POOR MAN'S FRUIT CAKE
3-1/2 cupfuls of flour
1 cupful of brown sugar
1/2 cupful of New Orleans molasses
1 pound of seeded raisins
1 cupful of sour milk
1/2 cupful of butter
1 teaspoonful of cinnamon
1 teaspoonful of allspice
1 teaspoonful of soda
Cut the raisins into halves and flour them with four tablespoonfuls of the flour. Dissolve the soda in a tablespoonful of water, add it to the thick sour milk, beat a minute, add the molasses, beat again, add the butter, melted carefully, and stir in the flour; add the spices, and beat well. Stir in the raisins, and turn into a greased bread pan. Bake in a moderate oven one hour. When done, turn from the pan, baste with a syrup, made by boiling four tablespoonfuls of sugar with three of water, and add two teaspoonfuls of currant or grape jelly. Shut the cake in a tin box for a week or more. If made well this is moist and rich at very little cost.
BANANA LAYER
1/4 cupful of butter
1 cupful of sugar
2/3 cupful of water
2 cupfuls of flour
2 rounding teaspoonfuls of baking powder
Whites of four eggs
Put together the same as Ice Cream Cake, and bake in three layers. When cold, put together with Banana Filling.
BANANA FILLING
Boil together one cupful of sugar and a half cupful of water until they spin a heavy thread, and pour slowly, beating all the while, into the well-beaten whites of two eggs. Beat until rather stiff and cold. When the cakes are cold, spread one-third of this filling over one cake, cover with thin slices of red bananas, put on another cake, on this another third of filling and bananas, and the remaining cake; cover this with the remaining filling, and dust thickly with chopped nuts. Do not let this stand too long, or the filling will absorb moisture from the bananas and run down the cake.
ICE CREAM CAKE
1-1/2 cupfuls of sugar
2-1/2 cupfuls of flour
1/4 cupful of butter
1 cupful of water
2 rounding teaspoonfuls of baking powder
Whites of five eggs