Cassell's dictionary of cookery

the habit of making bread at home often find it difficult to do so. This difficulty may be easily overcome if they will procure a little dough from the baker's, and proceed as follows : — Take two pounds of dough. Put it at once into a basin, cover with a thick cloth, and let it rise. Place it on a floured paste-board, sprinkle over it a tea-spoonful of baking-powder, and add a quarter of a pound of lard or butter broken into small pieces, a quarter of a pound of moist sugar, a quarter of a pound of stoned raisins, a quarter of a pound of washed and dried currants, a few caraway-seeds, if liked, and a grated nutmeg. Knead thoroughly with as much lukewarm milk as is necessary. Butter some tins ; half fill them with the dough, place them on the hearth until the dough has risen so that they are three parts full, then bake the cakes in a wellheated oven. Plunge a knife into the middle of each ; when it comes out clean they are done enough. Time to bake, one to two hours, according to the size of the tins. Probable cost, Is. 3d. Sufficient for three small loaves. Plum Cake, Rich. — Put a pound and a half of butter into a good-sized bowl, and with the hand beat it to a cream. Mix with it the ■whites of eight fresh eggs whisked to a froth, and afterwards the yolks well beaten, and add a dessert-spoonful of salt, a pound of powdered sugar, a pound and a half of flour, two pounds of currants washed, picked, and diied, eight ounces each of candied lemon and citron cut into narrow strips, half an ounce of mixed spices, consisting of nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice, all pounded to a powder, haK a pound of almonds, blanched and pounded, the rind of four oranges rubbed upon three or four lumps of sugar and then powdered. Add each ingredient separately, and beat it well in before adding another. A glassful of brandy may be stirred in if liked. If this cake is to be light, it should be beaten fully three-quarters of an hour. Line a tin with double folds of buttered paper, pour in the mixture, and bake the cake in a moderate oven. Put twelve folds of paper under the cake, and four or five on the top of it, to prevent it burning. Time to bake, three hours if made in one cake, one hour and a half each if made into two. Probable cost, 5s. 6d., without the brandy. Sufficient for one large or two small cakes. Plum Cake, Rich, Icing for.— liich plum cakes are much improved if they arc covered with almonds and sugar icing. They may then be used as twelfth cakes. The icing is prepared as follows : — Blanch and peel half a pound of almonds. Pound them in a mortar to a smooth paste, and whilst pounding add a few drops of orange-flower water to keep them from oiling. Mix with them one pound of powdered and sifted loaf sugar, and add sufficient white of egg to make a soft paste. Bake the cake, and let it get cold. Spread the almond paste smoothly over it, and when it is hard cover with sugar icing about a quarter of an inch thick. To make the sugar icing, beat the whites of four eggs until they are frothy, only not white. Stir into them gradually one pound of finely -powdered and sifted loaf sugar, and add a few drops of lemon- juice occasionally, until the mixture presents the proper appearance. Spread the mixture evenly over the cake, and put it in a cool oven or hot screen until it is dry and hard.