Rules To Be Observed In Making Nice Cake Recipe

Cake, to be good, must be made of nice materials. The butter, eggs, and

flour, should not be stale, and the sugar should be of a light color,

and dry. Brown sugar answers very well for most kinds of cake, if rolled

free from lumps, and stirred to a cream with the butter. The flour

should be sifted, and if damp, dried perfectly, otherwise it will make

the cake heavy. The eggs should be beaten to a froth; and the cake will

be more delicate if the yelks and whites are beaten separately.

Saleratus and soda should be perfectly dissolved, and strained before

they are stirred into the cake. Raisins for cake should have the seeds

taken out. Zante currants should be rinsed in several waters to cleanse

them, rubbed in a dry cloth to get out the sticks, and then spread on

platters, and dried perfectly, before they are put into the cake.

Almonds should be blanched, which is done by turning boiling water on

them, and letting them remain in it till the skins will rub off easily.

When blanched, dry them, then pound them fine, with rosewater, to

prevent their oiling. When the weather is cold, the materials for cake

should be moderately warmed, before mixing them together. All kinds of

cake that are made without yeast are better for being stirred, till just

before they are baked. The butter and sugar should be stirred together

till white, then the eggs, flour, and spice, added. Saleratus and cream

should not be put in till just before the cake is baked--add the fruit

last. Butter the cake pans well. The cake will be less liable to burn if

the pans are lined with white buttered paper. The cake should not be

moved while baking if it can be avoided, as moving it is apt to make it

heavy. The quicker most kinds of cake are baked, the lighter and better

they will be; but the oven should not be of such a furious heat as to

burn them. It is impossible to give any exact rules as to the time to be

allowed for baking various kinds of cake, as so much depends on the heat

of the oven. It should be narrowly watched while in the oven, and if it

browns too fast, it should be covered with a thick paper. To ascertain

when rich cake is sufficiently baked, stick a clean broom splinter

through the thickest part of the loaf--if none of the cake adheres to

the splinter, it is sufficiently baked. When cake that is baked on flat

tins moves easily on them, it is sufficiently baked.