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Cake (Before commencing to make cake)

Before commencing to make cake, be sure that you have all the ingredients in the house, and all the implements at hand, such as trays, bowls, large dishes, large strong iron spoons, egg. Beaters, etc.

Use none but the best family flour in making cake. It is a good plan to sift it before weighing or measuring it, and to let it air and sun several hours before using it; as this makes it much lighter.

It is a great mistake to set aside rancid or indifferent butter for cake-making. The butter used for the purpose should be good and fresh. Always use granulated sugar or else powdered loaf or cut sugar; as pulverized sugar is apt to have plaster of Paris or other foreign elements in it. Never use brown or even clarified sugar in cake-making, unless it be for gingerbread. Do not attempt to make cake without fresh eggs. Cream of tartar, soda and yeast powders are poor substitutes for these.

A fresh egg placed in water will sink to the bottom. In breaking eggs, do not break them over the vessels in which they are to be beaten. Break them, one by one, over a saucer, so that if you come across a defective one, you will not spoil the rest by mixing it with them; whereas, if it is a good one, it will be easy to pour the white from the saucer into the bowl with the rest of the whites, and to add the yolk which you retain in the egg-shell to the other yolks.

The Dover egg-beater saves much time and trouble in beating eggs and will beat the yolks into as stiff a froth as the whites. It is well to have two egg-beaters, one for the yolks and the other for the whites. Eggs well beaten ought to be as stiff as batter. Cool the dishes that you are to use in beating eggs. In summer, keep the eggs on ice before using them, and always try to make the cake before breakfast, or as early in the morning as possible. Some of the best housewives think it advisable to cream the butter and flour together, and add the sugar to the yolks when these are whipped to a stiff froth, as it produces yellow specks when you add the sugar sooner. The whites must always be added last.

In making-fruit cake, prepare the fruit the day before. In winter time, this may be easily and pleasantly done after tea. It requires a longer time to bake fruit cake, than plain. Every housekeeper should have a close cake-box in which to put cake after cooling it and wrapping it in a thick napkin.