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Cakes (II)
ONE EGG CAKE. - One cup sugar, half cup each butter and milk, two of flour and two level teaspoons baking powder, one egg and one cup raisins chopped and floured.
MARBLE CAKE. - White. One cup white sugar, one-half cup each butter and milk, whites of three eggs, one teaspoon cream-tartar, one-half teaspoon soda, two cups flour Dark. - One-half cup brown sugar, one-fourth cup butter, half cup molasses, one-fourth cup milk, one-half nutmeg, one teaspoon cinnamon, half teaspoon allspice, teaspoon cream-tartar, half teaspoon soda, two cups flour, yolks of three eggs; butter mold, put in the dark and light butter in alternate table spoonfuls. -Mrs. Dr. J. G. Earnest, Atlanta, Ga.
NEW YEAR'S FRUIT CAKE. --One pound each white sugar and flour, one half pound butter, whites of twelve eggs, two pounds each citron and blanched almonds, one large grated cocoanut, one teaspoonful baking powder; bake slowly and carefully two hours. WHITE FRUIT CAKE. - Blanch and shred two pounds almon ds cut two pounds citron into long thin strips, grate a large cocoanut, add one teaspoon of soda, two of cream of tartar to one pound flour before sifting, cream, one pound white sugar and half pound butter, add well beaten whites of twelve eggs, and the flour gradually. When all are well mixed add onethird of the fruit, reserving the rest to add in layers as you put batter in cake mold; bake slowly and carefully as other fruit cake, splendid. - Mrs. W. Virginia.
OLD VIRGINIA NEW YEAR'S CAKE. - Yolks of twenty-four eggs, one pound each butter and sugar, one third pint molasses, one pound browned flour, five tablespoons shorts, one tablespoonful corn meal, four pounds of raisins, seeded, one-half pound each citron, currants and blanched almonds, two ounces each grated nutmeg and chocolate, one tablespoonful ground coffee, tablespoonful each cloves, allspice and mace, one-half tablespoon each lemon and vanilla, three level tablespoons baking powder, one wine glass each wine and brandy; bake six hours. This will keep a year and will be found superior to any other black cake.
PINE APPLE CAKE. -Three cups sugar, one cup butter, five eggs, three and one-half cups flour, one-half cup cold water, two teaspoons baking powder; bake in layers. Cover each layer with a thick icing, then cover with grated pine apple. Place on next layer and treat as before; or two cups sugar, one of milk, two-thirds cup butter, three eggs, and two tablespoons baking powder. Bake in three layers and make a frosting by boiling together one tea cup sugar and four tablespoons water, till brittle when tested in cold water, pour this at once in a small stream over the well frothed white of an egg, beating all the time, (this is the secret of success,) and continue beating till frosting is cold, spread each layer with this and sprinkle with either grated or chopped pine apple fresh or canned (a white layer cake may be used). This is delicious, and one of "Dixie's" favorites.
MOLASSES POUND CAKE. - One-half pound butter, two cups sugar, two of molasses, six of flour, one cup cream, four eggs; add cloves and nutmeg to taste and a little lemon if liked. - Mrs. D. S.
NEW ORLEANS SPONGE CAKE. - Weigh ingredients and prepare baking pans, then pour one gill of boiling water on three-quarters of a pound of sugar in a bowl; stir it, cover and let it stand on the table until yolks of six eggs are beaten, add the grated rind of half a lemon to the eggs; froth the whites and pour the yolks on them, beat thoroughly together then add the syrup, (sugar and water) and beat ten minutes, or till thick, sift in halfpound of flour, mixing very gently with a knife, add juice of half a lemon, pour in pans and bake from twenty to thirty minutes. The syrup is sometimes left on the range, and when boiling is poured into the eggs which are then beaten until cold. The eggs thicken more quickly in this way, and the cake is excellent, but perhaps not quite SO moist as that made with not quite so moist as that made with cool syrup. This cake has the advantage of keeping much longer than ordinary sponge cake.
MILKLESS WHITE CAKE.-Whites of six eggs, scant three-quarters cup butter, one and a quarter cups pulverized sugar, two of flour, juice of half a lemon, one quarter teaspoon soda. Put soda in flour and sift several times to mix well, beat butter to a light cream and stir in flour gradually with the tips of fingers until it forms a smooth paste, add well whipped whites of eggs to the sugar; stir these gradually into the flour and butter and add lemon juice, beat all smooth with an egg whip. This cake may be made with a teaspoon baking powder or quarter teaspoon of soda and a half teaspoon cream tartar when essence of lemon should be used instead of lemon juice. A splendid cake. - Mrs. E. B., St. Louis, Mo.
