Do not place cakes in a cold place or at an open window, or the steam will condense and make them heavy.  A rich cake improves in flavor and becomes softer with keeping (from 2 to 6 weeks, according to quality) before cutting.  Wrap, when cold, first in a clean towel, then in paper.  After a week remove the paper and put the cake into a tin wrapped in the towel.  Small cakes may be baked in tiny molds or tins, or baked in a flat sheet, and then cut out into squares, diamonds or rounds.  Then they can be frosted or coated with cream and decorated with cherries or other crystallized fruits.  If a real distinction is desired, they may be placed in tiny crinkled paper cases, bought by the hundred at a trifling cost.

Cake tins should be greased with Crisco and dredged with flour, the superfluous flour shaken out, or they can be fitted with paper which has been greased with Crisco.  When creaming Crisco and sugar, do not grudge hard work; at this stage of manufacture the tendency is to give insufficient work, with the result that the lightness of the cake is impaired.

Apple Sauce Fruit Cake without Milk

1 cupful brown sugar 1-1/2 cupfuls apple sauce 2-1/2 cupfuls flour 1/2 cupful Crisco 1 lb. raisins 1 teaspoonful powdered cloves 1 teaspoonful powdered cinnamon 1 teaspoonful grated nutmeg 2 teaspoonfuls baking soda 1/2 teaspoonful salt 3 tablespoonfuls vinegar

Cream Crisco and sugar thoroughly together, add apple sauce, flour, raisins, spices, salt, and soda mixed with vinegar.  Mix and pour into greased and floured cake tin and bake in moderate oven one and a half hours.

Sufficient for one cake.

Black Cake with Prune Filling

1-1/2 cupfuls sugar 1/2 teaspoonful salt 3 eggs 1/2 cupful Crisco 1 cupful milk 1/2 teaspoonful baking soda 2 cupfuls flour 1 teaspoonful baking powder 1/2 teaspoonful vanilla extract 1/3 cake chocolate

  For Filling

1 cupful sugar 1/3 cupful boiling water 1 white of egg 1/2 cupful stoned stewed prunes 1/3 cupful blanched chopped almonds

For cake. Beat 1 egg in double boiler, add 1/2 cupful milk, 1/2 cupful sugar and chocolate; mix well and cook until it thickens.  Cool and set aside.  Cream Crisco with remainder of sugar, add salt, eggs well beaten, soda mixed with remainder of milk, flour, baking powder and vanilla.  Mix well and add chocolate paste, and divide into two Criscoed and floured layer cake tins.  Bake twenty minutes in moderate oven.

For filling. Boil sugar and water together without stirring until it forms a soft ball when tried in cold water, or 240 deg.  F., then pour it over the beaten white of egg, beating all the time.  Now add chopped prunes and almonds and beat well.  Put between layers of cake.

Sufficient for one good-sized layer cake.