General Suggestions

Always sift the flour for cake before measuring out the amount required. Use the best granulated white sugar. If eggs are used in cake, it is better to have the yolks and whites beaten separately. Beat the former until they cease to froth and begin to thicken as if mixed with flour. Beat the whites until stiff enough to remain in the bowl if inverted. Have the eggs and dishes cool, and if possible beat in a cool room. Use earthen or china bowls to beat eggs in.

If fruit is to be used, it should be washed and dried, and then dusted with flour, a dessert-spoonful to the pound of fruit. For use in cup cake or any other cake which requires quick baking, raisins should be first steamed. If you have no patent steamer, place them in a close-covered dish within an ordinary steamer, and cook for an hour over boiling water. This should be done the day before they are to be used.

Use an earthen or granite-ware basin for mixing cake. Be very accurate in measuring the materials, and have them all at hand and all utensils ready before beginning to put the cake together. If it is to be baked at once, see that the oven also is at just the right temperature. It should be less hot for cake than for bread. Thin cakes require a hotter oven than those baked in loaves. They require from fifteen to twenty minutes to bake; thicker -loaves, from thirty to sixty minutes. [130]

For loaf cakes the oven should be at such a temperature that during the first half of the time the cake will have risen to its full height and just begun to brown.

The recipes given require no baking-powder, soda, or saleratus.