Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/62

 always possible to measure by cupsful, pints, spoonsful. A pint of flour should be a pound, a little more or less, as you fill it. Two heaped cupsful should also be a pound of sugar, flour, &amp;c. A tablespoon holds about two ounces; by this means it is quite possible to weigh your materials roughly. Nine ordinary eggs will weigh one pound, but for half a pound it is best to allow five, that is, four ordinary sized and one small.

In mixing a cake do not make it too moist, or your currants will drop to the bottom. Too much butter will make it sad or heavy. Too much dripping will make it taste. Only half fill your tins. If the top catches before the rest is baked, wet a sheet of brown paper and lay it over the top. Better still, if you are constantly making cakes, have a regular protector made; that is a piece of tin with four legs just like a table. When your cakes are brown on top place or stand it over them. They will then go on cooking without getting any browner.

Before beginning to make cakes, &amp;c., see to the oven. If you are going to make small cakes, scones, ginger bread nuts, &amp;c., have your oven hot enough to cook them thoroughly in fifteen minutes. The success of cake making lies far oftener with the oven than the making. A pound cake should take one hour to bake, therefore the oven must not be too hot.

Currant Cake.—In mixing a currant cake, the sugar and butter are first beaten together: then the yolks of the eggs. (It is a mistake to beat the whites and yolks together, even for a custard: they are better beaten separately). Mix all this together quite smoothly, then add the whites. Rub the flour quite smooth between the hands, and mix into it the baking powder. Stir it in by slow degrees, till all is mixed. Now drop in the currants, raisins, &amp;c., and, when all are in, stir or beat it for five minutes to be sure the whole is well mixed. There’s not the least occasion for long beating before the mixture is poured into the tins. It is better to use butter to grease your tins than dripping, or even sweet oil; dripping does not always prevent the cake sticking to the tin, particularly the corners; the butter can be melted by the fire, and run into all corners, and the least little bit is sufficient. Dripping for cakes should always be clarified as for pastry, and when using it for a good currant cake, if a little butter is mixed with it, it does away with the taste, though, if the exact quantity in proportion to other ingredients is used, dripping makes as pleasant cakes as butter. Many cooks imagine they should use more dripping than the quantity of butter directed, but on the contrary they must use less. Sour milk is a capital thing to mix a cake with instead of eggs, but, of course, when it is used plain soda must take the place of baking powder in the flour. Buttermilk is better still than thick milk.

Sponge Cakes.—I hear many say they cannot make sponge cakes, and yet they are of all the most simple, but the one infallible rule which must be adhered to for success is with regard to quantities. The weight of your eggs in sugar, and half their weight in flour; that is the whole secret of sponge cake making. One person will say “Oh you don’t beat it enough;” another will tell you “you didn’t mix the ingredients in properly;” this is nonsense. The whole success of a