For Orange Cake take the weight of three eggs in butter, sugar and flour, the grated rind and strained juice of an orange, or two, if small, and a teaspoonful of baking-powder. Make and bake the cake in exactly the same way as the preceding one, but if iced, use white icing, or colour it with a little grated orange-rind and juice, using orange-juice to flavour it.
Madeira Cake is made in the same way and with the same proportions, but the orange is of course omitted and some finely-sliced lemon or candied peel substituted as a flavouring, or a little essence of vanilla.
For various kinds of cake you cannot have a better foundation than by taking the weight of as many eggs as you wish to use, in flour, butter and sugar, and then adding the various flavourings and a teaspoonful, more or less, according to the number of eggs, of baking-powder.
Desiccated cocoanut makes a nice change if Cocoanut Cake is desired, or, if you do not mind the trouble of grating it, the fresh cocoanut is of course superior. After the cake is baked brush the top over with a little white of egg and scatter some of the cocoanut upon it.
Twelve delicious little Rice Cakes may be made by taking one egg and its weight in sugar and butter, half its weight in ground rice and half in wheaten flour. When mixing add the rice after the flour, and also a few drops of flavouring or the grated rind of half a lemon. Bake in small tins in a quick oven for ten minutes. If two or more eggs are used and the other ingredients increased in proportion an excellent cake can be made.
Almond Buns are also nice. For these take half a pound of flour, six ounces of butter, six ounces of castor sugar, four ounces of almonds blanched and chopped, and a teaspoonful of baking-powder. Mix together the butter, sugar, eggs and flour, add the almonds and baking-powder last, form into buns and bake on a buttered tin for twenty minutes.
Queen Cakes are always favourites but require careful making and the proper heart-shaped tins to bake them in. Prepare the tins as previously directed by buttering them very thoroughly and sprinkling with castor sugar and flour. Then take three eggs, their weight in fresh butter, sugar, flour, and currants, and the grated rind of a lemon. Cream the butter and sugar together, add the eggs, fruit, and a pinch of salt, then the flour and half a teaspoonful of baking-powder, and lastly a small wineglassful of good brandy. Whisk thoroughly, shake off any loose flour or sugar from the tins, fill them three parts full of the mixture and hit each one sharply on the table before putting in the oven. Bake for twenty minutes.
Genoese Pastry is also popular, but cannot be made in a hurry. Take half a pound of butter, half a pound of castor sugar, half a pound of flour, the yolks of two eggs and the yolks and whites of two more eggs, and half a teaspoonful of baking-powder. Mix thoroughly, spread evenly over sheets of buttered paper placed in Yorkshire pudding tins, smooth over with a knife dipped in boiling water, and bake twenty minutes in a moderate oven, but keep the cake a pale brown colour.
While it is baking prepare some icing as directed for cherry cake, using the two whites of egg left over from the cake. Divide into two portions on two plates, colouring one pink and leaving the other white; flavour the former with a little raspberry syrup, or juice from some jam, and the latter with vanilla, lemon, or a little maraschino liqueur. Dissolve half an ounce of grated chocolate with two tablespoonfuls of water and stir it over the fire till thoroughly smooth and liquid, adding two or three lumps of sugar. If you have not a forcing bag with which to ornament your icing, or if you are not an adept in the use of it, provide yourself with a few crystallised cherries, blanched almonds, chopped pistachio nuts, and pink and white comfits with which to decorate your cakes. How they shall be decorated I leave to your own artistic minds to decide—only reminding you that almonds, pistachio nuts or a neat pattern of pink and white icing, or a border of alternate pink and white comfits are most suitable for decorating chocolate icing, while cherries and pink sugar look best on white, and almonds and white sugar on pink. A very speedy and effective decoration is to sprinkle white grated cocoanut on your pink cakes, and a mixture of pink (coloured with cochineal) and pale green (coloured with spinach juice) on white icing, using a mixture of all three colours on the chocolate. The study of the cakes in some high-class confectioner’s will help you here. When the cake is baked lift it by the paper on to a clean pastry-board, remove the paper, divide each slab of cake across, and then split it open. On one piece put raspberry jam and press the other half upon it while hot; on another marmalade, on the third apricot, and on the last strawberry or pineapple. Pour over the apricot cake your chocolate icing, and while still hot cut into strips about two and a half inches wide, and then cut again slantwise across the strips so as to form diamond-shaped pieces. Then place them at the mouth of the oven to dry, while you proceed in the same way with your other cakes. Be careful to use your pink icing with the red jam, and white with the yellow. When partially dry the decorations must be added, otherwise they will not adhere to the icing, and then the cakes must be again dried until the icing will not take the impression of the finger when pressed upon it.
Scotch Shortbread is a favourite with many people, though hardly to be commended to the notice of dyspeptic sufferers. The following recipe for it, given to me by a Scotchwoman, will be found a very good one.