old milk,
and a tea-spoonful of salt. Beat four eggs, and stir them in, together
with sufficient flour to make a thick batter.

167. _Rice Wafers._

Melt a quarter of a pound of butter, and mix it with a pound of rice
flour, a tea-spoonful of salt, and a wine glass of wine. Beat four eggs,
and stir in, together with just cold milk enough to enable you to roll
them out easily. They should be rolled out as thin as possible, cut with
a wine glass into cakes, and baked in a moderate oven, on buttered flat
tins.

168. _Rules to be observed in making nice Cake._

Cake, to be good, must be made of nice materials. The butter, eggs, and
flour, should not be stale, and the sugar should be of a light color,
and dry. Brown sugar answers very well for most kinds of cake, if rolled
free from lumps, and stirred to a cream with the butter. The flour
should be sifted, and if damp, dried perfectly, otherwise it will make
the cake heavy. The eggs should be beaten to a froth; and the cake will
be more delicate if the yelks and whites are beaten separately.
Saleratus and soda should be perfectly dissolved, and strained before
they are stirred into the cake. Raisins for cake should have the seeds
taken out. Zante currants should be rinsed in several waters to cleanse
them, rubbed in a dry cloth to get out the sticks, and then spread on
platters, and dried perfectly, before they are put into the cake.
Almonds should be blanched, which is done by turning boiling water on
them, and letting them remain in it till the skins will rub off easily.
When blanched, dry them, then pound them fine, with rosewater, to
prevent their oiling. When the weather is cold, the materials for cake
should be moderately warmed, before mixing them together. All kinds of
cake that are made without yeast are better for being stirred, till just
before they are baked. The butter and sugar should be stirred together
till white, then the eggs, flour, and spice, added. Saleratus and cream
should not be put in till just before the cake is baked--add the fruit
last. Butter the cake pans well. The cake will be less liable to burn if
the pans are lined with white buttered paper. The cake should not be
moved while baking if it can be avoided, as moving it is apt to make it
heavy. The quicker most kinds of cake are baked, the lighter and better
they will be; but the oven should not be of such a furious heat as to
burn them. It is impossible to give any exact rules as to th