The cake and biscuit book

Fruit Cake without Eggs

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1¹⁄₂ pints sifted flour
1 lb. stoned and chopped raisins
1 tea-spoon grated nutmeg
1 tea-spoon powdered cinnamon
1 pint sour milk or cream
1 tea-spoon soda

Beat the butter to a cream. Add the sugar. Beat again very thoroughly. Add one pint of flour. Mix the raisins and spices with half a pint of flour. Add them to the mixture. Mix thoroughly and beat five minutes. Dissolve the soda in the sour milk. Stir it in. Bake at once in buttered tins, one hour, in a moderate oven.

Gingerbread

1 lb. flour
¹⁄₂ lb. butter
¹⁄₂ lb. treacle
¹⁄₂ lb. sugar
2 table-spoons powdered ginger
1 tea-spoon carbonate of soda
3 eggs

Melt the butter, sugar, and treacle in a saucepan, and pour them gradually when not too hot over the well-beaten eggs stirring continually. Add the soda and ginger, then the flour, stirring it well in. Bake in a slow oven for an hour and half in a well-greased tin.

One Egg Cake

¹⁄₂ cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 cups flour
¹⁄₂ tea-spoon carbonate of soda
1 tea-spoon cream of tartar
1 tea-spoon vanilla, or the grated rind and juice of half a lemon

Cream the butter and add the sugar. Beat well together. Beat the egg till light and add it, and then the milk with the soda dissolved in it. Stir in the flour with which the cream of tartar should be mixed. Beat well together and add the vanilla. Bake in a shallow tin in a moderate oven for half-an-hour.

Plain Sultana Cake

1 lb. flour
¹⁄₄ lb. butter
¹⁄₄ lb. sugar
¹⁄₂ lb. sultanas, currants, or raisins
2 ozs. peel
2 eggs
¹⁄₂ pint milk

Rub the butter into the flour. Add the sugar, then the peel cut into small pieces, and well-floured fruit. Beat the eggs till light and creamy. Add them to the mixture. Dissolve the soda in the milk. Work all together thoroughly with the hands. Bake at once for an hour to an hour and a half.

OR,

Substitute one tea-spoon baking powder for the carbonate of soda. Beat the butter to a cream. Add the sugar, eggs, and fruit, beating all the time. Mix the baking powder with the flour. Add the flour to the mixture with the milk and beat well. Bake about one and a half hours in a moderate oven.

Seed Cake—Lunch

1 lb. flour
¹⁄₄ lb. dripping or butter
¹⁄₄ lb. moist sugar
1 tea-spoon ground carraway seed
1 egg
1 oz. candied peel
¹⁄₂ pint milk
¹⁄₂ tea-spoon carbonate of soda

Rub the butter into the flour. Add sugar, seed, candied peel, egg, and the milk in which the soda has been dissolved. Mix the whole thoroughly, working together with the hand. Bake at once for one and a quarter hours in a moderate oven.

THE END