Household hints

Libbie^s Cake. — Four cups of flour, two cups of sugar, one cup of sweet milk, one cup of butter, four teaspoonfuls of baking powder. This is an excellent foundation for layer cakes of all kinds. A delicious filling for this cake is made in this way : Take a cup of white sugar, put it into a tin basin with enough water to dissolve it ; let it boil until it will harden in cold water ; have a cupful of stoned and chopped raisins ready ; beat the white of one egg to a stiff froth ; put with the raisins into the boiling sugar ; stir briskly, and while warm put it between the layers of the cake, which should be all ready, having been taken out of the tins and laid on a cloth, so that you may easily select one which is nicely browned for the bottom of the cake, and another very smooth one for the top. Caraway Cake. — One cup of sugar, two cups of flour, half a cup of butter, half a cup of sweet milk, one tablespoonful of caraway seed, two tea-spoonfuls of baking powder. Beat the eggs till very light, whites and yolks separately. If eaten when fresh it is nice, and helps to make that variety for which the troubled housewife is always seeking. Ginger Cake, — Before the buckwheat season fairly begins, fresh ginger cake is nice with coffee for breakfast. It is convenient to make it sometimes when you haven't bread enough for both breakfast and dinner. A simple way of making it is to take one cupful of molasses, four tablespoonfuls of hot butter or lard, stir in as much flour as you can, then put a tea-spoonful of soda and a heaping teaspoonful of ginger into a teacup, and fill the cup almost full of boiling water ; beat this into the dough a little at a time. A delicious Breakfast Cake may be made by taking enough bread sponge to make, when risen and baked, a cake about two inches thick ; knead into it a piece of butter the size of half an egg. After it is in the tin, put on the top little lumps of butter, and then cover it with white sugar and ground cinnamon. When baked, there will be a sort of crust over the cake. This is very nice with coffee. Lovers of Chocolate Cake will rejoice at a new way of preparing it. Use the usual recipe for the cake, omitting one third of a cup of flour. Grate the chocolate as for layer cake, and add to the dough ; mix thoroughly, and bake in a loaf. The following directions for preparing a Short Cake for baking will be found of great value : When the dough is ready to be rolled, cut it in two parts ; roll one half of it the proper size, put it in the tin, and spread butter over the top ; then roll out the other half and lay on. When the cake is baked, the top layer can be easily lifted off, and there is no danger of its falling, as sometimes happens when a cold knife is used to cut it. Delicious Short Cake may be made with blackberries, peaches, oranges, and pineapples chopped fine, as well as with the time-honored strawberry. The dough itself is made as you make biscuit. Mrs. M.^8 Jumbles. — One cup of sugar, half a cup of butter, half a cup of sweet milk, two eggs, two tea-spoonfuls of baking powder, a little more than two cups of flour ; flavor to suit yourself.