MARY’S POTATO CAKES

1 cup freshly-boiled mashed potatoes. 1 cup scalded sweet milk. 1 cup sugar.  Flour about 6 cups. 1 cake Fleischman’s yeast. 2 eggs. 1/2 cup butter and lard mixed. 1/2 cup potato water.

At 7 o’clock in the morning Mary mixed a sponge consisting of a cup of mashed potatoes, 1 cup scalded milk, 1/2 cup sugar, 1-1/2 cups of flour and the cake of Fleischman’s yeast, dissolved in half a cup of lukewarm potato water.  This was set to rise in a warm place near the range for several hours until light.  Then she creamed together 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of butter and lard, or use instead the “Substitute for Butter.”  Added the creamed sugar, butter and eggs to the well-risen sponge and about 4-1/2 cups of flour.  Sift a couple of tablespoons of flour over top of sponge, and set to rise again about 1-1/2 hours.  When light, take cut pieces of the sponge on a well-floured bread-board, knead for a minute or two, then roll out with a rolling-pin inlo pieces about one inch thick, place in well-greased small pie tins, over which a dust of flour has been sifted, set to rise about 1-1/2 hours.  When light and ready for oven brush top with milk, strew crumbs over or brush with melted butter and strew sugar over top; after punching half dozen holes in top of each cake, bake in a moderately hot oven from 20 to 25 minutes until a rich brown, when cakes should be baked.  Five potato cakes may be made from this sponge, or four cakes and one pan of biscuits if preferred.  Use soft “A” sugar rather than granulated for these cakes, and old potatoes are superior to new.  Or when these same cakes were raised, ready to be placed in the oven, Mary frequently brushed the tops of cakes with melted butter, strewing over the following:  1 cup of flour mixed with 1/2 cup of sugar and yolk of 1 egg, and a few drops of vanilla.  This mixture rubbed through a coarse sieve and scattered over cakes Mary called “Streusel Kuchen.”

GERMAN RAISIN CAKE (RAISED WITH YEAST)

Place in a bowl 1 cup of milk, scalded and cooled until lukewarm; add 1 tablespoonful of sugar and dissolve one cake of yeast in the milk.  Mix in 1 cup of flour and stand in a warm place to raise 3/4 of an hour.  Then cream together in a separate bowl 1/2 cup soft “A” sugar, 1/2 cup of butter or “butter substitute,” add 1 egg and a pinch of salt; stir in 1-1/4 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of well-floured raisins, and 1/2 teaspoonful of vanilla flavoring.  Add the yeast mixture and allow it to raise about 2 hours longer.  At the expiration of that time turn the well-risen sponge out on a floured bake-board.  After giving the dough several deft turns on the board with the hand, place in a well-greased fruit cake pan, which has been dusted with flour.  Stand pan containing cake in a warm place, let rise until very light, probably 1-1/4 hours, when brush the top of cake with a small quantity of a mixture of milk and sugar.  Sift pulverized sugar thickly over top.  Place the cake in a moderately hot oven, so the cake may finish rising before commencing to brown on the top.  Bake about 35 minutes.