Common Sense in the Household 53

Common Sense in the Household 53

CAKE.

 

Use none but the best materials for making cake. If you cannot afford

to get good flour, dry white sugar, and the best family butter, make

up your mind to go without your cake, and eat plain bread with a clear

conscience.

 

There are no intermediate degrees of quality in eggs. I believe I have

said that somewhere else, but it ought to be repeated just here. They

should be, like Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion. A tin whisk or whip

is best for beating them. The “Dover Egg-beater” is the best in the

market. All kinds of cake are better for having the whites and yolks

beaten separately. Beat the former in a large shallow dish until you

can cut through the froth with a knife, leaving as clear and distinct

an incision as you would in a solid substance. Beat the yolks in an

earthenware bowl until they cease to froth, and thicken as if mixed

with flour. Have the dishes _cool_—not too cold. It is hard to whip

whites stiff in a warm room.

 

Stir the butter and sugar to a cream. Cakes often fail because this

rule is not followed. Beat these as faithfully as you do the eggs,

warming the butter very slightly if hard. Use only a silver or wooden

spoon in doing this.

 

Do not use fresh and stale milk in the same cake. It acts as

disastrously as a piece of new cloth in an old garment. Sour milk makes

a spongy cake; sweet, one closer in grain.

 

Study the moods and tenses of your oven carefully before essaying a

loaf of cake. Confine your early efforts to tea-cakes and the like.

Jelly-cake, baked in shallow flat tins, is good practice during the

novitiate. Keep the heat steady, and as good at bottom as top.

 

Streaks in cake are caused by unskilful mixing, too rapid or unequal

baking, or a sudden decrease in heat before the cake is quite done.

 

Don’t delude yourself, and maltreat those who are to eat your cake, by

trying to make soda do the whole or most of the duty of eggs. Others

have tried it before, with unfortunate results. If curiosity tempt you

to the experiment, you had better allay it by buying some sponge-cake

at the corner bakery.

 

Test whether a cake is done by running a clean straw into the thickest

part. It should come up clean.

 

Do not leave the oven-door open, or change the cake from one oven to

the other, except in extreme cases. If it harden too fast on the top,

cover with paper. It should rise to full height before the crust forms.

 

Except for gingerbread, use none but white sugar.

 

Always sift the flour.

 

Be accurate in your weights and measures.

 

_There is no royal road to good fortune in cake-making. What is worth

doing at all is worth doing well._ There is no disgrace in not having

time to mix and bake a cake. You may well be ashamed of yourself if you

are too lazy, or careless, or hurried to beat your eggs, cream your

butter and sugar, or measure your ingredients.

 

Yet, sometimes, when you believe you have left no means untried to

deserve success, failure is your portion. What then?

 

If the cake be uneatable, throw it away upon the first beggar-boy who

comes for broken meat, and say nothing about it. If streaky or burned,

cut out the best parts, make them presentable as possible, and give

them to John and the children as a “second-best” treat. Then keep up a

brave heart and try again. You _may_ not satisfy yourself in a dozen

trials. You certainly _will_ not, if you never make another attempt.

 

Cake should be wrapped in a thick cloth as soon as cool, and kept in

tight tin boxes. Do not cut more at a time than you are likely to use,

as it is not good when dry. Jelly-cakes are best set away upon plates,

cloths wrapped closely about them, and a box enclosing all.

 

Cream your sugar and butter, measure milk, spices, etc., before

beginning work. For fruit-cake it is best to prepare the materials the

day before. Let your icing dry thoroughly before wrapping up the cake.

 

_Sift your flour before measuring_, as all the following receipts are

for sifted flour.

 

 

ICING. ✠

 

Whites of 4 eggs.

1 pound powdered white sugar.

Lemon, vanilla, or other seasoning.

 

Break the whites into a broad, clean, cool dish. Throw a small handful

of sugar upon them, and begin whipping it in with slow, steady strokes

of the beater. A few minutes later, throw in more sugar, and keep

adding it at intervals until it is all used up. Beat perseveringly

until the icing is of a smooth, fine, and firm texture. Half an hour’s

beating should be sufficient, if done well. If not stiff enough, put in

more sugar. A little practice will teach you when your end is gained.

If you season with lemon-juice, allow, in measuring your sugar, for the

additional liquid. Lemon-juice or a very little tartaric acid whitens

the icing. Use _at least_ a quarter of a pound of sugar for each egg.

 

This method of making icing was taught me by a confectioner, as easier

and surer than the old plan of beating the eggs first and alone. I

have used no other since my first trial of it. The frosting hardens in

one-fourth the time required under the former plan, and not more than

half the time is consumed in the manufacture. I have often iced a cake

but two hours before it was cut, and found the sugar dry all through.

 

Pour the icing by the spoonful on the top of the cake and near the

centre of the surface to be covered. If the loaf is of such a shape

that the liquid will settle of itself to its place, it is best to let

it do so. If you spread it, use a broad-bladed knife, dipped in cold

water. If it is as thick with sugar as it should be, you need not lay

on more than one coat. You may set it in a moderate oven for three

minutes, if you are in great haste. The better plan is to dry in a

sunny window, where the air can get at it, and where there is no dust.

 

Color icing yellow by putting the grated peel of a lemon or orange in a

thin muslin bag, straining a little juice through it, and squeezing it

hard into the egg and sugar.

 

Strawberry-juice colors a pretty pink, as does also cranberry-syrup.

 

 

ALMOND ICING.

 

Whites of four eggs.

1 pound sweet almonds.

1 pound powdered sugar.

A little rose-water.

 

Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them and stripping

off the skins. When dry, pound them to a paste, a few at a time, in

a Wedgewood mortar, moistening it with rose-water as you go on. When

beaten fine and smooth, beat gradually into icing, prepared according

to foregoing receipt.

 

Put on very thick, and, when nearly dry, cover with plain icing.

 

This is very fine.

 

 

_Or,_

 

Mingle a few bitter almonds with the sweet. The blended flavor of these

and the rose-water is very pleasant.

 

 

MARTHA’S CAKE (_For Jelly._) ✠

 

3 eggs.

1 cup sugar.

Butter, the size of an egg.

1 cup flour.

1 teaspoonful cream-tartar, sifted in the flour.

½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in a tablespoonful milk.

 

Bake in jelly-cake tins, and spread, when cold, with fruit-jelly.

 

This is, although so simple and inexpensive, an admirable foundation

for the various kinds of jelly, cream, and _méringue_ cake, which are

always popular. It seldom fails, and when well mixed and baked, is very

nice. If prepared flour be used leave out soda and cream-tartar.

 

 

MRS. M.’S CUP CAKE. ✠

 

1 cup butter.

2 cup sugar.

3 cups _prepared_ flour.

4 eggs.

1 cup sweet milk.

 

Bake in a loaf, or as jelly-cake.

 

 

CREAM-CAKE. ✠

 

2 cups powdered sugar.

⅔ cupful butter.

4 eggs.

½ cupful milk.

½ teaspoonful soda.

1 teaspoonful cream-tartar.

3 cups flour.

 

Bake in thin layers as for jelly-cake, and spread between them, when

cold, the following mixture:—

 

½ pint of milk.

2 small teaspoonfuls corn-starch.

1 egg.

1 teaspoonful vanilla.

½ cup sugar.

 

Heat the milk to boiling, and stir in the corn-starch, wet with a

little cold milk; take out a little and mix gradually with the beaten

egg and sugar; return to the rest of the custard, and boil, stirring constantly until quite thick. Let it cool before you season, and spread on cake. Season the icing also with vanilla.