In making cakes it is indispensably necessary that all the ingredients should be heated before they are mixed together, for which purpose every thing should be prepared for an hour or two previously to their being wanted, and placed near the fire or upon a stove - the flour thoroughly dried and warmed; the currants, sugar, carraway-seed, and any thing else required, heated in the same way; butter and eggs should be beaten in basins fitted into kettles or pans of warm water, which will give them the requisite degree of temperature. Without these precautions cakes will be heavy, and the best materials, with the greatest pains, will fail to produce the desired results.

Currants should be very nicely washed, dried in a cloth, and then set before the fire. If damp, they will make cakes or puddings heavy. Before they are to be used, a dust of dry flour should be thrown among them, and a shake given to them, which causes the cakes to be lighter.

Eggs should be very long beaten, whites and yolks apart, and always strained.

Sugar should be pounded in a mortar, or rubbed to a powder on a clean board, and sifted through a very fine hair or lawn sieve.

Lemon-peel should be grated or pared very thin, and, with a little sugar, beaten in a marble mortar to a paste; and then mixed with a little wine or cream, so as to divide easily among the other ingredients. The pans should be of earthenware; nor should eggs or batter and sugar be beaten in tins, as the coldness of the metal will prevent them from becoming light.

Use no flour but the best superfine; for if the flour be of inferior quality the cakes will be heavy, ill-colored, and unfit to eat; but if a little potato-flour be added, it will improve their lightness. Cakes are frequently rendered hard, heavy, and uneatable, by misplaced economy in eggs and butter, or for want of a due seasoning in spice and sugar.

After all the articles are put into the pan, they should be thoroughly and long beaten, as the lightness of the cake depends much on their being well incorporated.

Accuracy in proportioning the ingredients is also indispensable; and therefore scales, weights, and measures, down to the smallest quantity, are of the utmost importance.

Iron ovens are desirable, as well for their economy of fuel as for the short time in which they can be heated, and on account of the celerity and convenience with which one person may prepare large quantities of small pastry, and bake it also.

The most vigilant care and attention are necessary in order to secure success in the baking of delicate pastry or cakes; for however well they may have been prepared, if not equally well baked, the result will be unsatisfactory.

If the oven be not lighted long enough to have a body of heat, or if it is become slack, the cake will be heavy. If not pretty quick, the batter will not rise.

Should you fear its being too quick, put some paper over the cake to prevent its being burnt. To know when it is soaked, take a broad-bladed knife that is very bright, and plunge it into the very centre, draw it instantly out, and if the least stickiness adheres, put the cake immediately in again, and shut up the oven.

If the heat should be sufficient to raise, but not to soak it, let fresh fuel be quickly put in, and the cakes kept hot until the oven is fit to finish the soaking.

Bread and. cakes mixed with milk eat best when new, but become stale sooner than others.

Cakes kept in drawers or wooden boxes have a disagreeable taste. Earthen pans and covers, or tin boxes, preserve them best; but in making large cakes of any kind, which are to be baked in hoops, use those of wood. Cakes made with yeast should always be eaten fresh.