Just Cake Recipes

Bavarian Cherry Cake

2010-02-13T19:14:00.001-08:00

From "The Golden Age Cook Book", by Henrietta Latham Dwight, 1898.

1/2 pound of fine, juicy black cherries
5 tablespoonfuls of fine bread crumbs
5 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar
5 eggs
1 ounce of sweet chocolate grated

Put the grated chocolate in a mixing bowl, break an egg into it and add one tablespoonful of bread crumbs and one of sugar, beat light and break another egg into it, adding another tablespoonful of bread crumbs and one of sugar. Then separate the three remaining eggs, the yolks from the whites, adding one yolk at a time alternately with bread crumbs and sugar until all are used. Add the cherries. Beat the three whites of eggs to a stiff froth and fold it in lightly. Butter thick a cake mould, sift dried bread crumbs over it, turn the cake into it and bake about three-quarters of an hour in a moderate oven. Test it as other cake.

In Bavaria it is served cold, but I think it would also be nice hot with fruit sauce.

Real Gold and Real Silver Cakes

2009-12-07T08:07:00.000-08:00

From "Dishes and Recipes of the Old South", 1913

Real Gold Cake: Beat very light the yolks of sixteen eggs, with a full pound of yellow sugar, and a scant pound of creamed butter. Add a cup of rich sour cream with a teaspoonful soda dissolved in it. Or if you like better put in the cream solus, and add the soda dissolved in a teaspoonful of boiling water at the very last. This makes lighter cake so is worth the extra trouble. Flavor to taste—grated lemon rind is good. Add gradually four cups flour sifted three times at least. Beat hard for ten minutes, then bake in well-greased pans, lined with buttered paper, until well done, let cool partly in the pans, then turn out, dust lightly with flour or corn starch and frost.

Real Silver Cake: Wash and cream to a froth a pound of fresh butter, work into it a pound of sifted sugar, and a pound of flour, sifted thrice with a teaspoonful of baking powder. Add flavoring—vanilla, lemon or rose water, following it with a wineglass of whiskey. Then fold in the whites of sixteen eggs beaten with a pinch of salt to the stiffest possible froth. If the batter looks too thick add half a cup sweet cream—this will depend on the size of the eggs and the dryness of the flour. Bake in deep pans, else in layers. By baking gold and silver batter in layers, and alternating them you can have a fine marble cake. Or by coloring half the white batter pink with vegetable color to be had from any confectioner, you can have rose-marble cake. This should be iced with pink frosting else with plain white, then dotted over with pink. Very decorative for birthday parties or afternoon teas.

General Advice on Baking Cakes

2009-07-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

The following advice to bakers from "Dishes and Beverages of the Old South", 1913, is still relevant today. Enjoy!

Here are a few cardinal helps. Have the eggs very cold, butter soft but not oily, flour dry and light—sun or oven-dry it in muggy weather. Sift it three times for ordinary cakes, twice for tea cakes, and so on, four to five times for very light things, sponge cake, angel's food, and measure it before sifting, and don't forget the needed amount—then you will be in no danger of putting in too much or too little. Always put a pinch of fine salt in the bottom of the mixing bowl, which ought to be freshly scalded and wiped very dry. A damp bowl clogs with either sugar or flour, making the stirring much harder. Unless specifically directed otherwise, separate the eggs, set the whites on ice till time to whip them, beat the yolks very, very light—to a pale, frothy yellow, add the sugar, free of lumps, a cupful at a time, then the butter washed and beaten to a creamy froth, beat hard together for five minutes, then add alternately the flour and the egg-whites beaten to the stiffest possible froth. Add a pinch of salt as beating begins, and if the egg supply is scant, a teaspoonful of cold water to each white. This will increase the quantity, and help to make the cake lighter, as it is the air-bubbles imprisoned in the froth which give it its raising virtue. Add fruit and flavoring last thing. Fruit should be well floured but never clotted. If batter appears to be too stiff a little whiskey thins it excellently, and helps to make it lighter. Put in two tablespoonfuls to six eggs, using more in proportion. Rose water or a liqueur have the same effect but give their own flavor—which whiskey does not.

