Music Welcome to Snewscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us at snewscast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by Crumpets and Cringles. Tonight, we'll read recipes on school room cakes along with tea cakes and biscuits from the Cake and Biscuit book by Elizabeth Douglas, published in 1903. When this cookbook was published, most American students attended a one-room schoolhouse. A single teacher would typically have students of all ages in one class. The youngest children sat in the front while the oldest students sat in the back. Students memorized and recited their lessons and when they were lucky, they ate home-baked treats like the ones here. At the turn of the 20th century, home baking was considered an essential domestic skill. And simple confections like spice cakes, oat biscuits, and soft tea buns were often made in large batches to share. Many cakes intended for school rooms used ingredients that could stretch. Like a coffee or buttermilk? Closure and oil for feeding many mouths with limited means. The term school relax your body didn't refer to the soft the specific type of a rather to the spirit of the bake.

Something sturdy, not overly sweet now. Easy to pack, take a few. You're wishing enough to last a long day, breaths. General directions for cake making. Utensils Use earthenware bowls and wooden spoons for mixing. Several sets of tins are necessary if cake is to be made often.

One or two ordinary round tins, a tin with a hollow tube in the center, square tins, and shallow round tins about eight inches in diameter for jam sandwich and layer cakes should be kept. A small dripping pan is very good to bake gingerbread in, and for very light cakes, the German tin, with a loose bottom, should be used. These tins are excellent, for the bottom can be pushed up away from the sides, and there is no danger of the cake being broken in taking it out of the tin. They can be bought at Herod's stores, Brompton Road. Measuring. Flower, sugar, salt, ground spices, soda must always be sifted before measuring. This is of the utmost importance in making good cakes.

A cup is a breakfast cup holding half a pint.

The spoons are the silver ones in general use.

A spoonful of dry material is one in which the convexity at the top corresponds to the concavity of the spoon. A scant spoonful should be made level with the edges of the spoon. In measuring half a teaspoon of dry material, fill it first and then divide it with a knife long ways down the spoon. A heaping cupful is a cup filled as full as it will hold. A cupful should be leveled. a scant cupful should not be filled above about quarter of an inch from the top.

It is necessary to remember in measuring half or quarter cups that a cup is smaller at the bottom than the top.

It is more satisfactory measuring to have half-plaint measures marked into quarters.

Baking powder. Baking powder can be used in the making of most cakes. In some however,

the proportion of carbonate of soda of which it consists is not right. In which case the two ingredients should be used separately according to the directions. Almost invariably soda should be mixed with milk or water, which should then be strained in order to keep back any dregs. Cream of tartar should be mixed with flour, which should then be sifted. Both cream of tartar and soda should be pulverized before they are measured or used. Baking powder can be bought or made as follows. One part carbonate of soda. Two parts cream of tartar. It should be kept in an airtight tin. In nearly all cases, baking powder is best mixed with the flour, which should then be sifted through a fine sieve. Mixing. There are three ways of mixing. St, beating, cutting or folding. To stir, let the spoon touch the bottom and sides of the basin and move it round quickly in circles of various sizes. Do not lift it out of the mixture and work well against the sides. To beat, tip the bowl to one side. Bring this spoon or fork quickly down into the mixture and through it. Take it out the other side and bring it over and down again, scraping the sides while each time it goes in. It is important to keep the bowl of the spoon well scraped out during mixing. Be it quickly and hard to cut or fold, turn over the mixture with a spoon and lift it up, folding in the white of egg as lightly as possible. Do not stir or beat, but mix very gently until quite blended. To beat eggs. It is generally best to beat the yolks and whites separately. For beating them, there is nothing better than a dover egg beater, although a fork can be used for the yolks and a steel knife for the whites.

