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As to Baking Cakes

A historical recipe from The progress meatless cook book, by Lake, Carlotta M. (Carlotta Mixer) (1911).

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A historical recipe

The progress meatless cook book: And valuable recipes and suggestions for cleaning clothing, hats, gloves, house furnishings, walls and woodwork and all kinds of helps for the household, by Lake, Carlotta M. (Carlotta Mixer) (1911). Project Gutenberg eBook #77733.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Ingredients 2 ingredients

  1. one-half teaspoonful of soda
  2. one and a half teaspoonfuls baking powder

Cook safely

Keep children and pets away from the hob and the oven, and keep oven gloves and a lid within reach.

  • Oven and hot trays. Use dry oven gloves for trays and dishes: a hot tray looks just like a cold one. Open the oven door away from your face and let the first rush of heat out.
  • Boiling water and steam. Turn pan handles inward, away from the edge of the hob. Lift lids away from you, and pour hot water away from your body: steam burns too.
  • Sharp knives. Cut on a board that doesn't slip (a damp cloth under it helps), and curl the fingers of the hand that holds the food.

Method

  1. Slamming the oven door will often cause a cake to become heavy.
  2. A little flour sprinkled over buttered paper in cake tins prevents cakes sticking.
  3. When creaming butter and sugar for cake, if the butter is pressed through a perforated potato masher, it is done very easily and satisfactorily.
  4. Stale cake may be freshened by immersing quickly in cold milk and placing immediately in the oven for a few moments.
  5. A wooden toothpick is good for testing cakes in the oven.
  6. If the wood comes out perfectly dry, the cake is done.
  7. Raisins should be washed a day before using, placed in a wire basket and plunged quickly in a dish of boiling water.
  8. Spread on a platter or towel and dry.
  9. Flavoring can be sprinkled over the cake dough after it is in the pan, in case of the flavoring being forgotten till then.
  10. Stirring in lightly is usually the same as “folding” in.
  11. If a pan of water is placed in the oven your cake will never burn.
  12. A piece of paper placed across the top of a pan of cake when first set in the oven, will prevent it from rising unevenly.
  13. To remove a cake inclined to stick to the pan after baking, set the tin immediately on a thick cloth wrung from hot water and after five minutes, the cake can be turned out without breaking.
  14. Chopped nut meats may be added to almost any cake, for a change.
  15. Pour one-half the batter to fruit cake into the pan before adding the fruit, stirring fruit into the batter left in the mixing bowl, then pouring the mixture over that already in the pan, and fruit will not all sink to the bottom.
  16. A cake without butter must be baked in a quick oven.
  17. Fruit cakes and most dark cakes should bake slowly.
  18. If sour milk is used in baking, use one-half teaspoonful of soda to each cupful.
  19. If sweet milk is used, baking powder is the usual accompaniment, and should be one and a half teaspoonfuls baking powder to each cupful of flour.

Plating

Cookware for this recipe

  • Saucepan
  • Cake tin
  • Mixing bowl
  • Chef's knife
  • Cutting board
  • Wooden spoon
Source Public domain in the USA
Credit

From The progress meatless cook book, by Lake, Carlotta M. (Carlotta Mixer) (1911). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #77733 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77733). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.