If strong butter needs must be used, it can be mitigated to a degree, by washing and kneading well in cold water barely dashed with chloride of lime solution, then rinsing well in cold water, and afterward in sweet milk. The milk may be half water. Rinse it out clean. Let the butter soften well before undertaking to cream it. A stout, blunt wooden spoon is the best for creaming, along with a deep bowl very narrow at the bottom. Grease deep cake tins plentifully, with either lard or butter—using only the best. For heavy cakes such as fruit, spice and marble cake, line them with double thicknesses of buttered paper and either set shallow pans of water in the oven while baking or stand the pans themselves in other pans with a quarter inch of water in the bottoms. If cakes brown too fast, open the oven door, a trifle, and lay over the pan a thick, well buttered paper until the oven cools. Never jar the oven while cake is baking in it—neither by banging the doors, nor dumping heavy vessels on top of it. Beware likewise slamming kitchen doors, or bumping things about in the room. Fine cake demands as many virtues of omission as of commission. Indeed the don'ts are as essential as the doings.

Spice Cake

2009-06-26T17:33:00.001-07:00

Cream a coffee cup of well washed butter, with two cups yellow sugar and one cup black molasses. Add to it one after the other, seven egg-yolks, beating hard between. When all are in, add one tablespoonful whiskey, or brandy, one teaspoonful grated chocolate, teaspoonful each of powdered cloves, allspice, ginger, mace, and cinnamon, a grated nutmeg, and half a saltspoonful of powdered black pepper. Add also a pinch of salt, and the barest dusting of paprika. If whiskey is for any reason disapproved, use strong, clear coffee instead, putting in two spoonfuls, and leaving out the chocolate. Beat all together hard for ten minutes, then add four scant cups flour browned in the oven but not burned. Sift after browning, adding to it two teaspoonfuls baking powder. Beat hard five minutes after the flour is all in, then pour in a deep, well greased pan, lined with buttered paper, let rise ten minutes with the oven door open, then bake in quick heat until done through.

From "Dishes and Beverages of the Old South", by Martha McCulloch Williams, 1913

Cake Recipes: Aunt Polly's Pound Cake

2009-04-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

Take ten fresh eggs, their weight in fresh butter, white sugar, and thrice sifted flour. Separate the eggs, beat yolks to a cream-yellow, add the sugar, cupful at a time, beat hard, then the butter creamed to a froth, then half the flour, then two wineglasses of whiskey or brandy or good sherry or rose water, beat hard five minutes, then add the rest of the flour, taking care not to pack it in the handling. Beat fifteen minutes longer, then fold in with long strokes, the egg-whites beaten with a good pinch of salt until they stick to the dish. Barely mix them through the batter, then pour it into deep pans, or ovens, lined with double greased papers. The vessels also must be well buttered. Bake with quick heat, letting the cake rise well before browning. Slack heat when it is a very light brown, and cook until a straw thrust to the bottom comes out clean. Turn out upon a thick, folded cloth, cover with another thinner cloth, and let cool.

Frost when cool, either with the boiled frosting directed for cheesecakes or with plain frosting made thus. Beat three egg-whites well chilled to the stiffest possible froth with a pinch of salt, and a very little cold water. Add to them gradually when thus beaten a pound of sugar sifted with a teaspoonful of cream of tartar. Mix very smooth, and apply with a broad-bladed knife, dipping it now and then in cold water to keep the frosting smooth. It should dry a quarter-inch thick and be delicious eating. Frosted cake keeps fresh three times as long as that left naked.

Baltimore Cake

2009-03-29T19:28:00.000-07:00

For this cake use one cupful butter, two cupfuls sugar, three and one-half cupfuls flour, one cupful sweet milk, two teaspoonfuls baking powder, the whites of six eggs and a teaspoonful of rose water. Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually, beating steadily, then the milk and flavoring, next the flour sifted with the baking powder, and lastly the stiffly beaten whites folded in at the last. Bake in three layer cake tins in an oven hotter than for loaf cake.

While baking prepare the filling. Dissolve three cupfuls sugar in one cupful boiling water, and cook until it spins a thread. Pour over the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs, stirring constantly. Add to this icing one cupful chopped raisins, one cupful chopped nut meats, preferably pecans or walnuts, and a half dozen figs cut in fine strips. Use this for filling and also ice the top and sides with it.

Miss Parola's Chocolate Layer Cake

2009-03-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

Beat half a cupful of butter to a cream, and gradually beat into it one cupful of sugar. When this is light, beat in half a cupful of milk, a little at a time, and one teaspoonful of vanilla. Beat the whites of six eggs to a stiff froth. Mix half a teaspoonful of baking powder with two scant cupfuls of sifted flour. Stir the flour and whites of eggs alternately into the mixture. Have three deep tin plates well buttered, and spread two-thirds of the batter in two of them.

