Barley cake

“ Butter these paper plates, and lay them on baking tins. Spread over each a layer of the above mixture not thicker than a thin pancake. Bake them in a moderate oven a nice yellow, but do not let them tinge brown. When cold cut away the paper round, turn the cakes over, and peel off the bottom paper, but take great care not to break the cakes. Lay one cake over the other, with preserve between each, till all are piled up. It may be all of one sort of preserve, or varied, one layer of marmalade if liked. Dissolve powdered sugar with a little lemon juice. ”

“ Should the cakes stick, they cannot be got out without breaking.
For queen-cakes, &c. the small tins of a round or oval shape are most convenient. Fill them but little more than half.
After the mixture is completed, set it in a cool place till all the cakes are baked.
In rolling oat cakes made of dough, use as little flour as possible. When you lay them in the pans, do not place them too close together, lest they run into each other.
When you are cutting them out, dip the cutter frequently in flour, to prevent its sticking.
QUEEN CAKE.
One pound of powdered white sugar. ”

“ Butter and sugar should be stirred till it looks like thick cream, and till it stands up in the pan.
It should be kept cool. If too warm, it will make the cakes heavy.
Large cakes should be baked in tin or earthen pans with straight sides, that are as nearly perpendicular as possible. They cut into handsomer slices, and if they are to be iced, it will be found very inconvenient to put on the icing, if the cake slopes in towards the bottom.
Before you ice a cake dredge it all over with flour, and then wipe the flour off. This will enable you to spread on the icing more evenly. ”

“ Grated peel of half a lemon.
1⁄2 cup powdered sugar.
1 teaspoonful mingled nutmeg and cinnamon.
A little salt.
Beat up the whipped and strained yolks with the sugar; add the seasoning and cream; the whites, at last the flour, worked in quickly and lightly. It should be a soft paste, just stiff enough to roll out. Pass the rolling-pin once or twice over it until it is about three-quarters of an inch thick. Cut into small, circular cakes with a tumbler or cake-cutter; drop into the hot lard and fry. They ought to puff up like crullers. Drain on clean, hot paper. ”

“ Stir as stiff as you can stir it with a large spoon, cover, set in a warm place to rise until morning, when roll out some of the dough into cakes about one inch thick, put in pie tins to rise, and when light, make half a dozen deep impressions on top of each cake with the forefinger, spread with melted butter and strew light-brown sugar thickly over top, or mix together 1 cup sugar, butter size of an egg, 2 tablespoons flour, 2 tablespoons boiling water, beat well and spread the mixture on cakes just before placing in oven. ”

“ Dredge the raisins with flour when you have picked them over with great care, washed and dried them.
Mix the beaten yolks with the creamed butter and sugar; then, the spice and brandy. Beat three minutes, and stir in the cream or milk lightly with the [329] soda-water. Put in, first a handful of one, then a spoonful of the other, the flour and whipped whites. At last, beat in the fruit.
Bake in two large loaves, or four smaller ones. My own preference is for small loaves of cake. They are safer in baking, and can be cut more economically, especially where the family is not large. ”

“ As it was the custom for the more intimate friends to bring a cake, a pan of cookies, or a great jug of strong lemonade to such an affair, there was more food than twice this surging group of men, women, and children could possibly consume, so that the boys and girls could keep their mouths full of oily, nutty, walnut wafers and broken bits of layer cake without any conscientious scruples. One of the large kitchen tables was entirely covered with plates bearing layer cakes, with chocolate, maple, shining white, and streaky orange icings, or topped with a deadly coating of fluffy cocoa-nut. ”

“ Rub together the butter and sugar till perfectly light; beat the eggs till very 355 thick, leaving out the whites of six eggs for the icing. Sift the flour into the eggs, butter and sugar, one teaspoonful of mixed spices (cinnamon, mace, and nutmeg) , half a glass of rose water. Stir the whole well together, and roll it on your paste-board about half an inch thick; then cut out the cakes and bake them a few minutes. When cold, spread the surface of each cake with marmalade or jam. Beat the whites, left out, very light, and add enough powdered sugar to make them as thick as icing. ”

