ilk; three and a half cups of flour; a grated
nutmeg, or a teaspoonful of vanilla or lemon; and a heaping teaspoonful of
baking powder.

Cream the butter; add the sugar, and then the yolks; then the milk and the
whites, and last the flour, in which the baking powder has been sifted.
Bake half an hour, either in two brick loaves or one large one. It is
nice, also, baked in little tins. Half may be flavored with essence, and
the other half with a teaspoonful of mixed spice,--half cinnamon, and the
rest mace and allspice. By using a heaping tablespoonful of yellow ginger,
this becomes a delicious sugar gingerbread, or, with mixed spices and
ginger, a spice gingerbread.

This cake with the variations upon it makes up page after page in the
large cook-books. Use but half a cup of butter, and you have a plain _Cup
Cake_. Add a cup of currants and one of chopped raisins, and it is plain
_Fruit Cake_, needing to bake one hour. Bake on Washington-pie tins, and
you have the foundation for _Cream_ and _Jelly Cakes_. A little
experience, and then invention, will show you how varied are the
combinations, and how one page in your cook-book can do duty for twenty.

POUND CAKE.

One pound of sugar; one pound of flour; three-quarters of a pound of
butter; nine eggs; one teaspoonful of baking powder, and one of lemon
extract; one nutmeg grated.

Cream the butter, and add half the flour, sifting the baking powder with
the other half. Beat the yolks to a creamy foam, and add; and then the
sugar, beating hard. Have the whites a stiff froth, and stir in, adding
flavoring and remainder of flour. Bake in one large loaf for one hour,
letting the oven be moderate. Frost, if liked.

FRUIT CAKE.

One pound of butter; one pound of sugar; one pound and a quarter of sifted
flour; ten eggs; two nutmegs grated; a tablespoonful each of ground
cloves, cinnamon, and allspice; a teaspoonful of soda; a cup of brandy or
wine, and one of dark molasses; one pound of citron; two pounds of stoned
and chopped raisins, and two of currants washed and dried.

Dredge the prepared fruit with enough of the flour to coat it thoroughly.
To have the cake very dark and rich looking, brown the flour a little,
taking great care not to scorch it. Cream the butter, and add the sugar,
in which the spices have been mixed; then the beaten yolks of eggs; then
the whites beaten to a stiff froth, and the flour. Dissolve the soda in a
very little warm water, and add. Now