Cake Fillings

Caramel Filling

Mix two cups of heavy brown sugar with threefourths of a cup of butter and add half a cup of cream. Boil in a saucepan until it becomes ropy, and then add one tablespoon of vanilla. Put the saucepan in cold water and stir until the filling thickens. Spread between layers of cold cake.

To use the above as candy spread it on a cold, buttered platter. When cold and hardened somewhat cut in cubes, and allow to harden more before using.

Chocolate Filling

Mix the yolks of four eggs with one square of chocolate grated, one tablespoon of cream or milk and one cup of sugar. Boil till it grows hard.

Sour Cream Filling

Add the white of one egg to a cup of thick, sour cream to keep the cream from turning to butter while whipping. Whip the cream, sweeten to taste with powdered sugar and flavor to your taste with vanilla. Spread upon cool layers of cake. Chopped nuts, such as butternuts, pecans, or hickorynuts, are sometimes added to this cream filling.

Fillings Of Fresh Fruit

Fillings of fresh fruit are made by putting layers of the sugared fruit between the layers of cake, and spreading whipped cream over the fruit. Take for instance strawberries. Mash the strawberries, and sugar to taste. If the juice is too plentiful let it drain off and use it for flavoring on ice. On a layer of cake spread the strawberries. Have whipped a cup of cream with two tablespoons of sugar. Spread over the strawberries some of this cream, then put on the other layer and repeat the fruit and cream.

Peaches may be used in this way. Raspberries also, and pineapple grated.

Lemon Filling

Mix two cups of sugar, two teaspoons of butter, the grated rind and juice of two lemons, and two eggs. Stir together and put in a saucepan. Set the pan in another of hot water, and boil until the mixture is quite thick. When cool, spread on the layers of cake.

Maple Filling

Boil a cup of maple syrup till it threads from the spoon, and then beat till cool, beating in the white of an egg.

Nut Filling

Boil together half a cup of water and a cup of sugar until it makes a heavy thread. Take from the fire and add little by little and with constant stirring the whites of two eggs. Beat till cool, stirring in a cup of chopped nuts, either walnuts, hickory nuts, or mixed nuts.

Fruit Filling

Follow the directions above, using candied fruits or chopped and seeded raisins instead of nuts.

Filling For Any Flavor

A soft filling to which may be added any flavor is made by following the directions for "Nut Filling," substituting a flavoring for the nuts.

Angel Cake Chocolate Cake

Angel Cake

Beat to a very stiff froth the whites of eleven eggs. To this add a tumbler of white sugar and about two teaspoons of vanilla to taste. Mix one scant even teaspoon of cream of tartar into one tumbler of flour. Sift it four times, the last time sift into the eggs and sugar and mix together. Put in a round pan with circular metal rising in the centre. The pan should not be greased. Bake in a moderate oven until a straw thrust in will come out clean that is, twenty or twentyfive minutes. Bake a very light brown, and delicately.

Angel Food

Sift together four times a cup of flour (measure after sifting) and a teaspoon of cream of tartar. Beat the whites of eleven eggs to a stiff froth, and then beat in gradually a cup and a half of granulated sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla. Next put in the flour which you have sifted with the cream of tartar and beat lightly. Bake slowly forty minutes in a pan lightly dredged with flour, or in an earthenware dish. The cake should bake gradually.

Dried Apple Cake

Put to soak overnight a cup and a half of evaporated apples. Stew them soft in half a cup of molasses the next day, and set away to cool. Stir together half a cup of butter and one cup of sugar. Add twothirds of a cup of sour milk, the stewed apples, two wellbeaten eggs, a teaspoon each of cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon, and three cups of flour into which you have sifted a teaspoon of finely pulverized soda. Stir hard. Have at hand a cup of seeded raisins, twothirds of a cup of currants, and some thin slices of shredded citron. Spread a layer of the cake batter in your cake tin, then put in a layer of your mixed raisins, currants, and citron. Next a layer of batter and then a layer of fruit, and so on till you cap the cake with a layer of batter. Bake carefully in a moderate oven.

Baker's Cake

Cream together one cup of butter with two cups of granulated sugar. Add the yolks of six eggs, beating in one yolk at a time. Add little by little one cup of sweet milk, which you have warmed. Then put in three cups of sifted flour little at a time, stirring constantly until all is well mixed. Add the whites of the eggs which you have beaten to a stiff froth, folding them in gradually, and last of all three teaspoons of baking powder. Flavor with two teaspoons of vanilla, or the juice of one lemon. Bake in a quick oven, either as a loaf cake or in jelly cake tins. The secret of having the cake light is in the stirring.

A Birthday Cake

One cup of butter, two cups of sugar, four eggs, two tablespoons of molasses, one cup of boiled coffee, three and a half cups of pastry flour, five level teaspoons of baking powder, one teaspoon of powdered cinnamon, half a teaspoon of powdered cloves, half a teaspoon of powdered mace, threequarters of a cup of seeded and chopped raisins, half a cup of shredded figs and citron, two tablespoons of brandy. Mix all together in the order given. Bake in a loaf pan. When cool, ice with any preferred frosting. Place candles in paste roses about and edge with flowers. The candles correspond or harmonize with the icing and flowers. [See illustration, Plate XXV.]