The oven heat should be rather _moderate_ at first. Much of the success depends upon this, as the batter should be evenly heated throughout before it begins to rise. When baked, spread over the cakes a wafer thickness of icing (see page 304) slightly flavored with vanilla.
I venture to say there is not to be found a better receipt for white cake than the following. The cake is mixed contrary to the usual rules for making cake, but it is the best mode for making it fine-grained and delicate.
Ingredients: Whites of six eggs, scant three-quarters of a cupful of butter, one and one-quarter cupfuls of pulverized sugar, two cupfuls of flour, juice of half a lemon, one-quarter of a tea-spoonful of soda.
If soda is used, mix it well with the flour, and pass it through the sieve several times to distribute it equally. Beat the butter to a light cream, and add the flour to it, stirring it in gradually with the ends of the fingers until it is a smooth paste. Beat the whites of the six eggs to a stiff froth, and mix in them the pulverized sugar; now stir the egg and sugar gradually into the flour and butter, adding also the lemon-juice, and mix it smoothly together with the egg-whisk. As soon as it is perfectly smooth, put it into the oven, the heat of which should be rather moderate at first. When done and still hot, spread over it a frosting made with the white of one egg, pulverized sugar (see page 304), and a flavoring of lemon. The frosting is a decided improvement, and, according to the receipt, only requires a few minutes to prepare.
This cake may be made with one tea-spoonful of baking-powder, or with prepared flour, or with the one-quarter tea-spoonful of soda and one-half tea-spoonful of cream of tartar, when the essence of lemon should be used instead of the lemon-juice.
Ingredients: Two cupfuls of sugar, three eggs (beaten separately); one cupful of butter, just enough flour to roll it out.
Mix quickly, and roll it thin. Cut out the cakes with a round cake-cutter, cutting them out again in the centre with the top of the pepper-glass of the caster. When they are in the pans, wet the tops, using a paste-brush or feather, with the white of an egg slightly beaten. Then sprinkle over very coarse-pounded lump-sugar; the sugar, in fact, in little lumps.