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Baker's Apple Cake

A sheet of the coffee cake dough covered with apples in slices stuck in edgewise and, after a little time allowed for it to rise, baked in a slack oven. Plain bread or roll dough is sometimes made to serve the purpose at the bakeries, and the apples are basted while baking with syrup and dredged with cinnamon.

A Plea for the Pastry Cook. "In the time of Charles IX. of France, pastry cooks made such advance that the products of their industry held an honorable place in every feast; and they formed a considerable corporation, for we find that prince investing it with certain privileges" So says our most respected advocate and authority, and continues: "It is easy to entertain a large number of healthy appetites; with plenty of meat, venison, game, and some large pieces of fish, a feast for sixty is soon ready. But to please mouths that only open in affectation, to tempt women full of fancies, to excite stomachs of papier mache, or rouse an appetite which is ever flickering in the socket, would require more genius, insight, and labor than the resolution of one of the problems of the Geometry of the Infinite."

They pastry cook's occupation ought at least to rank equal to the meat cook's in the organization of the working force of a hotel. If it at present is held subordinate the reason may be found in the binding force of inherited customs; for the meat cook's office has existed ever since men first began to slay animals and toast their flesh over the camp fire for food, while the pastry cook's is a later out-growth of the highest civilization. But having the more delicate and difficult tasks to perform it demands for their perfect execution a rarer kind of alent. Almost any person of ordinary shrewdness and aptitude casually thrown for awhile amongst the cooks in a hotel may set up with a fair chance of succeeding as a meat cook himself in the vastly preponderating number of places where cheapness has to be the first consideration, and from that may easily reach the more lucrative positions; but first-class pastry-cooks, cannot be made in that way, for pastry cooking, including bread making and baking, is a more exact trade, a matter depending upon weights and measures and a particular manipulations, not to be trusted to guess work without long previous practice. The products of the meat cook's labor are set before people prepared for their enjoyment with appetites sharpened by hunger. The cook, and the steward of practiced taste may discern in the soup a slight burnt or smoky or unpleasant flavor, yet the entire company will probably partake of it with enjoyment without perceiving anything amiss; but after the keen appetites have been appeased let something of the pastry cook's be sent to table burdened with a similar inferiority and it will be immediately and almost unanimously rejected. It used to be the frequent remark of a very successful hotel-keeper, that "people take more notice of the pastry than of any other part of the dinner." The character of the table is more apt to be judged by the quality of the products of the pastry cook's labor, including the warm breads, waffles, and cakes, than by anything else, and if the working man or woman of the culinary department is possessed of taste and perception in a superior degree their quality can no-where be so well displayed as in the last course of a dinner upon the dainty dishes that are set about to bear comparison and to hold their place if they may among the rich fruits and nuts, the wines, the flowers of the desert.

But if the pastry cook's art may claim consideration because of its capacity for contributing to what is delicate, elegant, and ornate, it has even greater claims on the score of usefulness. Up and down the crowded streets of one of the largest and busiest cities-Chicago to-wit-at frequent intervals may be found restaurants with all sorts of meats, fish and fowls displayed with their garnishings in the most tempting manner possible; and between them and twice as frequent are the beer halls with their lunch displayed, more or less free, of boiled meat, tripe, chopped cabbage and rye bread, the indications seeming to be that all the men are eaters only of meat and its "trimmings." But not so. There are other places where men lunch and dine. There are bakeries in Chicago which are in reality large factories, as extensive as some pork packing establishments, and these making specialties of pies, bread, cakes, or crackers seem--if we may be allowed to make a rough guess-to supply about one-fourth of the entire city. These large bakeries have shops for retailing, large double stores in the heart of the city, converted into lunch houses with long counters and rows of stools, and waiters, clerks and cashiers, and they are crowded during about two hours of each meal time about six hours of the day, with men taking a meal of bread cakes, pies and coffee, tea, or milk. Nothing is cooked there except the coffee made by steam heat. They serve French split rolls and round graham rolls with butter, three for five cents, in little baskets; coffee-cakes made up in twists like one of our cuts, and brushed over with syrup, two for five cents; yellow rusks in long shape like rolls; Boston brown bread, very brown and baked in pails, or deep molds same shape. Apple cake they have, and "stollen", and "Lincoln pie," here called "Washington pie;" small sponge cakes baked in pans the length of a finger, also lady-fingers, one cent apiece; milk bread baked in long tin molds, plum cake, baked "apple dumplings," and pies; home made pies, with pumpkin and custard thick, even up to the brim, lemon pie with meringue on top, mince and apple.

Our interest in this matter is that of a theorist liking to find his beliefs verified. Meat is the most expensive and wasteful article of hotel provision. We have found in hotels that in proportion as the breads and other articles included under the head of pastries rose in excellence the demand upon the meats was lessened, to the benefit, probably, of all concerned. The products of these large city bakeries are good with the uniform excellence that might be expected of factory work and because they are good the sales are immense. The lunch or meal of this kind costs but from ten to thirty cents, yet its cheapness is not its only recommendation, for the crowds of customers are not of the tramping class; they are the foremen and workmen of the huge warehouses near by, the compositors, machinists, clerks, salesmen, tradesmen and professional men who practice the dietetic moralities. Good bread, good butter, and good coffee--has it not almost passed into a proverb that these are the first requisites to an excellent table? and taking the country over, away from the very large bakeries and the very best hotels are there any articles seldomer to be found?