Cake: Teller
The slitted spoon beats without any noise, and leaves no black marks on the bowl. Then for the other utensils, you need a good flour sifter, cake pans which have been used long enough to become rather black-for new tin will never make a good crust -two glass measuring cups, a small bowl, a Dover egg beater with which to beat the yolks of eggs, a large pliable Teller knife, a flat wire egg whipper, which is called the Daisy beater, and a wire cake cooler, with feet which raise it high enough for the air to circulate around the cake and carry off the steam.
The only way always to have a good cake is to stick to the level measurements, as is taught to-day in all the leading cooking schools.
Flour, sugar, butter, indeed every ingredient, is leveled off perfectly flat with the Teller knife. Grease your cake tin with lard or olive oil, using a butter brush (butter is not satisfactory for this, as it blackens the crust), then sprinkle flour inside the tin. Jar the pan lightly on the table, tipping it around so the flour will adhere to the greased surface. This gives a perfectly even surface to the bottom of the cake. If you wish to line the tin with paper, use parchment paper, which comes by the roll. Lay the tin upon it, top down, mark around with a pencil, then cut it an inch or two larger. Fringe the paper with a scissors down to the pencil line, and slip into a greased pan. Paper is frequently used with a fruit cake, because that cake burns more readily than any other. By using it for other cakes, you can get a nice, smooth surface for icing.
Before we begin the process of cake mixing, let us see what makes a cake light. Compared with the making of bread, cake raising is a swift process. It is brought about partly by blending an acid with an alkali.
Air bubbles are created that make the mixture frothy before it is poured into the pans; heat begins to expand the bubbles and later to set them.
Eggs thoroughly well beaten add further to the lightness of cake, for air is entangled liberally when the albumen is whipped.
According to what other ingredients are used in a cake, we add baking powder, soda, and cream of tartar, or soda alone for the raising power. Baking powder is simply a scientific mixture of cream of tartar and soda with the addition of a little flour to preserve it from getting lumpy. It must always be used with sweet milk. The same combination, of course, is made with cream of tartar and soda, the formula generally given in older cookbooks. Soda alone is used when there is some powerful acid in the liquid, such as sour milk or molasses. If one has nothing but sweet milk on hand and no cream of tartar, the soda will do its work almost as well by adding a small quantity of vinegar or lemon juice.
It is never economy to use poor ingredients in cake. Strong butter and eggs that are not absolutely fresh cannot have their flavor concealed by the most liberal addition of vanilla.
Also, when you possibly can, use pastry flour. You can easily tell the difference between it and the flour with which we make bread, by gathering up a handful. It will stick together in a lump within your hand, while bread flour falls apart. Bread flour may be used in a contingency, but after measuring it, take out 2 level tablespoonfuls from each cupful as your batter is liable to be too thick, and the cake may crack as soon as it begins to crust.
Now for the simplest form of cake good sponge cake. Separate the CAKE eggs, drop the yolks into a mixing bowl, and the whites upon a large platter. If the eggs have been kept in a refrigerator or cold pantry, they will froth much more quickly. With the wooden spoon, beat the yolks steadily till they begin to grow thick and lemon-colored, adding gradually 1 cupful sugar. Put in 1 tablespoonful lemon juice and the grated rind of lemon, then 1 cupful sifted flour with teaspoonful salt in it. This amount of salt ought to be added to every cake. It overcomes the flat taste which it would otherwise have.