Buckwheat cake

“ Then mix it gradually with the milk, and set it away to cool. Beat the eggs very light, and add them gradually to the mixture. The whole should make a thick batter. Then bake them on a griddle, in the manner of buckwheat cakes, rubbing or scraping the griddle always before you put on a fresh cake. Trim off their edges nicely, and send them to table hot. Eat them with butter.
Or you may bake them in muffin rings. ”

“ Buckwheat Cakes.—To 11⁄2 pints pure buckwheat flour (never use prepared or self-raising flour) add 1⁄4 pint each wheat flour and Indian meal, 3 heaping teaspoons Royal Baking Powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon brown sugar or molasses. Sift well together, in dry state, buckwheat, Indian meal, wheat flour, and baking powder, then add remainder; when ready to bake add 1 pint water or sufficient to form smooth batter that will run in a stream (not too thin) from pitcher; make griddle hot and cakes as large as a saucer. When surface is covered with air-holes it is time to turn cakes over ”

“ Serve with molasses or maple syrup.
Royal Buckwheats.—This is the most delicious of all the griddle cakes. It has been against buckwheat cakes when made from yeast or risen overnight that it was difficult to make them light and sweet, and that disagreeable effects followed their eating. ”

“ Take a gallon of water, set it over a fire, and when it boils, let a peck of the flour of buckwheat be mixed with it, little by little, 72and keep the mixture constantly stirred, to prevent any lumps being formed till a thick batter is made. Then add two or three ounces of salt, set it over the fire again, and allow it to boil an hour and a half, pour the proper proportion for a cake into an iron kettle and bake it. ”

“ Take a quart of dough from your bread at a very early hour in the morning; break three fresh eggs, separating the yelks from the whites—whip them both to a froth, mix them with the dough, and add gradually milk-warm water, till you make a batter the thickness of buckwheat cakes: beat it well, and set it to rise till near breakfast time; have the griddle ready, pour on the batter to look quite round: they do not require turning. ”

“ If a gill of the batter is left, it will raise the next parcel.
Buckwheat cakes are as much better made with milk as other cakes are; but no others are so good made with water. They are very nice made of sour milk, with nothing added but salt and saleratus. These should be made only a short time before being baked.
Fritters or Pan-Cakes.
Make a batter of a pint of milk, three eggs, salt, and flour to make a rather thick batter. Beat it well, then drop it with a spoon into hot fat, and fry like doughnuts. These, and the snow fritters are usually eaten with sugar and cider, or lemon juice. ”

“ In most families of the interior buckwheat cakes are a regular breakfast dish every day through the winter. In many houses they are eaten in the evening also, and among the farmers they frequently make part of every meal. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nothing worth knowing, is to be learned without trouble; but in the art of making and baking cakes, few failures can arise after any number of trials.
Flour for cakes should be of the best quality, well dried, and sifted. The eggs fresh, beaten separately, and beaten well. Currants well washed, picked, and dried in a cloth, or before the fire. The ingredients thoroughly mixed, and the cake put into the oven instantly, unless there be yeast, and then time must be given for it to rise. ”

“ The sponge from which these cakes or biscuits were made was mixed and set to rise at 6 o'clock in the morning, and the baking was finished at 11 o'clock. Sponge should be set to rise in a warm room. If these directions are carefully followed the housewife will invariably have good results. Always use hard Spring wheat for bread or biscuits, raised with yeast; and Winter wheat, which costs less, will answer for making cake and pastry. In cold weather always warm flour before baking, when yeast is used for baking raised cakes. Soft A sugar or a very light brown is to be preferred to granulated. ”

