Bread, cakes, and biscuits

In cold weather, when the butter is hard, it may be lightly warmed to make it easier to work, but on no account melt it. If you do, your cake will inevitably be heavy. Unless the butter is thoroughly beaten into the rest of the ingredients, the cake when baked will be streaky, with greasy smears through it where there has been an unmixed lump of butter. This is the reason why good cake-makers always beat their butter to a cream, as this ensures the due mixing of the materials. W ith regard to pastry butter, theoretically, it should be the best and freshest ; practically butter that is not fit for table use from its tastelessness, &c., is, as long as it is not rancid, perfectly good for pastry and cakes. Indeed, dripping, lard, and, last and best, beef marrow, will all make excellent cakes, &c. In fact, for household and nursery use, well clarified dripping should always be used, both for puddings /b and pies, and for cakes. Of course, beef dripping is meant ; mutton dripping, though an excellent frying medium, being apt to impart a disagreeable “tang” to anything in which it is allowed to cool. Of eggs a word or two must be said. Fresh, though not necessarily new laid, eggs are indispensable in cake making. They should always be broken into a cup separately, before mixing them in, for the slightest mustiness would affect the cake, and though the cause of the disagreeable taste might not be discovered, the unpleasant flavour would be there. Flour should always be good, and should be warmed and sifted before use, a process which often renders an ordinary flour superior to the finest, that has been carelessly mixed in cold and lumpy. White sugar should be used for sponge and other delicate cakes, but for household, pound, or fruit cakes which are to be dark, brown sugar answers quite as well. Remember, however, that the dark colour of rich cakes, such as wedding, birthday, and pound cakes, is not so much a question of white or brown sugar, as of the richness of the materials allowed to mellow by keeping. Fruit for cakes should always be carefully picked over, all stones, stalks, &c., removed and in the case of currants they should be well washed in hot water, and rubbed thoroughly dry in a clean lightly floured cloth. But recollect this washing process should be executed sufficiently long before the cake-making comes off to ensure the fruit being absolutely dry and cold before it is added to the mixture. Many a mysteriously spoilt cake is due to the washing of the currants at the last minute, when they are used either insufficiently dry, or hot from the oven into which they have been thrust to dry them. Candied peel being most indigestible, should, when mixed with a cake, be shred as fine and as thin as possible. Almonds also should be blanched some time before they are used, to ensure their being cold and crisp when shred. When used to garnish a cake whole, they look prettiest if sliced through broad ways, to secure as wide a flat surface as possible, in contrast to the narrow strips produced when they are “ shredded,” as it is technically called.