Selections from Eliza Leslie

Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry,Cakes, and Sweetmeats: An Excerpt

231 Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats an excerpt black cake, or plum cake One pound of flour, sifted. One pound of fresh butter. One pound of powdered white sugar. Twelve eggs. Two pounds of the best raisins. Two pounds of currants. Two table-spoonfuls of mixed spice, mace and cinnamon. Two nutmegs, powered. A large glass of wine A large glass of brandy }mixed together Half a glass of rose-water A pound of citron. Pick the currants very clean, and wash them, draining them through a cullender. Wipe them in a towel. Spread them out on a large dish, and set them near the fire or in the hot sun to dry, placing the dish in a slanting position. Having stoned the raisins,1 cut them in half, and when all are done, sprinkle them well with sifted flour, to prevent their sinking to the bottom of the cake. When the currants are dry, sprinkle them also with flour. 232 Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats Pound the spice, allowing twice as much cinnamon as mace. Sift it, and mix the mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon together. Mix also the liquor and rose-water, in a tumbler or cup. Cut the citron in slips. Sift the flour into a broad dish. Sift the sugar into a deep earthen pan, and cut the butter into it. Warm it near the fire, if the weather is too cold for it to mix easily. Stir the butter and sugar to a cream. Beat the eggs as light as possible. Stir them into the butter and sugar alternately with the flour. Stir very hard. Add, gradually, the spice and liquor. Stir the raisins and currants alternately into the mixture, taking care that they are well floured. Stir the whole as hard as possible, for ten minutes after all the ingredients are in. Cover the bottom and sides of a large tin or earthen pan, with sheets of white paper well buttered, and put into it some of the mixture.Then spread on it some of the citron, which must not be cut too small. Next put a layer of the mixture, and then a layer of citron, and so on till it is all in, having a layer of the mixture at the top. This cake is always best baked in a baker’s oven, and will require four or five hours in proportion to its thickness. Ice it, next day. spunge cake Twelve eggs. Ten ounces of sifted flour, dried near the fire. A pound of loaf-sugar, powered and sifted. Twelve drops of essence of lemon. A grated nutmeg. A tea-spoonful of powered cinnamon and mace, mixed. Beat the eggs as light as possible. Eggs for spunge or almond-cakes require more beating than for any other 233 Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats purpose. Beat the sugar, by degrees, into the eggs. Beat very hard, and continue to beat some time after the sugar is all in. No sort of sugar but loaf, will make light spunge-cake. Stir in, gradually, the spice and essence of lemon.Then, by degrees put in the flour, a little at a time, stirring round the mixture very slowly with a knife. If the flour is stirred too hard, the cake will be tough. It must be done lightly and gently, so that the top of the mixture will be covered with bubbles. As soon as the flour is all in, begin to bake it, as setting will injure it. Put it in small tins, well buttered, or in one large tin pan. The thinner the pans, the better for spunge-cake. Fill the small tins about half full. Grate loaf-sugar over the top of each, before you set them in the oven. Spunge-cake requires a very quick oven, particularly at the bottom. It should be baked as fast as possible, or it will be tough and heavy, however light it may have been before it went into the oven. It is of all cakes the most liable to be spoiled in baking. When taken out of the tins, the cakes should be spread on a sieve to cool. If baked in one large cake, it should be iced. A large cake of twelve eggs, should be baked at least an hour in a quick oven. For small cakes, ten minutes is generally...