This apple sauce cake will be found as delicious and tasty as the rich fruit cake, which is so difficult to prepare, and it is very much less expensive.
In a big mixing bowl, beat to a creamy consistency four tablespoons of butter, one egg and one cup of sugar. Add a saltspoon of salt, one teaspoon of allspice, one teaspoon of vanilla and a little grated nutmeg. Beat and stir all these ingredients well together with the other mixture, then add one cup of chopped raisins, after dusting them with flour. Mix these well through the dough and then add one cup of unsweetened apple sauce which has been pressed through a fine wire sieve. After this is well mixed with the other ingredients, stir in one teaspoon of baking-soda dissolved in one tablespoon of boiling water. Last of all, stir in one cup of flour, sifting twice after measuring it. Bake forty-five minutes in moderate oven.
The tendency in making this cake is to get the dough too thin, therefore the apple sauce should be cooked quite thick, and then if the dough is still too thin add more flour. Bake one hour in moderate oven. This cake can be made with chicken schmalz in place of butter. Ice with plain white frosting.
SPICE CAKE
This spice cake is economical, easy to make and delicious, three qualities which must appeal to the housewife.
Cream one cup of brown sugar and one-half cup of butter (or a little less of any butter substitute). Add one-half teaspoon of ground cloves and ground cinnamon, one cup of sour milk; one teaspoon of baking-soda, two cups of flour and one cup of raisins chopped. Have ready a warm oven and bake three-quarters of an hour.
GREEN TREE LAYER CAKE AND ICING
One cup of granulated sugar, one-half cup of butter, three eggs, one cup of milk, two and one-half scant cups of sifted flour, one teaspoon of vanilla extract, two teaspoons of baking-powder. Cream the butter and sugar together as usual, and then break in three eggs and beat until very creamy. Add the flour and milk alternately, reserving a little of the flour to add after the vanilla and baking-powder. Beat well and bake in layer cake tins. The entire success and lightness of this cake depends upon the beating of the sugar, butter and eggs. If these are beaten long enough they will become as creamy and fluffy as whipped cream.
*Icing for This Cake.*—One and one-half cups of confectioner's sugar (not powdered), butter the size of a large egg, two tablespoons of cocoa, one teaspoon of vanilla, moisten to make the mixture the consistence of very thick cream. Cream or whipped cream may be used for the mixing, but many like this icing when made with lukewarm coffee. The sugar and butter are creamed together thoroughly and then the cocoa and vanilla are added, and lastly the cream or coffee. This is a good imitation of German tree cake. The icing on tree cake is an inch thick, and it is marked to represent the bark of a tree. The way it is served is with a little green candy on it, and it is really very delicious although extremely rich. The thicker or rather firmer this icing is, the better.