Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 167, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1916 — GOOD FANCY CAKES [ARTICLE]

GOOD FANCY CAKES

DELICACIES EASILY MADE BY THE HOME COOK. No Reason Why They Should Not Excel Those of the Professional Caterer—Some Directions That Are Worth Heeding. The clever home cook can master the making of fancy cakes without much difficulty. The tools she needs are few, and it only depends on her carefulness to make the cakes quite the equal in appearance of cakes from the caterer's. If she be a good cake maker the home-made cake can excel the caterer’s cake in deliciousness of taste.

Layer cakes depend on the icing for their elaborate appearance. So, make an ordinary layer cake and put It together with the desired filling. Then prepare a stiff boiled icing and coat the cake thickly with it. The plan of trimming must be decided on and the Ingredients needed for it must be ready beforehand. Floral decorations are decidedly attractive. They can be made with candied rose or violet petals, and with stems and leaves of angelica. Citron, too, can be used for foliage. For roses, arrange four or five rose petals in rose shape, making a' border of the roses (perhaps eight or nine) around the top, edge of the side of the cake, with stems going down the side. Or three or four roses can be arranged in a cluster on the top of the cake, in the center? Violets can be arranged in the same way, and sweet peas can be formed by a careful arrangement of rose petals. Icing decorations, too, can be made. For these, stiff icing is needed and an icing pipe or a cone of stiff brown paper are needed. Then there should be colored and white icing. For yellow, use grated orange peel and orange juice; for pink, use cochineal or cranberry juice; for green, use spinach juice. Force the stiff colored icing through the icing pipe and make the design on a cake well covered with white icing. If you are clever enough, you can make cameos. Make a disk of the colored icing, and then make a tiny head. It isn’t especially difficult after you have practiced a little to copy a real cameo with fair success. Designs of various sorts can be made with the tiny disk sugar candies of assorted colors. These are especially good to mark birthday cakes, for names and dates and pleasant wishes can all be made with them. Colored frostings can work wonders with small cakes. These can be made in small tins, or else’ in a big sheet cut into squares, diamonds and other fancy shapes.