Home › Recipes › Some Yeast-Raised Cakes

Some Yeast-Raised Cakes

There was a table covered with cakes made in a variety of emblematical shapes * * * representations of crosses, fonts, books, and one huge cake in the centre in the form of a bishop's mitre.-Dumas.

Three pounds of sugar; five pounds of rice; rice ? What will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her the mistress of the feast and she lays it on! I must have saffron to color the warden pies, (pear pies), mace, dates; nutmegs seven, a race or two of ginger, (but that I may beg); four pounds of prunes, and as many raisins of the sun.--Shakspeare's Winter's Tale. In bluff King Henry VIII's days * * the seasoning of dishes was strong and pungent; affron being a predominating ingredient in them.--Mary Jewry. Large dishes of rice, boiled to perfection, fowls, and meat cooked in every manner possible, all dishes highly colored with saffron, and very much flavored with mint--A Persian Garden Party, 1879.

While endeavoring to observe and respect the distinction between solid instruction and mere opinion we must say that the practice of yeast-raised cakes ought to be far more general among American pastrycooks and bakers than it is. The dreary repetition of middling pound cake and poor sponge cake, with a sorry variation or two, might with advantage be broken up by the introduction of some of the sorts which great cooks of old used to set before the king. That was before cooks began to begrudge a little work in behalf of excellence.

In the European countries where they cannot afford to be so extravagant as we are, when there is to be a festival, the first thing the managers do is, go to the baker, either buy enough light dough, and some notable housekeeper makes it into cheap but good cake for the multitude, or else the baker himself gets the contract. In this way plum cake itself becomes a cheap treat, while still richer and far more delicate varieties are made for the wealthy by the same general method with difference of degree.

It is conceded that some practice is necessary to make these cakes perfectly, for the exact time when they are ready for the oven can only be known by observation. But as far as can be, the directions here following will be found effectual, and make the practice easy.