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Classic
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page 44
first will ruin any cake. Cakes should rise and begin to bake before browning
much, large cakes requiring a good, steady, solid heat, about such as for baking
bread; layer cakes, a brisk hot fire, as they must be baked quickly. A good plan
is to fill the stove with hard wood (ash is the best for baking), let it burn
until there is a good body of heat, and then turn damper so as to throw the heat
to the bottom of oven for fully ten minutes before the cake is put in. In this
way a steady heat to start with is secured. Generally it is better to close the
hearth when the cake is put in, as this stops the draft and makes a more regular
heat. Keep adding wood in small quantities, for if the heat becomes slack the
cake will be heavy. Great care must be taken, for some stoves need to have the
dampers changed every now and then, but as a rule more heat is needed at the
bottom of the oven than at the top. Many test their ovens in this way: if the
hand can be held in from twenty to thirty-five seconds (or while counting twenty
or thirty-five), it is a quick oven, from thirty-five to forty-five seconds is
"moderate," and from forty-five to sixty seconds is "slow." Sixty seconds is a
good oven to begin with for large fruit cakes. All systematic housekeepers will
hail the day when some enterprising Yankee or Buckeye girl shall invent a stove
or range with a thermometer attached to the oven, so that the heat may be
regulated accurately and intelligently. If necessary to move the cake while
baking, do it very gently. Be careful not to remove from the oven until done,
and do not leave oven door open. Allow about thirty minutes for each inch of
thickness in a quick oven, and more time in a slow one. Test with a broom-splint
or knitting-needle, and if the dough does not adhere, it is done. Settling away
from the pan a little, and stopping its "singing," are other indications that
the cake is ready to leave the oven. It should remain in the pan at least
fifteen minutes after taking from the oven, and it is better to leave the "cap"
on until the cake is carefully removed from the pan and set away, always right
side up. A tin chest or stone jar is best to keep it in. Coffee cake should be
put away before it is cold, and so closely wrapped in a large napkin that the
aroma will not be lost.
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