168. Rules to be observed in making nice Cake.
Cake, to be good, must be made of nice materials. The butter, eggs, and flour, should not be stale, and the sugar should be of a light color, and dry. Brown sugar answers very well for most kinds of cake, if rolled free from lumps, and stirred to a cream with the butter. The flour should be sifted, and if damp, dried perfectly, otherwise it will make the cake heavy. The eggs should be beaten to a froth; and the cake will be more delicate if the yelks and whites are beaten separately. Saleratus and soda should be perfectly dissolved, and strained before they are stirred into the cake. Raisins for cake should have the seeds taken out. Zante currants should be rinsed in several waters to cleanse them, rubbed in a dry cloth to get out the sticks, and then spread on platters, and dried perfectly, before they are put into the cake. Almonds should be blanched, which is done by turning boiling water on them, and letting them remain in it till the skins will rub off easily. When blanched, dry them, then pound them fine, with rosewater, to prevent their oiling. When the weather is cold, the materials for cake should be moderately warmed, before mixing them together. All kinds of cake that are made without yeast are better for being stirred, till just before they are baked. The butter and sugar should be stirred together till white, then the eggs, flour, and spice, added. Saleratus and cream should not be put in till just before the cake is baked—add the fruit last. Butter the cake pans well. The cake will be less liable to burn if the pans are lined with white buttered paper. The cake should not be moved while baking if it can be avoided, as moving it is apt to make it heavy. The quicker most kinds of cake are baked, the lighter and better they will be; but the oven should not be of such a furious heat as to burn them. It is impossible to give any exact rules as to the time to be allowed for baking various kinds of cake, as so much depends on the heat of the oven. It should be narrowly watched while in the oven, and if it browns too fast, it should be covered with a thick paper. To ascertain when rich cake is sufficiently baked, stick a clean broom splinter through the thickest part of the loaf—if none of the cake adheres to the splinter, it is sufficiently baked. When cake that is baked on flat tins moves easily on them, it is sufficiently baked.
Allow for the white of one egg nine heaping tea-spoonsful of double refined sugar, and one of nice Poland starch. The sugar and starch should be pounded, and sifted through a very fine sieve. Beat the whites of eggs to a stiff froth, so that you can turn the plate upside down, without the eggs falling from it—then stir in the sugar gradually, with a wooden spoon—stir it ten or fifteen minutes without any cessation—then add a tea-spoonful of lemon juice, (vinegar will answer, but is not as nice)—put in sufficient rosewater to flavor it. If you wish to color it pink, stir in a few grains of cochineal powder, or rose pink—if you wish to have it of a blue tinge, add a little of what is called the powder blue. Lay the frosting on the cake with a knife, soon after it is taken from the oven—smooth it over, and let it remain in a cool place till hard. To frost a common sized loaf of cake, allow the white of one egg, and half of another.
Melt a piece of butter of the size of a hen’s egg—mix it with a pint of nice molasses, a table-spoonful of ginger, and a quart of flour. Dissolve a heaping table-spoonful of saleratus in half a pint of milk, strain and mix it with the rest of the ingredients, add sufficient flour to enable you to roll it out easily, roll it out about half an inch thick, and bake it on flat tins in a quick oven. Gingerbread made in this manner will be light and spongy if baked quick, and made of nice molasses, but it will not keep good so long as hard gingerbread.
171. Hard Molasses Gingerbread.
To a pint of molasses put half a tea-cup of melted butter, a table-spoonful of ginger, and a quart of flour. Dissolve a tea-spoonful of saleratus in half a pint of water, and stir it in, together with flour sufficient to enable you to roll it out. Bake it in a moderately warm oven.
172. Soft Molasses Gingerbread.
Melt a tea-cup of butter—mix it with a pint of molasses, a table-spoonful of ginger, a pint of flour, and a couple of beaten eggs. Fresh lemon peel, cut into small strips, improves it. Dissolve a couple of tea-spoonsful of saleratus in half a pint of milk, and stir it into the cake. Add flour to render it of the consistency of unbaked pound cake. Bake it in deep pans about half an hour.