Beat the yolks in a bowl until they thicken and become light and creamy. Beat the whites on a platter until they are stiff and absolutely dry. to be butter, in beating butter to a cream, if very hard, it can be slightly warmed in the oven or put into a hot bowl. But it must on no account be melted. It should just be softened in order to make it more easy to beat it. To grease and fill tins. Tins can be greased with fresh butter, lard, or sweet oil. Sides and bottom should be evenly, but not thickly smeared with grease. When a tin is to be lined with paper, cut a piece to fit the bottom exactly. Another piece to go right round the sides. This piece should project two or three inches above the top of the tin. Grease the papers thoroughly before putting them in the tin. Fill the tin's two-thirds full, leaving a very slight depression in the center if a flat cake is wanted, as the tendency is to rise in the middle. The oven. Nearly all cakes should be baked in a moderate oven, and the fire should be so made up before putting a cake in the oven that it will not have to be touched again until the cake is taken out. If this is impossible, owing to the length of time it takes, add a little coal frequently to the fire instead of letting it down and making it up with a great deal of fuel. In baking in a gas stove, it is important that there should be no Two drafts from window or door.

Set the cake in the middle of the oven and do not move it until it has risen its full height, which will take about half the time in which it is baked. For the first quarter of an hour, it is not necessary to look at the cake unless there is a fear that the oven is too hot. Afterwards, do so occasionally, opening and shutting the oven door very gently and never taking the cake out. After it has fully risen, the cake can be turned round if it is baking quicker on one side than the other. Do not have anything else in the oven while baking a cake. For later cakes and thin cakes make up a larger fire. They should be quickly. To test whether a cake is done, put a clean straw or skewer into the thickest part of it. If it comes out clean, the cake is done. To remove cakes from tins. With a few exceptions, cakes should be taken out of their tins directly they come out of the oven. the tin upside down and, if necessary, loosen the sides with a knife, set on a sieve to cool. To all cake mixtures add a little salt, sifting it with the flour in the proportion of a small salt spoon of salt to every half pint of flower.

Keep flower and sugar in a dry place or dry thoroughly before using. School room cakes.

Fruit cake without eggs.

One cup butter.

One cup sugar One and a half pints sifted flour One pound stoned in chopped raisins One teaspoon grated nutmeg One teaspoon powdered 1.0 sour milk or cream, 1 teaspoon soda, beat the butter to a cream, add the sugar, beat again very thoroughly, add 1 point 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 it once in buttered tins, one hour in a moderate oven. Gingerbread 1 pound flour 1 half a pound butter 1 half a pound treacle 1 halfricol, 2 tablespoons Powder Ginger, 1 teaspoon Carbonate of Soda, 3 eggs, Melt the butter, sugar, and Tricol in a saucepan, and pour them gradually when not too hot over the well-beating eggs stirring continually. Add the soda and ginger, then the flour stirring it well in. Bake in a slow oven for an hour and a half in a well greased tin.

One egg cake, half a cup butter, one cup powdered sugar, one egg, one cup milk, two cups flour, 1 egg, 1 cup milk, 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon carbonate of soda, 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, or the grated rind and juice of half a lemon. 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. In sultana cake, one pound flour, quarter pound butter, quarter pound sugar, half a pound sultanas, currants or raisins, two ounces peel, two eggs, half a pint milk1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1- Beat the eggs until 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 1 teaspoon 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. One pound flour, quarter pound dripping or butter, quarter pound moist sugar. One teaspoon ground caraway seed. One egg. One ounce candied peel. Half a pint milk. Half teaspoon carbonate of soda. Rub the butter into the flour. Add sugar, seed, candy peel, egg, and the milk in which the soda has been dissolved. Mix the whole thoroughly, working together with the hand. get once for one and a quarter hours in a moderate oven. Tea Cakes American Crumpets Three cups warm milk Half cup. Two tablespoons melted butter. One salt spoon salt. One salt spoon soda. Flour. Mix the yeast, milk, salt, and sufficient flour to make a good batter and set to rise. When well risen, be in the melted butter. Sift the soda and stir it in dry. Put in a well greased patty pans or muffin rings, allowing the batter to rise for 15 minutes before putting into the oven. Bake in a quick oven. American muffins with eggs.

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