APPLE CAKE.—Make a nice light paste with the proportion of three quarters of a pound of fresh butter to a pound and a quarter of sifted flour. Roll it out into a large round sheet. Have ready a sufficiency of fine juicy apples, pared, cored, and sliced thin; mixed with one or two sliced quinces; and half a pound, or more, of the best raisins, seeded and cut in half. Make the mixture very sweet with brown sugar; and add some grated nutmeg; and a wine-glass, or more, of rose-water; or else the juice and grated yellow rind of one or two lemons. Mix all thoroughly, and put it on the sheet of paste; which must then be closed over the heap of mixture so as to form a very large dumpling. Put it into a small dutch-oven, and set it over hot coals, having previously heated the oven-lid by standing it upright before the fire. Then lay on the lid, with hot coals spread over it. Have ready a sufficient quantity of butter, brown sugar, and powdered cinnamon, stirred together till very light. Spread a portion of it on the bottom of the oven. While the cake is baking, remove the oven-lid frequently, and baste the cake with this mixture, which will form a sort of thick brown crust, covering it all over. It should bake from two to three hours; or longer if it is large. When thoroughly done, turn it out on a dish. It should be eaten fresh, the day it is baked; either warm or cold.
This is a German cake, and will be found very good.
CINNAMON CAKES.—Make a paste as above, and roll it out thin into a square sheet. Have ready a mixture of brown sugar; fresh butter; and a large portion of ground cinnamon; all stirred together till very light. Spread this mixture thickly over the sheet of paste; then roll it up, as you would a rolled up marmalade pudding. After it is rolled up, cut it down into pieces or cakes of equal size, and press them rather flat. Have ready over the fire a skillet or frying-pan with plenty of fresh butter boiling hard. Put in some of the cakes and fry them brown. As fast as they are done, take them out on a perforated skimmer; drain off the butter, and lay them on a hot dish. Then put in more cakes, till all are fried. They should be eaten warm, first sifting powdered white sugar over them.
These cakes, also, are German. They may be conveniently prepared when you are making pies, as the same paste will do for both.
GINGER POUND CAKE.—Cut up in a pan three quarters of a pound of butter; mix with it a pint of West India molasses, and a tea-cup of brown sugar. If in winter, set it over the fire till the butter has become soft enough to mix easily with the molasses and sugar. Then take it off, and stir them well together. Sift into a pan a pound of flour. In another pan, beat five eggs very light. Add gradually the beaten eggs and the flour, to the mixture of butter, sugar, and molasses, with two large table-spoonfuls of ground ginger, and a heaped tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon. Then stir in a glass of brandy, and lastly a small tea-spoonful of sal-eratus or sub-carbonate of soda melted in a very little milk. Stir the whole very hard. Transfer the mixture to a buttered tin-pan, and bake it in a moderate oven from two to three hours, in proportion to its thickness.
This cake will be much improved by the addition of a pound of sultana or seedless raisins, well dredged with flour to prevent their sinking, and stirred in, gradually, at the last.
You may add also the yellow rind of a lemon or orange grated fine.