Nut Cake.—To make a light, delicious cake, cream together one cup of sugar and five tablespoons of melted butter. Into this beat two well beaten eggs, a pinch of salt and a cup of milk. Stir into this two heaping cupfuls of flour, sifted with two heaping teaspoonfuls of baking powder. After this is well beaten, stir in three-quarters of a cup of chopped walnuts. Bake in square cake tin in bag. Ice when cold with plain pulverized sugar icing. Cut in squares, placing a piece of walnut meat on each square.
Oatmeal Cakes.—Beat to a cream three-fourths cupful vegetable shortening or butter and a cupful and a half of brown sugar. Dissolve one teaspoonful of soda in one cupful of boiling water and add to butter and sugar mixture. Mix together two cupfuls of dry oatmeal, two cupfuls of flour and a half teaspoonful of salt and add to the other ingredients. Flavor to taste. Lastly add two well beaten eggs and drop from spoon into greased bag or flat tin and place in bag. Seal and bake in moderate oven about fifteen minutes.
German Peach Cake.—Make a rich baking powder biscuit dough and roll out in sheets to fit a long biscuit pan. It should not be more than a half-inch thick. Brush the top with butter and cover with slices of peach arranged in symmetrical overlapping rows, or half peaches with the rounded side up. Sprinkle generously with sugar, cover with another tin to prevent the fruit from becoming mushy or hardened, put in bag and bake about half an hour in a hot oven. This is a good substitute for peach pie.
Pork Cake.—This is an old New England dish that has been relegated to the background these many years, but is lately coming to the fore. A gray haired New York physician, dining at my house the other night, declared that his old Connecticut aunt's pork cake was one of the dearest remembered gustatorial delights of his boyhood.
To make it chop one pound of fat pork fine. Pour over it a pint of boiling water, then stir in three cupfuls brown sugar, one pound of seeded raisins, eight cupfuls of flour and two rounding teaspoonfuls of soda dissolved in a little water. Add a teaspoonful of cinnamon, a half teaspoonful cloves and nutmeg, mix thoroughly and bake in a slow oven like fruit cake. If preferred, two beaten eggs may be added in which case less flour will be required.
Potato Chocolate Cake.—To two cupfuls of sugar and two-thirds cup butter beaten to a cream, add yolks of four eggs beaten until lemon colored and light and a half cupful of sweet milk. Next add a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in two tablespoonfuls of hot water, one cup mashed potato, two cups of flour, and four squares of chocolate melted, one cup chopped walnuts, a teaspoonful of vanilla. Lastly fold in the stiffly beaten whites of four eggs. This may be baked either in a large loaf or in layers in a paper bag.
Potato Caramel Cake.—Beat to a cream two-thirds cup of butter and two cups of sugar, add the yolks of four eggs beaten until light and mix with a half cup of sweet milk and one cup mashed potato. Add two squares of bitter chocolate melted, one-half teaspoonful nutmeg, and two cups flour sifted with two teaspoonfuls baking powder. Fold in whites of four eggs beaten stiff, a cupful of nut meats, preferably English walnuts, chopped. Bake slowly for about an hour in a gingerbread tin in paper bag, making the cake an inch and a half or two inches thick; or else in layer tins together with white icing. This will make four layers.
Auburn Pound Cake.—Beat to a cream three-fourths pounds of butter and one pound fine granulated sugar. Add the yolks of nine eggs beaten light and one pound flour measured after sifting and then sifted again with a teaspoonful and a half of baking powder. Fold in the stiffly whipped whites and flavor with vanilla, almond or the grated rind and juice of a lemon or a wine glass of sherry. Pour into well-buttered thin tin mould and seal in bags. Bake an hour and a quarter or an hour and a half in a moderate oven.
Raisin Nut Cakes.—For raisin nut cakes for afternoon tea, beat six eggs lightly, beating the whites and with an even teaspoon of soda, one teaspoon of sugar creamed with a cupful of butter, a cupful and a half of milk and three cupfuls and a half of flour. Add a cupful of chopped walnuts, two pounds of chopped raisins, a wineglass of brandy, two teaspoonfuls of baking powder and spice to taste. Make into small cakes, put on tin in bag and bake in a moderate oven.