A SHORT ESSAY ON CAKE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5256, 11 May 1895, Page 3

A SHORT ESSAY ON CAKE.

(New York Sun.)

The little fancy cakes and other confections of the caterers, together with the tendency nowadays, at least among city housekeepers, to oversee, nob participate, in the family cooking, has almost made the art of cake-making a lobb one. Yet it is a real accomplishment to make light, delicate cake, and one which the faddist hosteßß, seeking for a novelty, will find more striking than a new pate" or a fresh salad dressing.

Like trimming a kerosene lamp, to make a good cake requires judgment, and a degree of intelligence that is not, aa a rule, a part of the natural endowments of the kitchen queen. Many a cook will tell you she can make cake as light as a feather, and so, perhaps ahe can, the feathery element being imparted by free use of baking powder. Such cake is as different from the real, old-fashioned, fine-grained, rich flavoured cake as is the turned and glued furnitnre from hand made cabinet work. Both are called by the some specific name, and both do a similar dnty, but as only one ia really furniture, so only one is really cake.

Cake is a luxury always, and should be regarded as eucb. The beat of materials are indispensible for all wholesome cake. If cake can be afforded at all, then sweet butter, freßh eggß, good. flour, and sugar can go into it. Don't try to use inferior articles and trust to generous flavouring to condone the offence. The result must inevitably be disaster. Marion Harland, in one of her cook booka, happily quotes an epicure : " Cooking butter ia a good thing, an admirable thing— in its place, which is in the soap fat kettle or upon waggon wheels." It is certainly out of place in cake, as are limed eggs, skimmed milk, poor flavouring extracts, or any similar subterfuges of the false economist. It is perfectly easy to go without cake; it is impoaaible to make good cake without the best of materials.

The knack of making cake is not acquired without practice. You may study an authority on whist for years, you will never become an accomplished player except through long practice. So the good cakemaker reaohes that height often after many failures ; she learns finally, however, that eggs vary in size and weight and other ingredients muat be proportioned accordingly; that holes and lumps in the loaf show poor mixing aB clearly aa if it were written down, and that a cake touch, a certain light quiok movement, in putting the materials together, is as valuable in its way aa a good touch on the piano.

When the cake impulse comes, look first of all to the oven. An even, strong heat is needed for most cake;- open the door a a little aa possible; every cakemakei aigha for the speedy coming of the announced day of glass oven doors. To look at her cake without danger of the disturbing chill of the outer air reaching the oven will be a boon indeed.

After testing the oven, aee that all the materials are together and ready. Have the eggs broken, the yolko in one bowl, the whites in another, both in tbe ice cheat; the flour aiftod firat, then duly measured, and on a d«ep pio plate ; tho cup or halfcup of milk ready ; the lemon and grater at hand, or the vanilla or xosewater bottle oat; the baking powder measured and.

sifted into the flour j the butter measured in ita cup, and the sugar also measured, and in another de9p pie plate liko that which holda the flour; if fruit is to. ba need, have raisin o stoned, curranta washed aud floured, citron cut, almonda blanched and chopped or ehaved, figs or oitron cut up, and pans and greased paper at hand. Cream the butter with a wooden spoon in the large cake bowl, add the augar by degrees, and beat, the mixture to a frothy lightness; if some one is helping you, she may beat tho yolks to have them ready when the butter and -sugar are creamed, but if doing tha work alone, the cold yolkß will beat in one minute, and the cake foundation suffer no harro from the wait; stir part of the yolks in, part of the milk, and part of tha flour : repeat the round till materials are used, adding the flavouring and giving the mixture fifty aaconda' hard -whisking at the end oE the process ; the whites must be frothed to the Btanding-alone point, and quickly stirred in, the fruit, if any, being added at the same time ; then the mixture ia ready for the oven. In many . kitchens the tradition aurvivea that cake should be atirred only one way ; the writer ia willing to admit that it does in hers.

_ Two cake receptaoles are necessary. A tin box keeps crisp and dry auch cakes aB Bhould be so kept, as ginger snaps, jumbles, and the like, while a atone crock, wide and deep, to hold loaves unbroken, and with a close cover, keeps fresh and moist eponge, loaf, and layer cake. Fruit cake mado to last months aiiould bo folded in dampened cloths and put in a separate stone jar. It should be iced only as needed. A great improvement ia to pour sherry wine over tho loaf when it io about a month old, or as it ia needed to nse. Ice afterward.

Ib ia an excellent plan that tho daughter of the household should be the cakemaker. Let her serve her novitiate aB assistant to her mother, and soon the mantlo of this accomplishment may fall wholly upon her.