The "A1" cookery book

Gingerbread Cake. — | lb. flour (partly rice flour), i lb. butter, i lb. Demerara sugar, | lb. black treacle, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon each of ground ginger, cinnamon, and carbonate of soda, i teacup of milk. Put the flour and spices into a basin, the butter, sugar, treacle, and milk into a saucepan, and when nearly, but not quite boiling, pour over the eggs (previously well beaten). Mix well, add to the flour and spices, and stir well together. Bake in a moderate oven. Icing. — £ lb. icing sugar, £ teaspoon of lemon juice, sufficient white of egg stiffly whisked to make into a soft dough, a little flavouring essence. When this has been spread on the cakes it must be allowed to dry very gently indeed. It may be colored with cochineal, orange juice, chocolate, saffron, or spinach syrup. Jumbles. — i lb. flour, | lb. treacle, i teaspoon of ginger, i lb. sugar (Demerara), i lb. butter. Mix the butter and treacle together in a saucepan, put on the fire to melt, then add it to the flour and sugar, with a teaspoon of ginger. Let it stand till cold. Take small pieces the size of a walnut, drop them on a tin some way from each other to allow for spreading. Take off each separately with a knife and lay over a rolling-pin or new broom handle till they have taken the shape. The tin need not be buttered, and the gingerbreads must be left for a minute after coming out of the oven before being removed from the tin to the rolling-pin. Kimberley Cakes. — i egg, r^ oz. flour, 2 oz. butter, 2 oz. ground rice, 1 oz. sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 3 tablespoons milk. Rub the butter into the flour and ground rice, add the sugar and baking powder, the egg well whisked, and the milk. Butter two plates and spread the mixture on them. Bake quarter of an hour in a moderate oven. When baked slip the cakes off the plates, spread jam on one, place the other on the top of it, and sprinkle with castor sugar. Lafayette Cakes. — 6 oz. of flour, 6 oz. of butter, 6 oz. of castor sugar, 3 eggs, 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Stir the butter and sugar with a silver fork till the butter is creamed, break in one egg, and beat lightly. Mix the baking powder with the flour and then stir in a little flour, add another egg, then more flour till all is used up ; beat for a few more minutes, and then pour into a well-buttered, very shallow tin, and bake at once from ten to fifteen minutes. Cut the cake when done into thin fingers three or four inches long by two broad. These can be cut in two and jam laid between (raspberry is best, or red currant jelly). The fingers should be iced with various coloured icings. The icing for these cakes can be made by putting half a pound of icing sugar into a bowl, dropping in some flavouring, and mixing smoothly with about a tablespoon of warm water. With the blade of a knife, previously dipped in boiling water, spread the top of six of the fingers with the icing, divide the remainder of the icing into two, and colour one half with cochineal, spinach syrup, or saffron, and to the other half stir in two tablespoons of grated chocolate. Ice the remainder of the cakes in the same way. These cakes can be cut into diamonds, rounds, or strips, and will make many variations of little cakes for tea.