Handbook of practical cookery

Seed and pick the stems from the raisins, after which chop them roughly. Wash and dry the currants and put them together with the chopped raisins in a mixing-bowl Rub together the butter and flour, and stir this in with the fruit, after which cut the citron into thin slices, and mix these in also, adding at the same time the sugar. Break the eggs into a separate bowl and beat them until very light, add to them the milk, and pour this liquid over the fruit mixture, stirring all well together. Put the cake mixture into a greased bread-pan, and bake in a slow oven for two hours. NOTE. — Spices may be used in fruit cake if desired, also a wineglassful of brandy, and it will always be profitable, if convenient, to double or even treble the quantities here given for this cake, as the larger the bulk of fruit, the more delicious the cake, and also the longer fruit cake is kept the better it becomes. Rusks (a hot Tea Cake). — Six ounces of flour, one half tea-cupful of sugar, two ounces of butter, one and one-half tea-cupful of sweet milk, one egg, one tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda, three tea-spoonfuls of cream of tartar. Place in a bowl the flour, rub into it with the fingers the butter, then mix in the sugar. Make the soda and cream of tartar quite smooth by placing them on a plate and with the point of a knife rubbing out the lumps, then add them to the flour. Mix all well together, and drop into the centre the egg, which must first be lightly beaten, add by degrees the milk, POPOVERS TIPSY CAKE. 213 and when a stiff batter is formed, pour the mixture into a •well-greased Yorkshire pudding-tin, and bake in a quick oven for twenty minutes. NOTE. — As the quantity of moisture required depends so much on the quality of the flour, judgment must be used in adding the milk : enough must only be used to form a very stiff batter. Popovers (for Tea).— One cupful of milk, one cupful of flour, one egg, one pinch of salt. Place on a baking-tin six or eight patty-tins, and two hours before the popovers are required place the baking-tin in the oven. Place in a bowl the flour, add the salt, and drop into the centre the yolk of egg. The milk must then be carefully added, the mixture being constantly stirred with the back of a spoon. The more this mixture is beaten the lighter the popovers will be. Place on a dry plate the white of egg, and a very small pinch of salt, and with a dry knife whip the white to a stiff froth. "When the popovers are to be baked, mix into the batter very lightly the white of egg. Draw the baking-tin from the oven and place into each patty -tin a piece of butter the size of a nutmeg, half fill each with batter, put the baking-tin quickly back into the oven, and bake twenty minutes. NOTE. — A very hot oven is necessary for the popovers, and they ought to be sent to table the instant they are removed from the oven. Tipsy Cake. — One pound sponge cake, three table-spoonfuls strawberry jam, one quarter pound almonds, one gill and one half sherry. Cut the sponge through the middle (horizontally), place each half on a flat dish of any kind, and pour over each half, in spoonfuls, the sherry, and let them soak a little. Place now the under half of the cake on a crystal dish, spread over it the jam, then place the top half over very