FoodNetArchive

The household gas cookery book

1900

Page 105

Presented as published in 1900. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
inish in the remaining heat in the oven. For ordinary cakes, ten minutes will suffice in which to heat the oven. Always bear in mind that the oven requires to be nicely hot, and when baking cakes give them a gradually reducing heat. Scones and tea cakes and small cakes should have the gas reduced every five minutes. Rock cakes and cocoanut buns require a very sharp heat for the first minute — leave the gas full on for one minute only, then turn the gas nearly out. These should bake in ten minutes. Complaints of cakes burning underneath and not browning on the top, is nearly always due to the oven not being sufficiently hot to start with, consequently, 192 THE HOUSEHOLD too much gas is being used whilst baking. Gas ovens must be made quite Is hot as the kitcheners, 10 to 20 minutes te quite sufficient, after that the heat can be regulated to a nicety. Do not put any water m the drip tin, and see that the stove is protected from ground draught. HINTS ON CAKE MAKING. Perhaps cake-making requires good materials rriore than any other branch of cookery. Poor flour, bad hntt^r and stale eggs will spoil a cake even if made with the greatest care. Good beef dripping will give a more satisfactory result than bad butter. Castor sugar is by far the best for all light cakes, such as sponge, while brown sugar may be used with advan¬ tage in any fruit cake where the flour and butter ar rubbed together. When butter is creamed, castor sugar will fc>e found best. . . i*ffi Currants and sultanas are best cleaned with a little dry flour on the top of a sieve, the dusty flour falling through, leaving the fruit dry and clean, with no loss If salt butter is used, it should be washed first in cold water, and the moisture pressed out in a clean cloth. In creaming butter and sugar together, the butter should be creamed first, the sugar added, and creamed again until it takes a white creamy appear¬ ance. A wooden spoon is the best for this purpose, or the hands. The butter must never be melted. Eggs must be broken separately into a cup, to be sure that all are good. , . A pinch of salt added to the whites of eggs helps them to froth more quickly. , The tins for sponge cakes, after buttering, should be sprinkled with flour and sugar, mixed together in equal portions. For all rich cakes the tins should be first buttered then lined with buttered paper. Baking powder should be put in with the last quantity" of flour, where the butter and sugar are GAS COOKERY BOOK. creamed; where the butter and flour are rubbed ^-£?cther it is best addecl after the butter is rubbed in and before the moisture is added. When the whites 0 eRgs, are whipped to a stiff froth, less baking; powder is required. Unless the oven is of the right temperature all the abour of mixing, beating, and whisking is lost, and the cake will be a failure. The ingredients for a cake should be mixed in the following order: — butter, and finely-pounded or sifted sugar, beaten to a cream. Well-whipped eggs. The flour should be added while the beating con¬ tinues. added tinUe t0 beat wh‘le the °ther ingredients are Baking tins should always be well greased with .resh butter before the cake mixture is poured into them, and the tins lined with well-greased paper. A piece of greased paper should be laid over the tin it there is any risk of the cake burning.