MERINGUES WITH WHIPPED CREAM. - Four whites of eggs, one small cupful fine granulated sugar, Vanilla and lemon flavoring; put the whites into a deep bowl, pan or pail, have them cold and beat with a bunch of wire until the froth is firm enough to hold up an egg, put in the sugar and a few drops of flavoring extract, and beat about half a minute longer. These meringues are to be hollow, mere shells of pasting, and to make them so they are placed on pieces of board that will not let the bottom cook. Cut some strips of paper two inches wide, place them on boards that will go in the oven, drop large spoonfuls of the meringue paste on the paper and form them in egg shapes or round, smoothing them with a knife dipped in water, sift a little sugar over them, and dry, bake in a slack oven about twenty minutes. Too much heat will cause them to melt and go down. When they are cold take them off the paper, and with a knife scoop out the soft inside. These meringues can also have a little whipped cream inside and be joined by twos together by the bottom. STAR KISSES. - A simple form of meringues made of the same paste or frosting as the foregoing. Procure a thin star tube from the furnishing store, it is about the length of a finger and the point cut serrated. This is inserted in the point of a funnel shaped bag, which is then filled with the paste, and star-shaped drops are pressed out on to baking pans slightly greased. They are baked to a light fawn color and slip off the pans easily when cool. No filling required. A sheet of paper can be pinned in shape and the point cut so as to do duty temporarily in place of the tube. LEMON CHEESE CAKES. - Take one cup sugar, -eight ounces-three lemons, butter size of an egg, -two ounces-four to six yolks or three whole eggs: Cut the sugar, butter, grated rinds and juice of lemons into a sauce pan and boil, add eggs and stir till it becomes thick. This is best made in a custard kettle, -kettle within a kettle. This can be kept for use and when wanted, make tart shells, fill, cover with a meringue and brown delicately in oven; or make the delicious "finger biscuit" with eight ounces fine granulated sugar, four eggs, four tablespoons water, six ounces flour, -a heaping cup; separate the eggs-white in bowl and yolks in mixing pan. Put water and sugar in with yolks and beat them with an egg whip ten minutes till a thick light batter, add the flour, then the well whipped whites. Fill a stiff paper cornet with the point cut off (or a lady-
A page of cake recipes from several contributors, written for cooks who already knew what a cake batter should look like. The measurements are trustworthy; the oven directions and a few ingredients need translating.
- Oven words, in numbers"Bake slowly and carefully" for the fruit cakes points to a low oven, somewhere around 300F; the book gives no figure. A lined pan helps keep the outside from scorching over two or six hours. The "slack oven" for the meringues is usually read as roughly 250F -- they are dried rather than baked. Note that the recipe deliberately leaves the centres soft, since they are to be scooped out after cooling.
- A gillIn the New Orleans sponge cake, one gill of boiling water is half a cup. Poured over three-quarters of a pound of sugar it makes a heavy syrup rather than a solution; stirring and standing covered is what dissolves it.
- Shorts and browned flourThe Old Virginia cake calls for five tablespoons of shorts, the coarse middlings left from milling, part bran and part germ. Coarse wheat bran is the nearest thing on a modern shelf. "Browned flour" is plain flour toasted dry in a pan or oven until nut-coloured; it adds colour and flavour but little lift, and the recipe carries three level tablespoons of baking powder.
- Soda and cream of tartarHalf a teaspoon of soda with one teaspoon of cream of tartar is the period's homemade baking powder, and it acts the moment the batter is wet. Substitute two teaspoons of modern double-acting baking powder if you prefer, but either way get the pan into the oven promptly.
- CitronThe candied citron in both fruit cakes is the thick peel of the citron fruit, not lemon peel and not the cake-mix "mixed peel" now sold in tubs. Two pounds of it against one pound of flour is not a misprint -- these are fruit held together by batter.
- The boiled frostingFor the pineapple cake, "brittle when tested in cold water" is hard-crack, around 300F, which will set glassy before you can spread it. A frosting of this type is more manageable taken to soft-ball, about 240F. The instruction that matters is the one the recipe flags: pour the syrup in a thin stream onto the beating whites and keep beating until the bowl is cool, or it will weep.
- Fresh pineapple on the layersGrated fresh pineapple releases a good deal of juice that will slacken the icing within an hour. Drain it well, or use canned as the recipe permits, and assemble close to serving.
- Egg countsTwelve whites for the white fruit cake and twenty-four yolks for the Virginia cake are the sort of quantities that suited a kitchen with a use for the other half of the egg, though the two recipes here come from different hands. Twelve whites is about one and a half cups; twenty-four yolks about the same, if you are scaling down.
- The star kissesThe "thin star tube" is an ordinary piping nozzle. "Baked to a light fawn color" means a low oven and long time — meringue that colours quickly has been baked too hot and will crack and weep.
- The last recipe is cut offThe finger biscuit instructions break mid-sentence at the paper cornet. Pipe the batter in finger lengths, dust with sugar and bake at 350F for about ten minutes; the original text gives no further direction.
Both "New Year's" cakes here appear to belong to a Southern tradition, often described, of a dark cake and a white one standing together on the sideboard through the holidays — the black cake heavy with raisins, spices, wine and brandy, the white one pale with almonds, citron and coconut and bound with nothing but egg whites. The claim that the dark cake "will keep a year" is probably not mere boasting; sugar, spirits and dried fruit at those proportions would make a genuinely shelf-stable loaf, and such cakes are said to have been baked well ahead of the season they were eaten in. The signed contributions from Atlanta, St. Louis and Virginia are typical of how The Dixie Cook-Book was assembled, gathering recipes by correspondence from readers across the region; the coconut, citron and pound-weights of almonds also show a comfortable household with access to imported goods, not everyday fare.