Shortcake

“ And the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,
And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer’s girl boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking shortcake. ”

“ STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE WITH MATZOTH-MEAL Beat until very light the yolks of four eggs and three-quarters of a cup sugar; add rind of one-half lemon, a pinch of salt, one-half cup of sifted matzoth meal, and last the stiffly-beaten whites of the eggs. Bake in two shallow square pans in a moderate oven.
When cold lay a cake on a platter, spread thickly with strawberries that have been well sugared. Put the other cake on top. Spread over the top and sides with cream that has been sweetened, flavored and whipped very stiff. ”

“ Divide into two equal portions, and roll into sheets about one half inch in thickness, making the center a very little thinner than the edges, so that when risen, the center will not be highest. Place in tins, and set in a warm place until perfectly risen, or until they have doubled their first thickness. Bake quickly. When cold, spread one cake with fruit, and cover with the other. If the fruit is large, it may be chopped fine with a knife, or mashed with a spoon. A little lemon juice added to peaches is an addition for shortcake. ”

“ Stir well and strain into mould or small cups.
=Strawberry Shortcake, No. 1=
1 Pint of Flour 1/3 Cupful of Lard A little Salt Milk enough to make a stiff dough 1 Box of Strawberries 2 Teaspoonfuls of Cream of Tartar 1 Teaspoonful of Soda
Put the salt, soda, lard and cream of tartar, into the dry flour, mix with milk (water will do) , divide into halves and roll large enough for a Washington pie tin. Spread butter over one, lay the other on top, bake twenty minutes. Hull and wash and mash the berries and sweeten to taste. Separate the two cakes, butter, and place the berries between. Serve hot. ”

“ Pour into greased tin lined with buttered paper, and bake in very moderate oven 1-1/2 hours, or, if divided in two smaller tins, 3/4 of an hour will do. Golden syrup may be used instead of treacle, in which case use little or no sugar.
Strawberry Shortcake.
Make a good short crust (p. 75) with 1/2 lb. flour—plain, wheaten, or Banana flour, as preferred—1 oz. almond meal, and 4 ozs. "Nuttene." Roll out 1/2 inch thick, cut sharply round, flute edges, and bake in hot oven till a nice brown and crisp right through. Split open, inserting a sharp-pointed knife right round and pulling apart. ”

“ Fruit in season, quick-frozen fruit, or canned fruit, well chilled, always makes a tempting dessert. Strawberry shortcake is an all season quick dessert, with frozen strawberries and individual sponge cakes made especially for this purpose by professional bakers. ”

“ For instance, the first strawberries, which, because of their scarcity, are much more expensive than the later ones, may be made to go much further if they are used in shortcake than if they are served as plain fruit. ”

“ For shortcakes, fruit tarts, meat and vegetable pies, pot pie dumplings, crackers, buns, steamed puddings, loaf cake, doughnuts and cookies, rusk and Sally Lunn.
1 cup skimmed milk 1⁄3 cup (large 4 tablespns.) oil 1⁄4 teaspn. salt 1⁄2 teaspn. sugar 1–2 tablespns. liquid yeast or 1⁄3 cake compressed yeast pastry flour
Mix all ingredients except salt and add flour for sponge batter; beat; when light, add salt and warm flour for moderately stiff dough. Knead a little and cut into biscuit for the top of fruit tarts or meat or vegetable pies, or place on tins for shortcake crusts. ”

“ Some unsweetened, flaked, cereal preparations, crisped in the oven, make delightful shortcakes by sprinkling a few flakes on a plate, covering them with prepared fruit, then sprinkling the fruit generously with flakes. They must be served as soon as prepared. ”

“ Knead lightly on slightly floured board. Roll 1⁄3 inch thick; cut with floured 13⁄4-inch doughnut cutter. Fry in deep fat (385°F.) until golden brown, turning frequently. Drain on unglazed paper. Sprinkle powdered or fine granulated sugar over doughnuts, if desired. Makes 4 dozen small doughnuts.
29 Individual Strawberry Shortcakes
3 cups sifted Swans Down Cake Flour
3 teaspoons Calumet Baking Powder
1 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 cup butter or other shortening
3⁄4 cup milk
2 quarts strawberries, washed and hulled
Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. ”

“ A grated nutmeg.
A tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon and mace, mixed.
Beat the eggs as light as possible. Eggs for sponge or almond cakes require more beating than for any other purpose. Beat the sugar, by degrees, into the eggs. Beat very hard, and continue to beat some time after the sugar is all in.
No sort of sugar but loaf, will make light sponge-cake. Stir in, gradually, the spice and essence of lemon. Then, by degrees put in the flour, a little at a time, stirring round the mixture very slowly with a knife. If the flour is stirred in too hard, the cake will be tough. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pancakes should be made of half a pint of milk, three great spoonfuls of sugar, one or two eggs, a tea-spoonful of dissolved pearlash, spiced with cinnamon, or cloves, a little salt, rose-water, or lemon-brandy, just as you happen to have it. Flour should be stirred in till the spoon moves round with difficulty. If they are thin, they are apt to soak fat. Have the fat in your skillet boiling hot, and drop them in with a spoon. Let them cook till thoroughly brown. The fat which is left is good to shorten other cakes. The more fat they are cooked in, the less they soak. ”

