Mrs. Lincoln's Boston cook book

An unlimited variety of cakes maj be made by varying the proportions of these materials, and to the same pro- portions many different names are given. Many amusing experiences are known of the eagerness with w^hich a newly named receipt for cake is received, which, after many trials, has been found to be an old receipt arranged in a different order. An analysis of the hundreds of receipts given in books devoted to cake-making would shoAv that the gen- eral principles involved may be included under two di- visions, namely, receipts for sponge cakes^ made without butter; Siwd 2^0 unci ov cup cakes ^ made icith butter. Sponge cakes are made rich with eggs, the lightness depending wholly upon the amount of air beaten into the egg ; or an inferior quality is sometimes made by substituting soda and cream of tartar for part of the eggs, and adding more flour and some liquid, usually water. They vary in color, according as the white or yolk of the egg is used. Butter cakes are varied in the same way, and also by the addi- tion of fruit, or spices, or various coloring and flavoring materials. There is no one department in cooking where so much depends upon the baking as in making cake. The fire should be rather low, but sufficient to last through the entire baking. In many stoves it is exceedingly diflScult to bake cake by a morning fire ; as so much coal is put on, 24 370 The Boston Cook Book, the fire is too hot and cannot be checked sufficient!}'. The oven should be less hot than for bread. If too hot, leave the oven door open for ten minutes before putting in the cake, then watch it, and protect it by putting over it a covering of paper, or a pan on the grate above. Do not attempt to make cake unless you can have entire control of the fire. Thin cakes require a hotter oven than those baked in thick loaves. If the oven be not hot enough at first, or be cooled too suddenly daring the baking, the cake will not be light. Cakes with molasses in them burn more quickly than others. Thin cakes should bake from fifteen to twenty minutes, thicker cakes from thirty to fort}^ minutes, very thick loaves about an hour, and fruit cake from two to three hours. Whichever kind you are baking, divide the time required into quarters. During the first quarter the heating is not manifested in appearance except by the rising ; during the second the cake should continue to rise and begin to brown ; then should become all over a rich golden brown ; and in the last quarter settle a httle, brown in the cracks, and shrink from the pan. Be careful not to take it out too soon. If necessary to move it, do it YQvy gently, and never move it when it has risen to the full height, but is not browned or fixed in its shape. If cake brown before rising, the oven is too hot. When it rises more in the centre, cracks open, and staj's up, it is too stiff with flour. It should rise first on the edges, then in the middle, crack slightlj^ settle to a level again, when the cracks usually come together. Nothing is more sug- gestive of bakeshop cake, or inferior quality in material, than a loaf with an upper surface having sharp edges, then hollows, and a peaked centre, as if the inside of the cake had boiled up and run out over the top.