Firstly (as I have said before)—Give yourself time, and do not hurry or slur over any part of the process.
Secondly—Be sure your oven is at the right temperature before you put in your cakes. A quick oven is best for buns and small cakes, and a tolerably quick one to raise large cakes, and then the heat must be lowered and kept at a regular temperature to bake them through. When a cake has risen, lay a sheet of buttered paper over the top to prevent it blackening. To ascertain if a cake is sufficiently baked, plunge a clean knife or skewer through the centre; if it comes out clean and dry the cake is baked, if sticky, it requires further baking.
Thirdly—Be very careful that your cake-tins or moulds are thoroughly clean and well greased. Line your plain tins with well-greased plain paper, not printed. The tins for small cakes such as queen cakes should be sprinkled with flour and castor sugar after they are buttered.
Fourthly—Use only the best flour, and see that it is well dried, sifted, and warmed before using. Clean currants and sultanas with flour on a sieve; this not only cleans them but prevents them from sinking in the cake.
Fifthly—Before commencing to mix your cake, be sure your tins are ready, and that you have round you all your ingredients weighed and prepared, so that you may not have to leave your cake unfinished while you fetch something you have forgotten. All cakes but those made with yeast should be baked directly the mixing is finished.
Sixthly—Do not be disheartened if your first attempt to make a new cake is a failure. We too often forget that success is frequently the outcome of many failures.
Before giving any recipes for fancy cakes, let me advise you to give the following recipes for “Sally Lunns” and “Tea Cakes made with yeast,” a trial.
For the former, mix half a teaspoonful of salt in a pound of flour, and add three tablespoonfuls of sugar. Melt half an ounce of butter in half a pint of new milk, and when milk-warm pour it over half an ounce of German yeast. Add a well-beaten egg and a little grated nutmeg. Stir lightly into the flour with a wooden spoon, cover with a cloth and set it in a warm place to rise; then bake from fifteen to twenty minutes in a quick oven. Some well-greased hoops are best to use for baking Sally Lunns, and the cakes should be brushed over with some beaten egg before they are quite baked. To serve, split each one into three slices, toast a delicate brown, butter and cut each slice in two, place together and serve on a very hot plate.
For Tea Cakes take two pounds of flour, half a teaspoonful of salt, quarter of a pound of butter or lard, and three ounces of sugar, with a few currants or sultanas if liked. Mix half an ounce of German yeast with three-quarters of a pint of warm milk and one egg. Rub the butter into the flour, and add the other dry ingredients, mix in the liquid part and knead lightly, and then set to rise. When sufficiently light divide into round cakes, place on a baking-sheet and allow them to remain a few minutes longer to rise again before baking. They will require from a quarter to half an hour in a good oven. They may either be split open, buttered, and eaten while hot, or toasted in the same way as Sally Lunns. The great culinary authority, M. Soyer, recommends that after toasting cakes or hot buttered toast, each piece should be cut through separately and then placed together, as when the whole is divided at once the pressure needed to force the knife down to the plate, forces the butter into the lowest slice, which is often swimming in grease while the upper slices are comparatively dry.
And now we will turn our attention to a few cakes which I can cordially recommend. Let us take Cherry Cake to commence with. For this you will require six ounces of flour, three ounces of butter, three ounces of castor sugar, two eggs, the grated rind of half a lemon, two ounces of crystallised or glacé cherries and a teaspoonful of baking-powder. Slightly warm but do not oil the butter, beat it to a cream with the sugar and lemon, add the eggs, well beaten, then the flour and cherries (cut in halves), and lastly the baking-powder. Whisk thoroughly, pour into a paper-lined tin and bake from three-quarters to half an hour. Another plan is to bake the cake in a Yorkshire pudding tin, and when baked to cover the top with pink icing, made with the white of an egg beaten up till fairly liquid but not frothy, and mixed very smoothly with sufficient icing sugar to make a smooth paste. You will find the readiest way of doing this is to use a wooden spoon on a dinner-plate, holding the bowl of the spoon with the fingers; a little practice and patience are needed to make the icing perfectly smooth, but remember one lump spoils the appearance of the icing. Add a few drops of cochineal and a few drops of vanilla flavouring, and spread the icing evenly over the top of the cake with a paper knife or dessert knife; a steel one must not be used. Take off any drops that may run over the sides of the cake and divide it in two pieces while the icing is wet, then dry at the mouth of the oven.