MERINGUE FOR PIES
To each stiffly beaten white of an egg, add a tablespoonful of sugar, and spread on the pie after it is baked and allowed to cool slightly; place in the oven for a few minutes. Care should be taken that the oven is not too hot, or the covering will be tough and leathery.
[CAKES]
Feed sparingly, and defy the physician.
Who lives to eat, will die by eating.
Whoever eats too much, or of food which is not healthful, is weakening his powers to resist the clamors of other appetites and passions.—“Christian Temperance.”
The best seasoning for food is hunger.—Socrates.
Reason should direct, and appetite obey.—Cicero.
Men should be temperate in eating as well as drinking.—Dr. Brandreth.
Dover Egg Beater
It is important that all the necessary materials should be gathered together before beginning the cake. If baking-powder is used, allow a teaspoonful to each cup of flour; sift it in the flour, and measure the sugar; have the pans for baking in readiness. Beat the whites and yolks of eggs separately in china bowls, using a Dover egg-beater. The whites should be beaten till stiff enough to cut with a knife, the yolks till they cease to froth and begin to thicken. Cream the butter by beating it, first warming the dish by rinsing with hot water, if the weather is cold. Then add the sugar slowly, then the beaten yolks of eggs; add a little of the milk, then a part of the flour, thus alternating with the milk and flour till all are used, being careful to have the mixture always of about the same consistency.
Next fold in the stiffly beaten whites, add flavoring if desired, and beat for a few moments. If fruit is used, fold it in, well floured, the last thing, or it will sink to the bottom of the cake.
The baking is an important part of cake-making. The oven should be at a proper temperature; if too hot at first, the cake browns too quickly, and a crust is formed over the top before the cake has sufficient time to rise; if not hot enough, the air that has been beaten in escapes before the heat has time to expand it; the result is that the cake is coarse-grained and heavy.
Have the oven less hot for cake than for bread, but hotter for thin cake than for loaf cake. It is about right for loaf cake made with butter when it turns a piece of writing-paper a light brown in five minutes. About an hour will be required to bake a loaf cake: from fifteen to twenty minutes for small cakes and layer cakes.
Cake Pan
A tube cake pan, as shown in the accompanying cut, is very good for baking ordinary cakes, as the tube causes the cake to bake more evenly, and renders it less liable to fall.
If it is necessary to move the cake after putting it in the oven, it should be done carefully, as jarring is liable to make it fall. A cake is done when a clean broom straw passed through the thickest part comes out clean.
If a cake rises up, cracks open, and remains that way, it has baked too fast, or too much flour has been used. To bake properly, it should rise first on the edges, then in the middle, crack open slightly, then settle till level, when it will have closed nearly together again. The outside should be a golden brown, the inside slightly moist, and fine grained.
In beating the yolks of eggs where both eggs and milk are used, first rinse the bowl in which the yolks are to be beaten with a little of the milk.
In beating the whites of the eggs, do not stop until they are stiff, as they can not be beaten stiff after standing till they have become liquid again. Eggs will beat stiffer if cold, and beaten in a cold dish and in a cool room.
Jelly for filling should be beaten till smooth, then spread between the layers before they are quite cool. In using dessicated cocoanut, first moisten it with a little sweet cream.
Citron used in cake should be cut into fine strips. Currants and raisins should be looked over, washed, dried, and then be well floured before being added to the cake, as they absorb moisture and tend to make the cake heavy. Rich cake should be avoided. Sponge cake may be considered the most healthful.
To make sponge cake, beat the yolks till thick and light-colored, then beat in the sugar, add lemon-juice, or other liquid and flavoring to be used. Then add the stiffly beaten whites, sift in the flour over them, and fold all in together without stirring or beating. Beating sponge cake after adding the flour makes it firm and tough, as also does the addition of too much flour. Sponge cake should be put together lightly and quickly, and baked at once.