“ When the cakes are cool, spread every one thickly over with grape jelly, peach marmalade, or any other sweetmeat that is smooth and thick; currant jelly will be found too thin, and is liable to run off. Lay the cakes smoothly one on another, (each having a layer of jelly or marmalade between,) and either grate loaf-sugar over the top one, or ice it smoothly; marking the icing with cross lines of coloured sugar-sand, all the lines meeting at the centre so as to divide the cake, when cut, into triangular or wedge-shaped slices. If you ice it, add the juice of a lemon to the icing. ”

“ Finally, came the crowning event of the feast,—the cutting of the wedding cake, which had been the conspicuous decoration of one end of the flower-trimmed table. It was a real old-fashioned bride cake, with tiers and tiers of corrugated frosting, surmounted by a pagoda-like structure, within which was the tiny effigy of a bride with a flowing veil. At the corners of the cake were groups of cupids and doves, and, altogether, it is doubtful if the North Shore had ever seen a more elaborate and tempting wedding cake. ”

“ Sift together one and one-half cupfuls of flour and a rounding teaspoonful of baking-powder. Beat up one egg until light, then beat into it one-half cupful of sugar, add a half cupful of grated cocoanut and a teaspoonful of grated lemon rind, then alternately the flour and half a cupful of rich cream. Drop in little pats on greased pans which have been dusted with flour. Have the cakes far enough apart so that the batter will not run together. Sprinkle a little grated cocoanut over the top of each cake and bake in a moderate oven. ”

“ One mix or dough from which can be derived a large benefit and satisfaction is the ordinary wine cake or layer cake mix, from which you can make layers for layer cakes, ten and five cent wine cakes, loaf cakes; adding chopped nuts and nut flavor to part of the mix, you can make nut cakes. By adding melted chocolate to a certain part of the mix, you can make devil’s food cakes, lemon cakes, Boston squares, chocolate and maple squares, raspberry and chocolate drops, cup and currant cakes, and other cakes like nut and cocoanut slices, penny golden-rod squares, etc., can also be made. ”

“ A lardy-cake is an oblong, flat cake, crossed with lines, and rounded at the corners, made of dough, lard, sugar, and spice. Our ancestors liked something to gnaw at, and did not go in for lightness in their pastry; they liked something to stick to their teeth, and after that to their ribs. The lardy-cake eminently fulfilled these conditions; they put a trifle of sugar and spice in it, to set it going as it were, and the rest depended on the strength of the digestion. But if a ploughboy could get a new, warm lardy-cake, fresh from the oven, he thought himself blessed. ”

“ Sixthly—Do not be disheartened if your first attempt to make a new cake is a failure. We too often forget that success is frequently the outcome of many failures.
Before giving any recipes for fancy cakes, let me advise you to give the following recipes for “Sally Lunns” and “Tea Cakes made with yeast,” a trial.
For the former, mix half a teaspoonful of salt in a pound of flour, and add three tablespoonfuls of sugar. Melt half an ounce of butter in half a pint of new milk, and when milk-warm pour it over half an ounce of German yeast. Add a well-beaten egg and a little grated nutmeg. ”

“ It is a miracle of beauty to look at—and, to eat! Who made it? I ask, because the cooker of that cake has the soul of an artist. I wish to spend my days in the shadow of her wing.”
“I made it.” She blushed, happily, under the royal praise.
“You? Put a raisin in your diadem, as its central jewel!”
“You will not mock at the ‘museum’ any more when I tell you that I found the recipe for that cake in an old parchment. The Countess of Mountjoye invented the cake first in 1715 for the Prince of Paradis: and history says she was the only one of his sweethearts who never lost his affection. ”

