The Boston cooking-school cook book

buttered. In filling pans, have the mixture come well to the corners and sides of pans, leaving a slight depression in the centre, and when baked the cake will be perfectly flat on top. Cake pans should be filled nearly two-thirds full if cake is expected to rise to top of pan. =To Bake Cake.= The baking of cake is more critical than the mixing. Many a well-mixed cake has been spoiled in the baking. No oven thermometer has yet proved practical, and although many teachers of cookery have given oven tests, experience alone has proved the most reliable teacher. In baking cake, divide the time required into quarters. During the first quarter the mixture should begin to rise; second quarter, continue rising and begin to brown; third quarter, continue browning; fourth quarter, finish baking and shrink from pan. If oven is too hot, open check and raise back covers, or leave oven door ajar. It is sometimes necessary to cover cake with brown paper; there is, however, danger of cake adhering to paper. Cake should be often looked at during baking, and providing oven door is opened and closed carefully, there is no danger of this causing cake to fall. Cake should not be moved in oven until it has risen its full height; after this it is usually desirable to move it that it may be evenly browned. Cake when done shrinks from the pan, and in most cases this is a sufficient test; however, in pound cakes this rule does not apply. Pound and rich fruit cakes are tested by pressing surface with tip of finger. If cake feels firm to touch and follows finger back into place, it is safe to remove it from the oven. When baking cake arrange to have nothing else in the oven, and place loaf or loaves as near the centre of oven as possible. If placed close to fire-box, one side of loaf is apt to become burned before sufficiently risen to turn. If cake is put in too slow an oven, it often rises over sides of pan and