it a gloss like a very thin crust, and set it immediately into a brisk oven. The small oblong cakes are called Naples biscuits, and require no icing. A large turban cake may be iced plain, without ornament.

A _very light_ sponge cake, when sliced, will cut down rough and coarse grained, and it is desirable to have it so.

_Lady Fingers_--Are mixed in the same manner, and of the same ingredients as the foregoing receipt for the best sponge cake. When the mixture is finished, form the cakes by shaping the batter with a tea-spoon, upon sheets of soft white paper slightly damped, forming them like double ovals joined in the centre. Sift powdered sugar over them, and bake them in a quick oven till slightly browned. When cool, take them off the papers. They are sometimes iced.

ALMOND SPONGE CAKE.--The addition of almonds makes this cake very superior to the usual sponge cake. Sift half a pound of fine flour or arrow root. Blanch in scalding water two ounces of shelled sweet almonds, and two ounces of bitter ones, renewing the hot water when expedient. When the skins are all off, wash the almonds in cold water, (mixing the sweet and bitter) and wipe them dry. Pound them to a fine smooth paste, (one at a time,) in a very clean marble mortar, adding, as you proceed, plenty of rose-water to prevent their oiling. Then set them in a cool place. Beat twelve eggs till very smooth and thick, and then beat into them, gradually, a pound of powdered loaf sugar, in turn with the pounded almonds. Lastly, add the flour, stirring it round slowly and lightly on the surface of the mixture, as in common sponge cake. Have ready a _deep_ square pan. Butter it nicely. Put the mixture carefully into it, set it into the oven, and bake it till thoroughly done and risen very high. When cool, cover it with plain white icing, flavored with rose-water. With sweet almonds, always use a small portion of bitter ones. Without them, _sweet_ almonds have little or no taste, though they add to the richness of the cake.

SPANISH BUNS.--In a shallow pan put a half pint of rich unskimmed milk, and cut up in it a half pound of the best fresh butter. Set it on the stove, or near the fire, to warm and soften, but do not let it melt or oil. When soft, stir it all through the milk with a broad knife, and then set it away to cool. Sift into a broad pan half a pound of the finest flour, and an additional quarter of a pound put on a plate by itself. Beat four eggs in a shallow pan till very thick and smooth, and mix them at once into the butter and sugar, adding the half pound of flour. Stir in a powdered nutmeg, and two wine-glasses of strong yeast, fresh from the brewer's, first removing the thin liquid or beer from the top. Stir the mixture very hard with a knife, and then add, _gradually_, half a pound of powdered white sugar. The buns will become heavy if the sugar is thrown in all at once. It is important that it should be added a little at a time. Then sprinkle in, by degrees, the extra quarter of a pound of sifted flour, and lastly add a wine-glass of strong rose-water. When all has been well stirred, butter (with fine fresh butter,) an oblong iron or block-tin pan, and carefully put the bun mixture into it. Cover it with a clean cloth, and set it near the fire to rise. It may require five hours; therefore buns wanted for tea should be made in the forenoon. When the batter has risen very high, and is covered with bubbles, put the pan immediately into a moderate but steady oven, and bake it. When cool, cut the buns into squares, and ice each one separately, if for company; the icing being flavored with lemon or orange juice. Otherwise, you may simply sift sugar over them. These buns were first introduced by Mrs. Goodfellow; and in her school were always excellently made, nothing being spared that was good, and the use of soda and other alkalis being unknown in the establishment--hartshorn in cakes would have horrified her.

LADY CAKE.--This cake must be flavored highly with bitter almonds; without them, sweet almonds have little or no taste, and are useless in lady cake. Blanch, in scalding water, three small ounces of shelled bitter almonds, and then lay them in a bowl of very cold water. Afterwards wipe them dry, and pound them (one at a time,) to a smooth paste in a clean marble mortar; adding, as you proceed, a wine-glass of rose-water to improve the flavor, and prevent their oiling, and becoming heavy and dark. When done, set them away in a cool place, on a saucer. Almonds are always lighter and better when blanched and pounded the day before. Cut up three quarters of a pound of the best fresh butter in a pound of powdered loaf sugar. Mix it in a deep earthen pan, and stir and beat it with a spaddle till it becomes very light and creamy. Then, gradually, stir in the pounded almonds. Take the _whites only_ of seventeen or eighteen fresh eggs, and beat them in a shallow pan to a stiff froth, till they stand alone. Then stir the beaten white of egg, gradually, into the pan of creamed butter and sugar, in turn with three small quarters of a pound (or a pint and a half,) of sifted flour of the very best quality. Stir the whole very hard at the last, and transfer it to a straight-sided tin pan, well greased with excellent fresh butter. Set the pan immediately into an oven, and bake it with a moderate but steady heat. When it has been baking rather more than two hours, probe it by sticking down to the bottom a twig from a corn broom, or a very narrow knife. If it comes out clean the cake is done; if clammy or daubed, keep it longer in the oven. A cake when quite done generally shrinks a little. When you take it out, set it to cool on an inverted sieve. Ice a lady cake entirely with white, and ornament it with white flowers. It is now much in use at weddings, and if well made, and quite fresh, there is no cake better liked.

CINNAMON CAKE.--Cut up half a pound of fine fresh butter, and warm it till soft in half a pint of rich milk. Sift a pound of fine flour into a broad pan; make a hole in the centre, and pour into it the milk and butter, having stirred them well together. Then, gradually, add a large quarter of a pound of powdered sugar, and a heaped tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon. Beat three eggs very smooth and thick, and stir them in, also a wine-glass and a half of strong fresh brewer's yeast, or two glasses of fresh baker's yeast. Then mix, (having sprinkled some over the top,) all the flour into the hole in the centre, so as to make a soft dough. When all is well mixed cover it, and set it to rise in a round straight-sided tin pan. Place it near the fire, and when quite light and cracked all over the surface, flour your pasteboard well, place the loaf upon it, and having prepared in a pint bowl a stiff mixture of ground cinnamon, fresh butter, and brown sugar, beaten together so as to stand alone, make numerous deep cuts or incisions all over the surface on the sides and top of the cake; fill them with the cinnamon mixture, and pinch each together so as to keep the seasoning from coming out. Glaze it all over with beaten white of egg a little sweetened. Then return the loaf to the pan, and bake it in a moderate oven till thoroughly done. When cool, cut it down in slices like a pound cake.

This dough may be divided into small round cakes, the size of a muffin, and baked on tin or iron sheets, sifting sugar over them when cool. It must have a high flavor of cinnamon.

WEST INDIA COCOA-NUT CAKE.--Cut up and peel some pieces of very ripe cocoa-nut. Lay them for a while in cold water. Then take them out and wipe them dry, and grate very fine as much as will weigh half a pound. Beat eight eggs till very light, thick, and smooth. Have ready half a pound of powdered loaf sugar, and stir it into the pan of beaten egg, alternately with the grated cocoa-nut; adding a handful of sifted flour, a powdered nutmeg, and a large glass of madeira or sherry, stirring the whole very hard. Butter an oblong tin pan. Put in the mixture, set it immediately into a quick oven, and bake it well. Set it to cool on an inverted sieve; cut it into squares, and ice each square, flavoring the icing with rose.

You may bake it in a large loaf; adding double portions of all the ingredients, and ornamenting the icing handsomely.