Into the remaining batter stir one ounce of chocolate, melted, and spread this batter in the third plate. Bake the cakes in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes. Put a layer of white cake on a large plate, and spread with white icing. Put the dark cake on this, and also spread with white icing. On this put the third cake. Spread with chocolate icing.

TO MAKE THE ICING. Put into a granite-ware saucepan two gills of sugar and one of water, and boil gently until bubbles begin to come from the bottom—say, about five minutes. Take from the fire instantly. Do not stir or shake the sugar while it is cooking. Pour the hot syrup in a thin stream into the whites of two eggs that have been beaten to a stiff froth, beating the mixture all the time. Continue to beat until the icing is thick. Flavor with one teaspoonful of vanilla. Use two-thirds of this as a white icing, and to the remaining third add one ounce of melted chocolate. To melt the chocolate, shave it fine and put in a cup, which is then to be placed in a pan of boiling water.

Cake Recipes: Spice Layer Cake

2009-03-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

* 2 cups light brown sugar
* ½ cup shortening
* 2 eggs
* ¾ cup milk
* 3 tsp. baking powder
* 1 cup chopped raisins
* 2¼ cups flour
* 1 tsp. cinnamon
* ½ tsp. cloves
* ½ tsp. nutmeg
* ½ tsp. salt

Cream sugar and shortening and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until light. Sift the flour, add salt, spices, baking powder, then sift again. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture alternately with the milk. Beat thoroughly and add the floured raisins. Pour into 2 greased layer cake pans. Bake in moderate oven (350-f) for 25 or 30 minutes. For the icing use:

* 2 cups sugar
* ¾ cup milk
* 2 tblsp. butter

Cream together and boil until it forms a soft ball when dropped in water. Add vanilla and beat until cold. Spread between layers, over top and sides.

This recipe is from "Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking"

Chocolate Cake

2009-03-24T19:31:00.003-07:00

Chocolate Cake #1
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One cup of butter and two cups of sugar stirred to a cream, with the yolks of five eggs added after they have been well beaten. Then stir into that one cup of milk, beat the whites of two pf the eggs to a stiff froth and add that also; now put in three cups and a half of sifted flour, two heaping teaspoonfuls of baking powder having been stirred into it. Bake in jelly-cake tins.

Mixture for Filling.—Take the remaining three whites of the eggs beaten very stiff, two cupfuls of sugar boiled to almost candy or until it becomes stringy or almost brittle; take it hot from the fire and pour it very slowly on the beaten whites of egg, beating quite fast; add one-half cake of grated chocolate, a teaspoonful of vanilla extract. Stir it all until cool, then spread between each cake and over the top and sides. This, when well made, is the premium cake of its kind.

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Chocolate Cake #2

One-half cup butter, two cups sugar, three-quarters of a cup sweet milk, two and one-half cups flour, whites of eight eggs, one teaspoonful of cream of tartar, one-half teaspoonful soda; bake in shallow pans.

For the Frosting.—Take the whites of three eggs, three tablespoonfuls of sugar and one tablespoonful of grated chocolate (confectioners') to one egg; put the cake together with the frosting, then frost the top of the cake with the same.

Sponge Cake

2009-03-24T19:31:00.001-07:00

Separate the whites and yolks of six eggs. Beat the yolks to a cream, to which add two teacupfuls of powdered sugar, beating again from five to ten minutes, then add two tablespoonfuls of milk or water, a pinch of salt and flavoring. Now add part of the beaten whites; then two cups of flour in which you have sifted two teaspoonfuls of baking powder; mix gradually into the above ingredients, stirring slowly and lightly, only enough to mix them well; lastly add the remainder of the whites of the eggs. Line the tins with buttered paper and fill two-thirds full.

