The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1900-11-23
THE ART OF CAKE MAKING.
Use Good Materials and Never Fail
to Measure Carefully All
Ingredients.

Use good materials if you want
good cake. There is no alchemy in
the oven to transmute stale eggs,
sticky sugar, strong butter and lumpy
-four into something rich and tooth
some. Neither will the most skill
full mixing and baking do away with
the acrid flavor resulting from poor
baking powders, says the Washington
Star.
To judge flour ruffle the surface of
it - the shadows between the heaps
look family creamy. Blue-white -four
is apt to have a faint of corn flour
or cornstarch, or else to have been
ground from wheat below the high
est grade. Perfect flour, grasped in
the hand, will show when released all
the veins of the palm, as well as keep
shape. 1t has also sort of velvet
feel, which may be learned, but can
not be more accurately described.
A soft, well favored coffee sugar
with only faint saccharine smell is
for many sorts of cake better than
either granulated or cut loaf, and
irst-class grocers will supply on de-
mand light yellow soft sugar much
better for dark cakes than any of the
white sugar tribe.
Butter speaks for itself-to eye and
nose. Eggs carry within the hall
mark of freshness. 1t is in the air
bubble at each end, between the lin
ing membrane and the shell. When
4aI o+
the ends the eggs are at least rea-
eonably fresh. If it has shifted to
the top or is as big as your thumbs
end they are open to suspicion. Eggs
are better broken cool than warm;
SO in hot weather it is well to lay
them in ice water or set them in a
refrigerator half an hour or so be-
fore using.
Cake making single-handed is q
matter for method. First measure
your butter and set it where it will
soften without oiling. Melted butter
cannot be creamed, and Dreaming is
essential to lightness in the cake. Put
it in bowl big enough to admit of
vigorous stirring. Then measure
your -four, sitting it first, put in the
soda or the baking powder and sift
again. Cake flour should always be
sifted twice. If it is measured as it
comes out of the barrel you will in
fallibly get too much of it. If it feels
the least bit clammy, or even if the
day is damp, set it where it will warm
without scorching until you are ready
for it.
Next measure your sugar, and be
sure the measure is exact. Sift it.,
and set it also to warm, but be sure
it does not heat Now, break your
eggs. and separate yolks and whites.
Break each one over a small dish
then if you find bad one, you will
not ruin the whole batch. Put the
yolks into the mixing bowl, and be
sure it is big enough-it should be
twice the capacity of the finished bat
ter, to allow for beating. Beat the
yolks till they foam and look almost
creamy-white, then put in the sugar,
a cupful at time, and beat again.
After that, cream the butter-really
cream it. Do not be satisfied when it
is soft enough to stir. Keep beating
and stirring it, always the same way,
until it drops from the spoon in a
frothy rope. Add it to the eggs and
sugar, alternately with the flour, and
take care to stir in every bit of flour
before you put in more butter. A
drop of butter falling upon dry flour
makes lump it is almost impossible
to be rid of. When all the butter and
-four are in, beat hard for ten min
utes, then go to work whipping the
whites of eggs. Beat them very stiff,
and mix in lightly. Now, if you have
used soda alone, put in your lemon
juice-strained, or your sour cream.
Beat the whole mixture, for three
minutes longer, add your favoring,
then pour into molds and set in the
oven.