The greatest care and cleanliness must be exercised in all
cake making; and accuracy in proportioning the materials
to be used is indispensable. The flour should be thoroughly
dried and sifted, and lightly stirred in. Always sift flour
before measuring, then sift it again with the baking powder
to insure a thorough blending.
Good cakes never can be made with rndirerene materials.
Eggs are used both as an aerating agent and as one of the
“wetting” materials. It is not economy to buy cheap eggs,
for such eggs are small, weak, colorless, and often very stale.
Eggs should be well beaten, yolks and whites separately,
unless other directions are given. The yolks must be beaten
to a thick cream and the whites until they are a solid froth.
Sugar tends to improve the texture of cakes, and when cheap
cakes are made, plenty should be used, provided that the cake
is not made too sweet. It should be dissolved before being
added to the fat and the flour.
For best cakes, and all that are required of a light color,
fine-grained sugar should be used. With coarse-grained
sugar there is danger of producing specks which show on the
cakes after baking, unless they have been made by the method
of beating up the eggs and sugar together with a beater over
hot water. This method will dissolve the grains of sugar.
Always buy the best fruits for cake making, as they are
sweetest and cleanest. Currants and sultana raisins for cakes
should not be too large, but of medium size, sweet and
fleshy. Cheap dry sultanas should not be used. Though
there is no need to wash sultanas, yet if the fruit is inclined
116
Cakes
to be very dry, it will be better to do so than to put them
_In to spoil the appearance and the flavor of the cake. Cur-
rants always should be washed, cleaned, and dried before
using. Orange, lemon, and citron peel should be of good
color and flavor. They should not be added to cake mixture
in chunks, as often is done, but should be in long shredded
pieces. Large pieces of peel are sometimes the cause of a
cake cutting badly. In making fruit cakes add the fruit before
the flour, as this will prevent it falling to the bottom.
If a cake cracks open while baking, the recipe contains
too much flour. There are two kinds of thick crusts which
some cakes have. The first of these is caused by the cake
being overbaked in a very hot oven. Where this is so, the
cake, if a very rich one, has a huge crack in the top caused by
the heat of the oven forming a crust before the inside has
finished aerating; then as the interior air or gas expands, it
cracks the crust to escape. This crack spoils the appearance
of the cake, and when cut it generally will be found to be
close and heavy in texture. To guard against this it is nec-
essary to bake them at a suitable temperature, noting that the
richer the cake the longer the fruit takes to bake.
The second kind of thick crust referred to may only be
on top of the cake, and in this case may be caused by an
excess of fat and sugar being mixed together, or otherwise
insufhicient flour. In this case the mixture will not bake,
but only forms a kind of syrup in the oven, and the cake sinks
in the center. A cake made under such conditions would have
a thick shiny crust, and be liable to crumble when touched.
The inside of the cake would be heavy, having more the ap-
pearance of pudding than cake. |
Page 62
Presented as published in 1913. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
The greatest care and cleanliness must be exercised in all cake making; and accuracy in proportioning the materials to be used is indispensable. The flour should be thoroughly dried and sifted, and lightly stirred in. Always sift flour before measuring, then sift it again with the baking powder to insure a thorough blending.
Good cakes never can be made with indifferent materials. Eggs are used both as an aerating agent and as one of the “wetting” materials. It is not economy to buy cheap eggs, for such eggs are small, weak, colorless, and often very stale. Eggs should be well beaten, yolks and whites separately, unless other directions are given. The yolks must be beaten to a thick cream and the whites until they are a solid froth. Sugar tends to improve the texture of cakes, and when cheap cakes are made, plenty should be used, provided that the cake is not made too sweet. It should be dissolved before being
added to the fat and the flour.
For best cakes, and all that are required of a light color, fine-grained sugar should be used. With coarse-grained sugar there is danger of producing specks which show on the cakes after baking, unless they have been made by the method of beating up the eggs and sugar together with a beater over hot water. This method will dissolve the grains of sugar.
Always buy the best fruits for cake making, as they are sweetest and cleanest. Currants and sultana raisins for cakes should not be too large, but of medium size, sweet and fleshy. Cheap dry sultanas should not be used. Though there is no need to wash sultanas, yet if the fruit is inclined
Cakes
to be very dry, it will be better to do so than to put them in to spoil the appearance and the flavor of the cake. Currants always should be washed, cleaned, and dried before using. Orange, lemon, and citron peel should be of good color and flavor. They should not be added to cake mixture in chunks, as often is done, but should be in long shredded pieces. Large pieces of peel are sometimes the cause of a cake cutting badly. In making fruit cakes add the fruit before the flour, as this will prevent it falling to the bottom.
If a cake cracks open while baking, the recipe contains too much flour. There are two kinds of thick crusts which some cakes have. The first of these is caused by the cake being overbaked in a very hot oven. Where this is so, the cake, if a very rich one, has a huge crack in the top caused by the heat of the oven forming a crust before the inside has finished aerating; then as the interior air or gas expands, it cracks the crust to escape. This crack spoils the appearance of the cake, and when cut it generally will be found to be close and heavy in texture. To guard against this it is necessary to bake them at a suitable temperature, noting that the richer the cake the longer the fruit takes to bake.
The second kind of thick crust referred to may only be on top of the cake, and in this case may be caused by an excess of fat and sugar being mixed together, or otherwise insufhicient flour. In this case the mixture will not bake, but only forms a kind of syrup in the oven, and the cake sinks in the center. A cake made under such conditions would have a thick shiny crust, and be liable to crumble when touched. The inside of the cake would be heavy, having more the appearance of pudding than cake. |