Cake.
General Suggestions.—Always sift the flour for cake before measuring out the amount required. Use the best granulated white sugar. Eggs for use in cake are better to have the yolks and whites beaten separately. Beat the former until they cease to froth and begin to thicken as if mixed with flour. Beat the whites until stiff enough to remain in the bowl if inverted. Have the eggs and dishes cool, and if practicable, beat in a cool room. Use earthen or china bowls to beat eggs in.
If fruit is to be used, it should be washed and dried according to directions given on page 298, and then dusted with flour, a dessertspoonful to the pound of fruit. For use in cup cake or any other cake which requires a quick baking, raisins should be first steamed. If you have no patent steamer, place them in a close covered dish within an ordinary steamer, and cook for an hour over a kettle of boiling water. This should be done the day before they are to be used.
Use an earthen or granite-ware basin for mixing cake. Be very accurate in measuring the materials, and have them all at hand and all utensils ready before beginning to put the cake together. If it is to be baked at once, see that the oven also is at just the right temperature. It should be less hot for cake than for bread. Thin cakes require a hotter oven than those baked in loaves. They require from fifteen to twenty minutes to bake; thicker loaves, from thirty to sixty minutes. For loaf cakes the oven should be at such a temperature that during the first half of the time the cake will have risen to its full height and just begun to brown.
The recipes given require neither baking powder, soda, nor saleratus. Yeast and air can be made to supply the necessary lightness, and their use admits of as great a variety in cakes as will be needed on a hygienic bill of fare.
In making cake with yeast, do not use very thick cream, as a rich, oily batter retards fermentation and makes the cake slow in rising. If the cake browns too quickly, protect it by a covering of paper. If necessary to move a cake in the oven, do it very gently. Do not slam the oven door or in any way jar a cake while baking, lest it fall. Line cake tins with paper to prevent burning the bottom and edges. Oil the paper, not the tins, very lightly. Cake is done when it shrinks from the pan and stops hissing, or when a clean straw run into the thickest part comes up clean.
As soon as possible after baking, remove from the pan, as, if allowed to remain in the pan, it is apt to become too moist.