Fruit Cake

2009-03-24T19:30:00.002-07:00

Three pounds dry flour, one pound sweet butter, one pound sugar, three pounds stoned raisins, two pounds currants, three-quarters of a pound sweet almonds blanched, one pound citron, twelve eggs, one tablespoonful allspice, one teaspoonful cloves, two tablespoonfuls cinnamon, two nutmegs, one wine-glass of wine, one wine-glass of brandy, one coffeecupful molasses with the spices in it; steep this gently twenty or thirty minutes, not boiling hot; beat the eggs very lightly; put the fruit in last, stirring it gradually, also a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of water; the fruit should be well floured; if necessary add flour after the fruit is in; butter a sheet of paper and lay it in the pan. Lay in some slices of citron, then a layer of the mixture, then of citron again, etc., till the pan is nearly full. Bake [Pg 291]three or four hours, according to the thickness of the loaves, in a tolerably hot oven, and with steady heat. Let it cool in the oven gradually. Ice when cold. It improves this cake very much to add three teaspoonfuls of baking powder to the flour. A fine wedding cake recipe.

Bread Cake

2009-03-24T19:30:00.001-07:00

Two cupfuls of raised dough; beat into it two-thirds of a cup of butter and two cups of sugar creamed together, three eggs, well beaten, one even teaspoonful of soda dissolved in two tablespoonfuls of milk, half a nutmeg grated, one tablespoonful of cinnamon, a teaspoonful of cloves, one cup of raisins. Mix all well together, put in the beaten whites of eggs and raisins last; beat all hard for several minutes; put in buttered pans and let it stand half an hour to rise again before baking. Bake in a moderate oven. Half a glass of brandy is an improvement, if you have it convenient.

Frosting Without Eggs

2009-03-24T19:29:00.005-07:00

An excellent frosting may be made without eggs or gelatine, which will keep longer and cut more easily, causing no breakage or crumbling and withal is very economical.

Take one cup of granulated sugar; dampen it with one-fourth of a cup of milk, or five tablespoonfuls; place it on the fire in a suitable dish and stir it until it boils; then let it boil for five minutes without stirring; remove it from the fire and set the dish in another of cold water; add flavoring. While it is cooling, stir or beat it constantly and it will become a thick, creamy frosting.

Boiled Frosting

2009-03-24T19:29:00.003-07:00

To one pound of finest pulverized sugar add three wine-glassfuls of clear water. Let it stand until it dissolves; then boil it until it is perfectly clear and threads from the spoon. Beat well the whites of four eggs. Pour the sugar into the dish with the eggs, but do not mix them until the syrup is luke-warm; then beat all well together for one-half hour.

Season to your taste with vanilla, rose-water, or lemon juice. The first coating may be put on the cake as soon as it is well mixed. Rub the cake with a little flour before you apply the icing. While the first coat is drying continue to beat the remainder; you will not have to wait long if the cake is set in a warm place near the fire. This is said to be a most excellent recipe for icing.

Sugar Icing

2009-03-24T19:29:00.001-07:00

To one pound of extra refined sugar add one ounce of fine white starch; pound finely together and then sift them through gauze; then beat the whites of three eggs to a froth. The secret of success is to beat the eggs long enough, and always one way; add the powdered sugar by degrees, or it will spoil the froth of the eggs. When all the sugar is stirred in continue the whipping for half an hour longer, adding more sugar if the ice is too thin. Take a little of the icing and lay it aside for ornamenting afterward. When the cake comes out of the oven, spread the sugar icing smoothly over it with a knife and dry it at once in a cool oven. For ornamenting the cake the icing may be tinged any color preferred. For pink, use a few drops of cochineal; for yellow, a pinch of saffron dissolved; for green, the juice of some chopped spinach. Whichever is chosen, let the coloring be first mixed with a little colorless spirit and then stirred into the white icing until the tint is deep enough. To ornament the cake with it, make a cone of stiff writing paper and squeeze the colored icing through it, so as to form leaves, beading or letters, as the case may be. It requires nicety and care to do it with success.

Plain Chocolate Icing

2009-03-24T19:28:00.001-07:00

Put into a shallow pan four tablespoonfuls of scraped chocolate, and place it where it will melt gradually, but not scorch; when melted, stir in three tablespoonfuls of milk or cream and one of water; mix all well together, and add one scant teacupful of sugar; boil about five minutes, and while hot, and when the cakes are nearly cold, spread some evenly over the surface of one of the cakes; put a second one on top, alternating the mixture and cakes; then cover top and sides, and set in a warm oven to harden. All who have tried recipe after recipe, vainly hoping to find one where the chocolate sticks to the cake and not to the fingers, will appreciate the above. In making those most palatable of cakes, "Chocolate Eclairs," the recipe just given will be found very satisfactory.