Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

The baking of the cake is as important as the mixing. For most kinds the oven should be rather slow. If it be too hot for sponge cake, the cake will sometimes rise very high and fall again. In any case it will be coarsegrained and tough. A good test for sponge cake is to put a piece of white paper into the oven, close the door, and open it in five minutes. If the paper be a rich yellow, the oven is right ; but if it be light yellow, the oven is too cool, or if a dark brown, it is too hot. For pound cake the oven should be just hot enough to color the paper light brown. Cup cake requires an. oven of about the same temperature. It may, however, be a very little hotter without damage to the cake. Molasses gingerbread and all the thin-rolled cakes require a hotter oven. The paper should turn a dark brown in five minutes. Great care should be taken to prevent the cake from being jarred while it is baking, particularly when the cake is semi-liquid, as it always is when it has been in the oven only a little while. When the cake is baked it is a good plan to let it partially cool in the pans. A delicate cake is often made heavy by the jarring when it is taken from the pan hot. Sponge Cake. In making sponge cake it is always best to weigh the materials if possible. The best rule for sponge cake is the weight of the eggs in sugar and half the weight of the eggs in flour. For every ten eggs use the juice and rind of one large lemon. For the benefit of those who have not scales, a rule for measuring the materials is given in the chapter entitled " What All Housekeepers should Know." The method of mixing the cake is the same whether the' materials be weighed or measured. For two sheets of cake use two cupfuls and a half of sugar, two and a half of pastry flour, — or if new-process flour be used, take two cupfuls and half a gill, — ten eggs, and the juice and grated rind of one lemon. Have the oven properly heated, — that is, only moderately hot. Butter the pans, and line them. Weigh or measure the flour and sugar. Grate the rind of the lemon on the sugar. Squeeze the juice into a cup. Break the eggs, putting the whites in a large mixing-bowl and the yolks in a smaller bowl. Beat the yolks with the egg-beater until thick and light. Add the sugar to them, and beat with a spoon until light. Add the lemon juice, and beat two minutes longer. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and cut the beaten yolks and sugar into them, adding a spoonful at a time. This work must be done slowly and carefully. When this is all cut together, add the flour, and cut it in slowly and carefully, keeping the whole mass light and spongy. Pour the mixture into the two pans, and bake for about forty minutes. The oven should be moderately hot throughout the baking ; but for sponge cake it is very essential that the oven be slow at first, even if the heat be increased after the first twenty minutes. It is almost impossible to give the exact time of baking, as the thickness of the loaves of cake and the heat of the oven vary. It is a good plan to try the cake with a straw. It is of the greatest consequence that the cake shall not be jarred. * Quaker Sponge Cake.