“ The cup used in measuring ingredients for cakes holds exactly one-half pint. All cakes are improved by the addition of a pinch of salt. When lard is used instead of butter, beat to a cream and salt well. In mixing cakes, beat butter and sugar together until light and creamy, then add the beaten yolks of eggs, unless stated otherwise as for angel cake, etc., then the flavoring, then mix in the flour and liquid alternately. The baking powder, flour and salt should have been sifted together three or four times before being added. Lastly, fold in lightly the stiffly beaten whites of eggs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Add a pinch of salt as beating begins, and if the egg supply is scant, a teaspoonful of cold water to each white. This will increase the quantity, and help to make the cake lighter, as it is the air-bubbles imprisoned in the froth which give it its raising virtue. Add fruit and flavoring last thing. Fruit should be well floured but never clotted. If batter appears to be too stiff a little whiskey thins it excellently, and helps to make it lighter. Put in two tablespoonfuls to six eggs, using more in proportion. ”

“ Rub together, till white, a tea-cup of butter, two of sugar—then stir in a couple of beaten eggs, a little flour, grate in a nutmeg—dissolve a tea-spoonful of saleratus in a tea-cup of milk or water, strain it on to the cake, then add flour till stiff enough to roll out easily. If you cannot roll out the cake without its sticking to the board and rolling-pin, (which should be previously floured,) work in more flour, stamp and cut it into cakes—bake them in a moderately warm oven. ”

“ Scald the meal with a pint or so of boiling water. While still warm stir in the milk, and strain through a cullender; then, add the flour, lastly the yeast. Cover and let the batter stand until morning. Salt, and if at all sour stir in a little soda.
These cakes will make a pleasant variety with “buckwheats,” in the long winter season. They will be found very good—so good that one will hardly believe that they contain neither “shortening” nor eggs. ”

“ After bringing to the table, when ready to begin, the sugar can, the butter jar, the egg dish, the milk, the vanilla and the baking powder, so that everything will be convenient, and having well greased a pan for the gold cake (which will be baked in a loaf) and the two jelly tins for the white cake, she can then separate three eggs, and to the three yolks add one whole egg. On account of the baking it is best to make the white cake first, and then it can be iced and the dishes cleaned away while the loaf cake bakes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The butter, when melted, should fill one cup; pour it over the two cups of sugar in a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy; add the eggs, beating one at a time into the mixture. Sift the teaspoonful of baking soda several times through the flour before adding to the cake mixture. Stand this dough in a cold place one hour at least before cutting out cakes. No flavoring is used. Sift granulated sugar thickly over cakes before placing them in oven to bake. ”

“ But even the young or inexperienced housekeeper will find that with Royal Baking Powder a perfect short cake is an easy and agreeable task. The baking powder only needs to be thoroughly sifted with the flour, so that it may evenly lighten the cake. Use sweet milk always. For the old-fashioned short cake no eggs are needed, the dough being put together in the same way as for baking powder biscuit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Beat up the whites of 2 eggs; then add 1⁄2 lb. castor sugar and the juice of a lemon or a few drops of orange-flower water. Beat the mixture until it hangs upon the fork in flakes, then spread over the cake, dipping the knife in cold water occasionally. Stand it before the fire, and keep turning the cake constantly, or the sugar will catch and turn brown. As soon as it begins to harden it may be removed. The icing must not be put on until the cake itself is cold, otherwise it will not set. A few drops of cochineal will colour it if desired. ”

“ When the dough is proved, make it into cakes about 2 in. thick; put them into buttered hoops; lay the hoops on iron plates, and when they are lightly risen, bake them in a warm oven; cut into slices 1⁄2 in. thick and butter each.
Bride Cake.—Cleanse and dry 21⁄2 lb. currants; stone 1⁄2 lb. muscatel raisins; pound 1⁄4 oz. mace, 1⁄8 oz. cinnamon; scald 1⁄4 lb. sweet almonds, remove skins, and shred; slice up 2 oz. each candied citron, lemon, and orange peel; break 8 new eggs into a basin; sift 1 lb. powdered loaf sugar into 11⁄4 lb. flour; in a warmed pan beat 1 lb. ”