“ A very speedy and effective decoration is to sprinkle white grated cocoanut on your pink cakes, and a mixture of pink (coloured with cochineal) and pale green (coloured with spinach juice) on white icing, using a mixture of all three colours on the chocolate. The study of the cakes in some high-class confectioner’s will help you here. When the cake is baked lift it by the paper on to a clean pastry-board, remove the paper, divide each slab of cake across, and then split it open. ”

“ Also, (besides a somewhat larger allowance of spice, liquor, &c.) add the juice and grated yellow rind of a lemon or two, and half a pound of sultana or seedless raisins, cut in half and dredged with flour. Butter your small cake tins, and fill to the edge with the batter. They will not run over the edge if well made, and baked with a proper fire, but they will rise high and fine in the centre. Ice them when beginning to cool, flavoring the icing with lemon or rose. Queen cakes made exactly as above are superlative. ”

“ When you beat the almonds in the mortar with orange-water, put in by degrees about four spoonfuls of citron water or ratafia of apricots, or, for want of these, brandy and sack mixed together, two spoonfuls of each. The cake must be baked in a tin pan; flour the pan before you put the cake into it. To try if it is done enough, thrust a straw through it, and if the cake sticks to the straw it is not baked enough; let it remain till the straw comes out clean.
Another.
Take twelve eggs, leaving out half the whites; beat the yolks by themselves till they look white ”

“ These cakes will keep a year, if attention is paid to their being put in a tin case, and covered lightly in an airy place. They improve by keeping.
Ginger Drop Cake.—Cup each sugar, molasses, lard and boiling water, one teaspoon soda, half teaspoon cream tartar, stir in flour until it is as thick as cake, add sugar and salt.
Ginger Snaps.—Take one cup each of sugar, molasses, butter, half cup sour milk, two teaspoons cream tartar, one teaspoon soda, flour enough to roll out, cut into size desired and bake. ”

“ Five full-sized eggs, the weight of four in sugar, and of nearly three in flour, will make an exceedingly good cake: it may be flavoured, like the preceding one, with lemon-rind, or with bitter almonds, vanilla, or confected orange-blossoms reduced to powder. An hour will bake it thoroughly. All the ingredients for sponge cakes should be of good quality, and the sugar and flour should be dry; they should also be passed through a fine sieve kept expressly for such purposes. ”

“ When all is well mixed cover it, and set it to rise in a round straight-sided tin pan. Place it near the fire, and when quite light and cracked all over the surface, flour your pasteboard well, place the loaf upon it, and having prepared in a pint bowl a stiff mixture of ground cinnamon, fresh butter, and brown sugar, beaten together so as to stand alone, make numerous deep cuts or incisions all over the surface on the sides and top of the cake ”

“ Another time, if you make this cake, you may put rose-water or peach-water instead of the wine, and chopped candied lemon-peel instead of the grated peel. You see the batter is much thicker than for the cup cake you made, but if at any time you use flour that absorbs more moisture, you must add another egg; this is, as it should be, as thick as pound-cake batter,—which means, as thick as can be stirred. It is more a paste than a batter. Will you remember that, when you have a recipe which says ‘thick as pound-cake batter’? Any cake with baking-powder made as thick as this would be spoiled. ”

“ To test it put some on a piece of dry bread, and if it does not run it is a sign it is ready. Keep out a spoonful or two if you desire decorations. Next place the rest of the mixture on top of the almond icing, using the blade of a knife dipped frequently in cold water to make it smooth. The icing should be allowed to harden before decorating. The cake may be placed in a cool oven or warm room for a short time. Have your forcers ready for making the decorations. They may either be bought or a baker may lend them. You must have them if you want to decorate the cake with knobs and wavy lines. ”

“ If anything is desired, a simple sugar icing is used or the surface of the cake is moistened with the white of egg and then sprinkled with sugar. Butter cakes, especially when baked in layers, although they are often much richer than sponge cakes, are usually iced. When they are baked in the form of loaf cakes, they may or may not be iced, as desired. Very rich cakes made in loaf-cake form are usually served without icing, unless they are served whole and it is desired to make them attractive for a special occasion. ”