As to the time and temperature for the baking of cake, consider its thickness. Small pattypan cakes and layer cakes require a much hotter oven than loaf cake. If you are using a gas range, turn on both burners for the small or thin cakes; they ought to bake in twenty or thirty minutes. A loaf cake requires a slower heat. Both demand the heat at the beginning coming from below, while all the tiny aircells are swelling larger and larger. If the heat were to come from above, a crust would form, the rising process would end in the bubbles bursting and the mixture settling down heavy as lead. Allow the cake to stand on the lower shelf of the oven till the pan is full, then very carefully move it to the highest shelf, if it does not seem to be hot enough below. Here it will brown more evenly. Always keep the pans as far as possible from the sides of the oven; if not hot enough to burn cake, they will likely be hot enough to make it rise unevenly.

When the following receipts call for the butter to be creamed before adding the sugar, this should always be heeded. The creaming consists in beating and working the butter until it becomes like thick cream. In this way the oil cells are broken and the texture of the cake made finer in consequence.

Sifting the flour makes it lighter, and, unless stated otherwise, should be measured after sifting.

It is safer to test the cake batter by dropping a little on a small pan and baking. If it spreads and is flat, the batter needs more flour. If tough, it needs a little more milk. Some flour thickens more readily than others, so the exact amount can not be judged.

When using bicarbonate of soda, a level teaspoon is meant unless otherwise stated.

Cakes For Special Occasions

Many housekeepers look aghast when the question of decorating cakes comes up, and it arises quite often in a family where there are young folk. Every housekeeper may try her hand at this feature, which does not involve much extra trouble and needs very little skill.

Once in a while a prettily decorated cake brought to the table when there are no guests other than one's immediate family will elicit many encomiums and also tempt the appetite.

To write the name on a birthday cake no expensive apparatus is required: just a couple of cornucopias made of thick writing paper and sewed up the side. When the cake is ready, cover thickly with icing and set until firm. Fill the cornucopia with whatever icing the decoration is to be of, then, holding steadily in the left hand, commence to press from the larger end toward the smaller, pressing the icing out in a slender line from the opening. Roses and other flowers and geometrical designs and fancy tracings may be made. Unless accustomed to this work, it is better to trace with a sharppointed skewer the design on to the icing first, then following it out with the colored.

Cake Icing

Beat stiff the white of one egg, stir in a cup of confectioners' sugar, two teaspoons of cold water, and the flavor you choose. Spread the icing upon the cake with a broadbladed knife, constantly dipping the knife in cold water to spread the icing smooth.

Icing For Children's Cakes

Put three tablespoons of boiling water on a hot plate and stir in icing sugar or confectioners' sugar till you have a soft paste. Add as you stir a few drops of the flavoring you wish, such as vanilla or lemon. Spread the soft paste on the cakes.

Almond Ice

Mix half a pound of finely powdered almonds with a pound of sugar. Moisten with a dash of orange water and the whites of enough eggs to make a paste. With this coat the cake. Over the almond icing a second icing is sometimes laid, prepared in the following way: Work a pound and a half of fine sugar into the whites of eight eggs, adding now and then a dash of lemonjuice. You will have a thick, glistening mass. Coat the cake, and dry in a warm, clear air.

Boiled Icing

Boil together a cup of sugar and half a cup of water till the syrup hairs off a spoon. Take from the fire, and while cooling beat the whites of two eggs to a stiff froth. Stir the whites and the syrup together, beating the syrup in with the movement you have beaten the eggs. Use whatever flavor you choose, or whatever fruits.

Clear Icing

Stir together half a pound of powdered sugar and the whites of two eggs. Then add the juice of half a lemon, and stir till clear. Use at once.

Apple Frosting

Follow the directions for "Clear Icing," but instead of adding the lemon add a cup of grated apple having peeled and grated fine, juicy, tart apples.

Cream Icing

Mix together a small half of a cup of thick cream and two cups of powdered sugar. Flavor with vanilla, or whatever you prefer.

Royal Icing

Put the white of an egg in a bowl and add a tablespoon of water, and the same quantity of lemonjuice, or other flavoring if you wish. Beat a moment, and then stir in powdered sugar until the icing is of the thickness that will spread upon a warm cake. Beat hard five minutes, and then pile in the centre of the cake and with a wet knife blade smooth round and down the sides of the cake.

TuttiFrutti Icing

Boil a pound of sugar in a gill of water until the syrup will hair off the spoon. Take from the fire, add slowly the beaten whites of two eggs and beat all together, adding also half a pound of blanched and chopped almonds, quarter of a pound of fine raisins swelled in hot water, and quarter of a pound of citron cut in little pieces.