Sponge cake

“ If you bake the mixture in one large cake, (which is not advisable unless you have had much practice in baking,) put it into a buttered tin pan or mould, and set it directly into a hot Dutch oven, as it will fall and become heavy if allowed to stand. Keep plenty of live coals on the top, and under the bottom till the cake has risen very high, and is of a fine colour; then diminish the fire, and keep it moderate till the cake is done. It will take about an hour. When cool, ice it; adding a little lemon juice or extract of roses to the icing. Sponge cake is best the day it is baked. ”

“ SPANISH PUDDING.
8 sponge cakes, 1 pot of apricot jam, 1 pint of milk, 3 eggs, 1/2 oz. of butter. Slice the sponge cakes lengthways, grease a mould with the butter; line it neatly with some of the slices of the sponge cakes; press them to the mould to keep them in position. Next spread a layer of apricot jam, and fill the mould with alternate layers of sponge cake and jam. Beat up the yolks of the eggs and mix them with the milk; pour the mixture over the pudding, and bake it in a slow oven until set. Let the pudding get cold, and turn it out carefully. ”

“ Put it in small tins, well buttered, or in one large tin pan. The thinner the pans, the better for sponge-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. When taken out of the tins, the cakes should be spread on a sieve to cool. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fruit Sponge Pudding. 2 cups of sponge cake crumbs, dry, 2 cups of boiling milk, 1 tablespoonful of butter, 1⁄2 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoonsful of flour (prepared flour) , 1⁄2 pound of currants, washed and dried, whites of 2 eggs whipped stiff, bitter almond flavoring. Soak cake in hot milk, leave it over fire until scalding batter, stir in butter, sugar and flour; the latter wet with cold milk, pour into bowl to cool. When nearly cold stir in fruit-crumbs with eggs, sugar beaten to cream, corn starch. Have water boiling hard, stir in pieces of fruit. ”

“ By this recipe the cake is good only when the ingredients are put together properly. Beating and folding are the motions needed. One not understanding how to mix a true sponge cake should omit the lemon juice and use the baking powder. The recipe for Swedish sponge cake, frequently given in these pages, makes a good cake for a jelly roll. ”

“ In winter, cake may be made of less flour than in summer.
Before attempting to mix cake, study How to Measure (p. 25) and How to Combine Ingredients (p. 26) .
Look at the fire, and replenish by sprinkling on a small quantity of coal if there is not sufficient heat to effect the baking.
To Mix Sponge Cake. Separate yolks from whites of eggs. Beat yolks until thick and lemon-colored, using an egg-beater; add sugar gradually, and continue beating; then add flavoring. Beat whites until stiff and dry,—when they will fly from the beater,—and add to the first mixture. ”

“ The nicest way to make sponge cake, or diet-bread, is the weight of six eggs in sugar, the weight of four eggs in {72} flour, a little rose-water. The whites and yolks should be beaten thoroughly and separately. The eggs and sugar should be well beaten together; but after the flour is sprinkled, it should not be stirred a moment longer than is necessary to mix it well; it should be poured into the pan, and got into the oven with all possible expedition. Twenty minutes is about long enough to bake. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Put a stale sponge cake into a deep china or glass dish, pour round it some raisin wine or Marsala, and brandy to your taste, but enough to saturate the cake: when it is soaked up, strew sifted sugar over, and pour in the dish a rich custard. Ornament the top of the cake by sticking a light flower in the centre, or bits of clear currant jelly ”

“ Soak 4 or 5 slices of sponge cake in sherry and brandy mixed, and sweetened, cover with a layer of preserves, then pour over a rich boiled custard; beat the whites of 4 eggs to a froth, and lay it over the top to look rough ”

“ Butter a soufflé dish or pie dish, pour into it the mixture, and bake in a well-heated oven 30-40 minutes, but do not take from the oven till wanted for table. Many good light puddings are spoiled by taking from the oven or pot before they are wanted.
Sponge Cake Pudding.—Butter a mould or basin, and stick it over with small pieces of preserved ginger, or sultana raisins. Soak some sponge cake in sherry, and when the wine is absorbed put it into the basin, and fill it up with custard. Boil about 1 hour, and serve with sweet sauce. ”

“ Cut horizontally into half-inch slices a Savoy or sponge cake, and cover each slice with a different kind of preserve; replace them in their original form, and spread equally over the cake an icing made with the whites of three eggs, and four ounces of the finest pounded sugar; sift more sugar over it in every part, and put it into a very gentle oven to dry. The eggs should be whisked to snow before they are used. One kind of preserve, instead of several, can be used for this dish; and a rice or a pound cake may supply the place of the Savoy or sponge biscuit. ”

“ Filling for Jelly Cake.
Whites of two eggs, beaten to a froth.
2 cupfuls of sugar.
Juice and grated peel of 2 oranges.
Put this between the layers, and on top the cakes.—Mrs. C. C.
Oranges cut fine, and sweetened and mixed with grated cocoanut, also chocolate, is used for filling jelly cake. Sponge cake is better than the soda recipe.—Mrs. C. C.
Marble Cake.
Weigh and make a pound cake; add a spoonful of yeast, take one-third part of the batter and add to it two teaspoonfuls of cinnamon, two teaspoonfuls of mace, one teaspoonful of cloves, one teaspoonful of nutmeg, finely ground. ”

“ Sift baking powder and salt with flour, and follow directions for making Sponge Cake. Pour into medium-sized buttered dripping pan to depth of one half inch. Bake in a moderate oven ten to twelve minutes; turn on to a wet cheese cloth sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. Cut off edges of cake, spread with warm Jelly, and roll. Work quickly. ”

“ One quart of milk, four eggs, four table-spoonfuls of sugar, half a teaspoonful of salt, one table-spoonful of butter, three pints of stale sponge cake, one cupful of raisins, chopped citron and currants. Have a little more of the currants than of the two other fruits. Beat the eggs, sugar and salt together, and add the milk. Butter a three-pint pudding mould (the melon shape is nice) , sprinkle the sides and bottom with the fruit, and put in a layer of cake. Again sprinkle in fruit, and put in more cake. Continue this until all the materials are used. Gradually pour on the custard. ”

“ Bread rolls are very easily made. If you succeed tolerably, it will encourage you to try again. When you make cakes, begin with the simple kinds; plain jumbles or cakes that you can roll out, or crisp ginger-bread. Sponge cake is easier than those that have butter in them; I have known young persons succeed very well with it. Bread rusk is also easily made, or a few plain pies. Do not trust the baking to an ignorant person, but superintend it yourself. Sometimes baking in a stove, is protracted by the dampness of the wood. Before you bake, have dry wood prepared. ”

“ It is sufficient to send round a waiter with large cakes of the best sort, ready sliced but the slices not taken apart. There should be an almond sponge-cake for those who are unwilling to eat cakes made with butter. ”

“ Pastry and Bread.—Any fat that is greatly heated decomposes, and gives rise to certain fatty acids that are sure to disagree with delicate persons. That is the reason why pastry and fried food are unfitted for invalids. Very plain pastry, made light with baking powder, is sometimes admissible; but a small egg or milk loaf with the inside taken out, and baked crisp and hot, is a much better substitute. Sponge cake is best of all cakes, because it is made without any butter. Bread should not be new, but may be baked crisp in the oven. ”