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Second Day: Rose
So it was settled that Rose, Edith and Grace should be the performers for the next afternoon, and in order that all might be quite ready, Mrs. King gave them the following recipes, which they copied into their books: No. 4-K. K.'S WINE JELLY.
Dissolve one ounce of Cox's sparkling gelatine in a pint of cold water; then pour over it a quart of boiling water; add the grated rind of one lemon and the juice of three, half a pint of Sherry wine, a pinch of ground cinnamon, and sugar to taste. One-and-a-half pounds (or pints) of sugar will be enough for most palates. No. 5-CHOCOLATE CAKE.
One cup butter, two of sugar, three and a half of flour, one scant cup sweet milk, five eggs, omitting two whites, one teaspoonful cream tartar, one-half do. soda, one do. extract vanilla.
Meringue for the same. Beat the whites of the two eggs very light with one and a half cups powdered sugar; six tablespoonfuls grated chocolate, two teaspoonfuls vanilla. Put the meringue on while the cake is hot, and leave it in the pan to cool. "I don't see how any one can judge of what a 'cupfull' is, Aunt Jane," said Rose, "cups are of such different sizes. Papa's coffee-cup is a perfect monster, and mamma's tea-cup is a mite, small enough for a fairy." "Kitchen cups are not apt to vary much in size," replied Aunt Jane, "and those are what are taken as a measure. If there is a great difference, we should choose one of a medium size. Then, you must remember, that when there are several things measured in cups, they will be proportioned to one another; so if you find after one experiment that your cake has not enough eggs in proportion to the other ingredients, you will know that your cups are too large; if the egg is too predominating, it will be because the cups are too small; so you will soon learn the happy medium." "Besides," said Edith, "I suppose every little girl will have some grown person to show her about these things the first time, and then, after that she can remember. Won't you give us some more receipts, Mrs. King?" "Here they are," said Aunt Jane. "The next is" No. 6-SPONGE CAKE.
Ten eggs, three cups flour, three of sugar, juice and rind of one lemon, half a tea-cupful cold water. Beat the eggs separately, then add sugar and lemon to the yolks, then the whites, and lastly, sift in the flour. A teaspoonful of baking-powder, dissolved in half a cup of cold water, is thought by many to be an improvement. No. 7-BOILED CUSTARD.
Four numbered recipes from a teaching book for children, given without oven temperatures or times because Aunt Jane expected a grown cook standing by. The measurements are the period's kitchen cup and spoon, not standardised ones.
- The cup question, answeredThe passage itself frets about cup sizes; treating them as 8 fl oz will be close enough. Weigh rather than measure if you can: a cup of flour can run anywhere from about 4 to 5 oz depending on whether it is sifted or scooped, and the recipe gives no indication which was meant except in the sponge cake, which says to sift.
- "do." means dittoIn the chocolate cake, "one-half do. soda, one do. extract vanilla" reads as half a teaspoon of soda and one teaspoon of vanilla.
- Cream of tartar and sodaOne teaspoon cream of tartar with half a teaspoon soda is homemade baking powder, self-acting the moment the milk hits it. Substitute 1½ teaspoons of double-acting baking powder if you prefer, and get the batter into the oven promptly either way.
- Missing oven directionsNeither cake carries a temperature, a pan size or a time; Aunt Jane assumed a grown cook standing by. A moderate oven for the chocolate cake and a slightly cooler one for the sponge is the usual modern reading, and the chocolate cake must be baked in a single pan, since the meringue goes on hot and the cake cools in the pan.
- The uncooked meringueThis is not a baked meringue: raw whites and sugar are spread on a hot cake and left to set as it cools, which never brings the egg near a safe temperature. Use pasteurised egg whites, or return the iced cake to a 325F oven for 10 to 12 minutes to firm and set it.
- Cox's sparkling gelatineA defunct Edinburgh brand (J & G Cox of Gorgie Mills). One ounce is about four ¼-oz envelopes, or roughly 3 tablespoons. Total liquid here is three pints of water plus half a pint of sherry, which is near the modern proportion of one envelope to two cups; test a spoonful on a cold saucer before moulding if you want it to stand unmoulded.
- "One-and-a-half pounds (or pints)"The parenthesis reflects the old habit of treating a pint of granulated sugar as a pound — it is closer to 14 oz. Either way this is a very sweet jelly by current taste; start with half the sugar and adjust before the gelatin sets.
- Sponge cake methodBeating the whites separately and folding the flour in last is the whole structure of the cake. The optional baking powder dissolved in water is insurance for a nervous cook and can be left out entirely.
- YieldThe wine jelly comes to about 1¾ quarts, so a two-quart mould suits it; roughly ten to twelve servings. Each cake is large and should serve a dozen or more.
Six Little Cooks belongs to a late nineteenth-century genre in which cookery was taught to girls through a story: an aunt, a group of children, and a numbered recipe copied out into a notebook. The lesson embedded in this passage — that cup measures are relative, and that the proportions between them are what actually matter — is the sort of practical reasoning that vanished from cookbooks once standardised cups and spoons became common in American kitchens around the turn of the century. Wine jelly was one of the era's genteel staples, served both at parties and to invalids, and packaged gelatin had lately made it easy; before that a cook boiled calves' feet for hours to get the same set. Cox's sparkling gelatine, named in the recipe, was a Scottish product widely advertised in Britain and America at the time, and the brand name here does the work a generic ingredient listing would do now. The "K. K." of the title is presumably a household contributor identified by initials.