“ Sometimes an egg is added and a tablespoonful of sugar, but it is a far cry from the French strawberry short cake of hotels and restaurants which is really a cake, either sponge or layer, with whole berries between the layers and thick whipped cream or a meringue on top. To make the genuine old-fashioned sour milk biscuit short cake, which is really more tender than that made with sweet milk, put four cups sifted pastry flour in a mixing bowl with a half teaspoonful of salt and mix well. Add three tablespoonfuls of butter and chop fine, using a silver knife. ”

“ As soon as the flour is all in, begin to bake it, as setting will injure it.
Put it in small tins, well buttered, on in one large tin pan. The thinner the pans, the better for spunge-cake. Fill the small tins about half full. Grate loaf-sugar over the top of each, before you set them in the oven.
Sponge-cake requires a very quick oven, particularly at the bottom. It should be baked as fast as possible, or it will be tough and heavy, however light it may have been before it went into the oven. It is of all cakes the most liable to be spoiled in baking. ”

“ Put the flour into a basin, stir to it the milk and butter, the yeast, and eggs, which should be well beaten, and form the whole into a smooth dough. Let it stand in a warm place, covered with a cloth, to rise, and, when sufficiently risen, add the currants, sugar, and candied peel cut into thin slices. When all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, line 2 moderate-sized cake-tins with buttered paper, which should be about six inches higher than the tin; pour in the mixture, let it stand to rise again for another 1/2 hour, and then bake the cakes in a brisk oven for about 1-1/2 hour. ”

“ It can be made with slices of bread and butter instead of crumbs.
Short-Cake.—One quart of flour, one teaspoonful of salt and two of baking powder sifted with the flour, one cup of butter, or half lard and half butter, one large cup of hot milk. Rub the butter into the flour; add the milk and roll out the dough, cutting in small square cakes and baking to a light brown. For a strawberry or peach short-cake have three tin pie-plates buttered; roll the dough to fit them, and bake quickly. Fill either, when done, with a cup of sugar, or with peaches cut fine and sugared, and served hot. ”

“ Two teaspoonfuls of baking powder will serve the same end. Mix as directed in “Practical Preliminaries,” and bake in small tins.
Jelly-cake
Is made by mixing the above cup-cake, leaving out the flavoring, and baking it in “jelly-cake tins,” turning these out when almost cold by running a knife around the edges, and spreading all but that intended for the top with a thick coating of fruit-jelly. Sift white sugar over the upper one or frost it.
Cream-cake.
Mix a cup-cake without spice or other flavoring, bake in jelly-cake tins, and when cold spread between the layers this filling:
One egg. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sift flour, roll sugar, sift spices, and prepare fruit beforehand. Break eggs that are to be whipped, one at a time, in a cup, and let none of the yelk go in. Have them cold, and you will get on faster.
Excepting dough-cake, never use the hand in making cake, but a wooden spoon, and in an earthen vessel.
The goodness of cake depends greatly on baking. If too hot at bottom, set the pan on a brick; if too hot at top, cover with paper. If top-crust is formed suddenly, it prevents what is below from rising properly; and so, when the oven is very hot, cover with paper. ”

“ Sponge Cake.—1 lb. pulverized loaf sugar, 9 eggs, 12 ounces flour. Beat eggs half an hour, then beat eggs and sugar together to a foam. Stir in the flour lightly, add a little nutmeg and cinnamon. Bake half an hour in tins buttered and filled only half full. If a single cake, bake an hour. A hot oven, but not so hot as to scorch.
Another.—1 lb. flour, three quarters pound pulverized loaf sugar, 7 eggs, grated peel and juice of a lemon, a table-spoon rose water. Beat all an hour, butter a tin, line it with paper also buttered, sift sugar over top, and bake an hour. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do not cut more at a [301] time than you are likely to use, as it is not good when dry. Jelly-cakes are best set away upon plates, cloths wrapped closely about them, and a box enclosing all.
Cream your sugar and butter, measure milk, spices, etc., before beginning work. For fruit-cake it is best to prepare the materials the day before. Let your icing dry thoroughly before wrapping up the cake.
Sift your flour before measuring, as all the following receipts are for sifted flour.
Icing. ✠ Whites of 4 eggs. 1 pound powdered white sugar. Lemon, vanilla, or other seasoning. ”

“ Lady’s Fingers Are mixed like drop sponge-cakes, but disposed upon the paper in long, narrow cakes. They are very nice dipped in chocolate icing, or caramel.
Aunt Margaret’s Crullers. ✠ 1 lb. butter. 11⁄2 lb. powdered sugar. 12 eggs. Mace and nutmeg to taste. Flour to roll out stiff.
This is for a large quantity of crullers. Roll out in a thin sheet, cut into shapes with a jagging-iron, and fry in plenty of boiling lard. Test the heat first by dropping in one. It should rise almost instantly to the surface. Crullers and doughnuts soak in fat at the bottom of the kettle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sponge-Cake Fritters.
6 or 8 square (penny) sponge-cakes.
1 cup cream, boiling hot, with a pinch of soda stirred in.
4 eggs, whipped light.
1 table-spoonful corn-starch, wet up in cold milk.
1⁄4 pound currants, washed and dried.
Pound the cakes fine, and pour the cream over them. Stir in the corn-starch. Cover for half an hour, then beat until cold. Add the yolks—light and strained, the whipped whites, then the currants thickly dredged with flour. Beat all hard together. Drop in spoonfuls into the boiling lard; fry quickly; drain upon a warmed sieve, and send to table hot. ”

“ 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. ”