Easter Cake Recipes

Old-Time Easter Cake Recipes Make Delicious Holiday Cakes

These Easter cake recipes let you make delicious holiday cakes to delight your family and guests. We all know that homemade cakes taste much better than the store-bought variety, and these fancy dessert cakes offer the proof.

Whether it's the double-layer orange cake with its whipped orange frosting, the versatile white cake, the white pound cake decorated with freshly cut flowers, or the yummy flower garden cake, you will love serving these easy-to-make cakes. They all have that delicious old-fashioned taste.

Orange Layer Cake Recipe

2-1/2 cups sifted cake flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, grated rind of 1 lemon, grated rind of 1 orange, 2/3 cup butter or shortening, 1-1/2 cups sugar, 3 eggs unbeaten, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 5 tablespoons orange juice, 2 tablespoons water.

Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift together three times. Add lemon and orange rind to butter, and cream thoroughly; add sugar gradually, and cream together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add flour alternately with combined fruit juices and water, a small amount at a time. Beat after each addition until smooth.

Bake in two greased 9-inch layer pans in moderate oven (375°F) 20 minutes, or until done. Spread Whipped Orange Frosting between layers and on top and sides of layer cake.

Whipped Orange Frosting Recipe

Juice and rind of 1 orange, 2 tablespoons flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 egg yolks or 1 whole egg, 1 cup whipping cream.

Mix all ingredients together except cream, and cook over boiling water until thick. Allow to get cold. Whip cream stiff and carefully fold orange mixture into whipped cream.

Flower Garden Cake

1 10-inch angel food cake
6 egg yolks
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 envelope (1 tablespoon) gelatine
1/4 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup orange juice
Grated rind of 1 lemon
6 egg whites
1 cup well-drained crushed pineapple
12 maraschino cherries, cut up

Tear angel food cake into pieces in large bowl. Beat egg yolks in top of double-boiler; combine 3/4 cup sugar and gelatine and stir into egg yolks; add lemon juice, orange juice, and lemon rind. Cook over hot water stirring constantly until custard mixture coats silver spoon. Cool.

Beat egg whites until frothy, then beat 3/4 cup sugar in gradually, beating well after each addition, then continuing to beat until stiff and glossy. Then fold whites into cooled custard mixture along with crushed pineapple and chopped maraschino cherries. Finally, pour custard mixture over angel food cake pieces.

Single Layer White Cake Recipe, With Variations

1/2 cup butter, 1-1/3 cups sugar, 1 cup milk, 3 cups pastry flour, few grains of salt, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1-1/4 teaspoons vanilla, 4 egg whites.

Cream the butter, add sugar and cream until light and fluffy. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder three times and add alternately with the milk to which the vanilla has been added. Beat egg whites stiff and fold them in gently. Bake about three-quarters of an hour in a moderate oven till done.

Coconut White Cake: Add 1 cup shredded coconut to the above recipe.

Nut White Cake: Add 1 cup of coarsely chopped nut meats -- any kind except peanuts.

Fruit White Cake: Add 3/4 cup of halved raisins and 1/4 cup chopped citron peel, stirring the fruit into the flour after it has been sifted.

Easy Frosting Recipe

This quick and easy frosting could be used with any of the Easter cake recipes.

3 tablespoons butter, 3 tablespoons milk, 2 cups sifted icing sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla. Cream butter until light and fluffy; add sifted icing sugar and milk alternately, beating well until the icing is light and of a nice consistency to spread. Add vanilla.

One pound sugar, one of butter, one of flour, ten eggs; bake in a dripping pan one inch in thickness; cut when cold into pieces three and a half inches long by two wide, and frost top and sides; form on the cake stand in pyramid before the icing is quite dry by laying, first in a circle, five pieces with some space between them; over the spaces between these lay five other pieces, gradually drawing in the column and crowning the top with a bouquet of freshly cut flowers.