If the oven is too hot, cover the cake for a while with a piece of brown paper.
Whenever you buy a broom, break off a few of the splints; tie them up and lay away safely to use in trying cake. It is not pleasant to think of using a splint from a broom that has been used in sweeping a kitchen floor, or any other floor, however nicely kept. Try the cake with one of these clean splints, or a small knitting-needle. If it comes out quite free from any particle of batter, the cake is done.
Cake keeps fresher to be allowed to remain in the pan in which it was baked; but if necessary to remove it, place it on the top of a sieve until quite cold, when it may be frosted if desirable, and put into a large stone pot, or cake-safe, and covered with clean linen.
Steam stale cake, and eat with a nice hot sauce, and you have a very good pudding.
Loaf Cake.—Two cups sugar; two of milk; two of flour; one of yeast; make into a sponge overnight. In the morning, if this sponge is light, beat together two cups sugar, one of butter, and four eggs; add these to the sponge with enough more flour to make it quite stiff; add spice and fruit to suit the taste; a cup and a half of stoned raisins, well floured, and half a cup of citron cut thin and in small pieces. Raise till light, and bake in an even oven.
Mrs. Breedley’s Fruit Cake.—Five eggs; five cups of flour; two and a half cups of sugar; one and a half cups butter, and two cups sour milk; two cups raisins. Beat sugar and butter to a cream; add the egg-yelks and whites, beaten separately; then three cups of the flour and the milk; beat well and then add one gill wine, cloves and cinnamon to suit your taste, and the remainder of the flour; and last, one teaspoonful soda dissolved in a very little water. Bake as soon as put together.
Spices, in all receipts, may be increased or diminished to suit the taste. One nutmeg and a teaspoonful of other spices will be a medium allowance; cloves are generally undesirable, except in fruit cake.
Rosie’s Raised Cake.—Three cups bread dough, two cups sugar, one cup butter, or half cup butter and half cup lard, two eggs, nutmeg to suit the taste, one wineglass of wine, half a teaspoonful of soda, one pound of raisins chopped or stoned; beat all thoroughly together, and let it stand to rise till quite light. Always roll raisins in plenty of flour before putting into the dough, to prevent their sinking.
Fruit Cake.—Three cups sugar, half a pound butter, four cups flour, three eggs well beaten, one cup of milk, two nutmegs, two pounds of raisins stoned, one pound Zante currants, or half a pound of preserved orange peel sliced very thin and cut fine, one teaspoonful soda. Bake two hours and a half.
Farmer’s Fruit Cake.—Three cupfuls of sour dried-apples soaked overnight in warm water. In the morning drain off the water, chop not too fine, leaving the apple about as large as raisins, then simmer in two cupfuls of molasses two hours or until quite done, that is, until the apple has absorbed all the molasses; one and a half cupfuls of butter well beaten; one of sugar, four eggs, one cupful of sweet milk, one teaspoonful of cloves, one of cinnamon, one of nutmeg, one and a half teaspoonfuls of soda, one wineglass of wine, four and a half teacupfuls of flour; add one cup raisins or currants, if you please, but roll in flour before putting them to other ingredients; beat all together thoroughly; bake carefully in a well-heated oven. This is excellent to our taste, far better than the richer kind, and more easily digested.