While it is cooling, beat three eggs very light, and stir them gradually into the mixture when it is about as warm as new milk. Add a tea-cup full of good strong yeast, and beat the whole another quarter of an hour—for much of the goodness of this cake depends on its being long and well beaten. Then have ready a turban mould or earthen pan with a pipe in the centre, (to diffuse the heat through the middle of the cake.) The pan must be very well buttered, as Indian meal is apt to stick. Put in the mixture, cover it, and set it in a warm place to rise. It should be light in about four hours. Then bake it two hours in a moderate oven. When done, turn it out with the broad surface downwards, and send it to table hot and whole. Cut it into slices, and eat it with butter.
This will be found an excellent cake. If wanted for breakfast, mix it, and set it to rise the night before. If properly made, standing all night will not injure it. Like all Indian cakes, (of which this is one of the best,) it should be eaten warm. It will be much improved by adding to the mixture, a salt-spoon of pearl-ash, or sal-aratus, dissolved in a little water.
PLAIN CIDER CAKE.—
Sift into a large pan a pound and a half of flour, and rub into it half a pound of butter. Mix in three-quarters of a pound of powdered white sugar, and melt a small tea-spoonful of sal-aratus or pearl-ash in a pint of the best cider. Pour the cider into the other ingredients while it is foaming, and stir the whole very hard. Have ready a buttered square pan, put in the mixture, and set it immediately in a rather brisk oven. Bake it an hour or more, according to its thickness. This is a tea cake, and should be eaten fresh. Cut it into squares, split and butter them.
TENNESSEE MUFFINS.—
Sift three pints of yellow Indian meal, and put one-half into a pan and scald it. Add a good piece of butter. Beat six eggs, whites and yolks separately. The yolks must be beaten till they become very thick and smooth, and the whites till they are a stiff froth that stands alone. When the scalded meal is cold, mix it into a batter with the beaten yolk of egg, the remainder of the meal, a salt-spoonful of salt, and, if necessary, a little water. The batter must be quite thick. At the last, stir in, lightly and slowly, the beaten white of egg. Grease your muffin rings, and set them in an oven of the proper heat; put in the batter immediately, as standing will injure it.
Send them to table hot; pull them open, and eat them with butter.
HOE CAKE.—
Beat the whites of three eggs to a stiff froth, and sift into a pan a quart of wheat flour, adding a salt-spoon of salt. Make a hole in the middle, and mix in the white of egg so as to form a thick batter, and then add two table-spoonfuls of the best fresh yeast. Cover it, and let it stand all night. In the morning, take a hoe-iron (such as are made purposely for cakes) and prop it before the fire till it is well heated. Then flour a tea-saucer, and filling it with batter, shake it about, and clap it to the hoe, (which must be previously greased,) and the batter will adhere till it is baked. Repeat this with each cake. Keep them hot, and eat them with butter.