In making cakes it is always necessary to be careful about the butter.  It is best to put the butter in cold water before it is used, and, if salt butter, it should be washed in several waters to extract the salt.  The next thing necessary is to beat the butter to a cream.  To do this it must be worked about in a basin with a wooden spoon.  The basin should be a strong one, and a wooden spoon is far preferable to a metal one.  You simply beat the butter and spread it against the sides of the basin and knock it about till it loses its consistency.  You cannot beat the butter to the consistency of ordinary cream, but to a state more resembling Devonshire clotted cream.  Of course, when it is like this it is much more easily mixed with the other ingredients.  In making a pound cake we should first of all beat the butter to a cream and then add flour, sugar, and eggs gradually.  When the whole is thoroughly well mixed together, we must bake it in a tin, or mould, or hoop.  We need say nothing about tins or moulds, but will confine ourselves to giving directions how to bake a cake in a hoop, for, as a rule, ordinary English cooks do not understand how to use them.

One great advantage of using a hoop is that when the cake is baked there is no fear of breaking it in turning it out.  A very simple hoop can be made with an ordinary slip of tin, say six inches wide; as the tin will lap over, the cake can be made any size round you wish.  It is a good plan to fasten a piece of copper wire round the outside of the tin.  This can be twisted, and when the cake is baked and has got cold can be untwisted, and the tin will then open of its own accord.  The tin must be lined with buttered paper, and buttered paper must be placed on a flat piece of tin at the bottom.  When an “amateur hoop” is used like we have described, care must be taken that the cake does not come out at the bottom.  The cake, especially when it is made with beaten-up eggs, like sponge cake, will rise, and unless precautions are taken the tin will rise with it, and the unset portion of the cake break loose round the edge at the bottom.  To prevent this the tin must be kept down with a weight at the top.  In a proper hoop made for the purpose there are appliances for fastening the hoop together itself and also for keeping it in its place, but if we use a strip of tin we must place something across the tin on the top and then put on a heavy weight.  When this is done, you must remember to allow room for the cake to rise.  A pound cake such as we have described can be made into a rich fruit cake by adding stoned raisins, currants, chopped candied peel, sultana raisins, or, better still, dried cherries.  In making ordinary cakes, when currants are used, they should be first washed and then dried; if you use damp currants the cake will probably be heavy.

With regard to the flour, it is cheapest in the end to use the best quality, and the flour should be dried and sifted.  If you weigh the flour remember to dry and sift it before you weigh it, and not after.  In using sugar get the best loaf; this should also be pounded and sifted.