Original White House Cookbook

These delicious little fancy cakes may be made by making a rich jumble-paste— rolling out in any desired shape ; cut some paste in thick, narrow strips and lay around your cakes, so as to form a deep, cup-like edge ; place on a well-buttered tin and bake. When done, fill with iced fruit prepared as follows : Take rich, ripe peaches (canned ones will do if fine and well drained from all juice) cut in halves; plums, strawberries, pineapples cut in squares or small triangles, or any other available fruit, and dip in the white of an egg that has been very slightly beaten and then in pulverized sugar, and lay in the centre of your cakes. WAFERS. Dissolve four ounces of butter in half a teacup of milk ; stir together four ounces of white sugar, eight ounces of sifted flour and the yolk of one egg, adding gradually the butter and milk, a tablespoonful of orangeflower water and a pinch of salt ; mix it well. Heat the wafer-irons, butter their inner surfaces, put in a tablespoonful of the batter and close the irons immediately ; put the irons over the fire, and turn them occasionally, until the wafer is cooked ; when the wafers are all cooked roll them on a small round stick, stand them upon a sieve and dry them ; serve with ices. PEACH CAKES. Take the yolks and whites of five eggs and beat them separately (the whites to a stiff froth). Then mix the beaten yolks with half a pound of pulverized and sifted loaf or crushed sugar, and beat the two together thoroughly. Fifteen minutes will be none too long for the latter operation if you would have excellence with your cakes. Now add half a pound of fine flour, dredging it in a little at a time, and then put in the whites of the eggs, beating the whole together for four or five minutes. Then with a large spoon, drop the batter upon a baking tin, which has been buttered and floured, being careful to have the cakes as nearly the same size as possible and resembling in shape the half of a peach. Have a quick oven ready and bake the cakes about ten minutes, watching them closely so that they may only come to a light brown color. Then take them out, spread the flat side of each with peach jam, and stick them together in pairs, covering the outside with a thin coat of icing, which when dry can be brushed over on one side of the cake, with a little cochineal water. CUP CAKES. Two CUPS of sugar, one cup of butter, one cup of milk, three cups and a half of flour and four eggs, half a teaspoonful of soda, large spoon cream of tartar; stir butter and sugar together and add the beaten yolks of the eggs, then the milk, then flavoring and the whites. Put cream of tartar in flour and add last. Bake in buttered gem -pans, or drop the batter, a teaspoonful at a time, in rows on flat buttered tins. To this recipe may be added a cup of English currants or chopped raisins; and also another variety of cakes may be made by adding a half cup of citron sliced and floured, a half cupful of chopped almonds and lemon extract. VARIEGATED CAKES.