Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper. Catharine Esther Beecher
and Silver Cake.—This makes a pretty variety when cut and placed together in a cake-dish. For each, take one cup of sugar (for the silver, white; and for the gold, brown), half a cup of butter, half a cup of milk, two cups of flour, one tea-spoonful of cream tartar, and half as much soda. For the one, use the yelk of three eggs; and the white, as stiff froth, for the other. Mix the cream tartar very thoroughly in the flour, and put in the soda last. Bake immediately. This makes one loaf of each kind, in flat pans, and is to be frosted. If more is wanted, double the quantity of each ingredient.
Rich Sponge-Cake.—Take twelve eggs, and the weight of ten in sugar, and six in flour. Beat the sugar into the yelks, add the juice and grated peel of one lemon, then the flour, and then the whites cut to a stiff froth, and bake as soon as possible. Bake in brick-shaped pans, and line them with buttered paper.
Plain Sponge-Cake, (easily made.)—Mix thoroughly two cups of sifted flour and two cups of white sugar with one tea-spoonful of cream tartar. Beat four eggs to a froth, not separating the whites, and add some grated lemon-peel, or nutmeg, or rose-water. Just before baking, add half a tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in three great-spoonfuls of warm water. Beat quick, and set in the oven immediately.
GINGERBREAD, FRIED CAKES, COOKIES, AND OTHER CAKES.
Aunt Esther’s Gingerbread.—Take half a pint of molasses, a small cup of soft butter, a gill and a half of water, a heaping tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in a table-spoonful of hot water, and one even table-spoonful of strong ginger, or two if weak. Rub butter and ginger into the flour, add the water, soda, and molasses, and while doing it, put in two table-spoonfuls of vinegar. Roll it in cards an inch thick, and bake half an hour in a quick oven.
Sponge Gingerbread.—Add to the above two beaten eggs, and water to make it thin as pound-cake, and bake as soon as well mixed.
Ginger-Snaps and Seed-Cookies.—One cup of butter, two cups of sugar or molasses, one cup of water, one table-spoonful of ginger, one heaping tea-spoonful of cinnamon and one of cloves, one tea-spoonful of soda dissolved in a small cup of hot water. Mix and add flour for a stiff dough, roll and cut in small round cakes. Omit the spices, and put in four or five table-spoonfuls of caraway seeds, and you have seed-cakes. Leave out all spice and seeds, and you have plain cookies.
Fried Cakes.—For Doughnuts, use the recipe for Plain Sponge-Cake, adding flour enough to roll. Or take Plain Cake raised with eggs, and add flour enough to roll. Or take Dough-Cake, or Plain Loaf-Cake, and thicken so as to roll. Roll about half an inch thick and cut into oblong pieces. For Crullers, take plain cake raised with eggs, and thicken stiff with flour; roll it thin, and cut into strips, and form twisted cakes. More sugar and butter make it richer, but less healthful.
Have plenty of lard, or, better, strained beef-fat, quite hot; try with a small piece first, and, if right, there will be a bubbling. Turn two or three times to cook all alike, break open one to try if done, and when done, take up with a skimmer and drain well. If the fat is too hot, it will brown too quick; if not hot enough, the fat will soak into the cake. Remember that frying is the most unhealthful mode of cooking food, and the one most likely to be done amiss.
CAKE RAISED WITH YEAST.
Plain Loaf-Cake.—Two pounds of dried and sifted flour, a pint of warm water in which is melted a quarter of a pound of butter, half a tea-spoonful of salt, three eggs without beating, and three quarters of a pound of sugar, well mixed; and then add two nutmegs, two tea-spoonfuls of cinnamon, and two gills of home-brewed or half as much distillery yeast. When light, add two or three pounds of fruit, and let it stand half an hour.
Rich Loaf-Cake is made like the above, only adding more butter and sugar. The following are specimens of the diverse proportions: Four pounds of flour, three of sugar, two of butter, a quart of water or milk, ten unbeaten eggs, half a pint of wine, three nutmegs, three tea-spoonfuls of cinnamon, and two cloves; two gills of distillery yeast, or twice as much home-brewed. This is what in New-England would be called Election or Commencement-Cake. Two or three risings used to be practiced, but one is as good if the mixing is thorough.
Dough-Cake.—Three cups of raised dough, half a cup of butter, two cups of sugar, two eggs, fruit and spice to the taste. When light, bake in loaves. This can be made more or less sweet, and shortened by lessening or increasing the quantity of dough. It must be mixed with the hands.
Icing for Cake.—Put the whites of eggs into a dish, and for each egg use about a quarter of a pound of sugar. Beat the whites, slowly adding the sugar. This is better than beating the whites first, and then adding sugar. A little lemon-juice or tartaric acid makes it whiter and better. Spread the icing, after pouring it upon the centre, with a knife dipped in water. If you can, dry in an open, sunny window. Otherwise, harden it in the oven. It improves it by mixing, when adding sugar, some almonds pounded to a thin paste.
CHAPTER XVII.
PRESERVES AND JELLIES.
General Directions.
Gather fruit when it is dry.
Long boiling hardens the fruit.
Pour boiling water over the sieves used, and wring out jelly-bags in hot water the moment you are to use them.
Do not squeeze while straining through jelly-bags.
Let the pots and jars containing sweetmeats just made remain uncovered three days.
For permanent covering, lay brandy papers over the top, cover them tight, and seal them; or, what is best of all, soak a split bladder and tie it tight over them. In drying, it will shrink so as to be perfectly air-tight.
Keep them in a dry but not warm place.
A thick, leathery mold helps to preserve fruit, but when mold appears in specks, the preserves must be scalded in a warm oven, or the jars containing them are to be set into hot water, which must then boil till the preserves are scalded.
Always keep watch of preserves which are not sealed, especially in warm and damp weather. The only sure way to keep them without risk or care is to make them with enough sugar and seal them or tie bladder covers over.
The best kettle is iron lined with porcelain. If brass is used, it must be bright, or acids will make a poison.
The chief art is to boil continuously, slowly, and gently, and take up as soon as done; too long boiling makes the fruit hard and dark. Jellies will not harden well if the boiling stops for some minutes. Try jellies with a spoon, and as soon as they harden around the edge quickly, they are done. In making, the sugar should be heated, and not added till the juice boils.
Keep preserves in small glass jars, as frequent opening injures them.
Canned Fruit.—This is far more economical than to preserve in sugar. Some can be canned without any sugar, and very nice sugar demands only one fourth sugar to three fourths fruit. The best cans are glass with metal tops. Those of Wilcox are the best known to the author. The W. L. Imlay’s, of Philadelphia, are recommended as best of any.
Directions.—Set the jars in a large boiler, and then fill it with cold water and heat to boiling. Having filled the jars to within an inch of the top with alternate layers of fruit and sugar, (in proportion of one half or one fourth of a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit, according as it is more or less acid,) set them in cold water. As soon as the fruit has risen to the top of the jar, screw on the cover and take from the water. Peaches and pears may be canned without sugar.
To clarify Sirup for Sweetmeats.—For each pound of sugar allow half a pint of water. For every three pounds of sugar allow the white of one egg. Mix when cold, boil a few minutes,