FoodNetArchive

[Modern cookery, in all its branches

1884

Page 474 · 1 recipe record on this page

Presented as published in 1884. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
IMPERIALS. (NOT VERY RICH.) Work into a pound of flour six ounces of butter, and mix wrell with them half a pound of sifted sugar, six ounces of currants, two ounces of candied orange-peel, the grated rind of a lemon, and four well-beaten eggs. Flour a tin lightly, and with a couple of forks place the paste upon it in small rough heaps quite two inches apart. Bake them in a very gentle oven, from a quarter ol an hour to twenty minutes, or until they are equally coloured to a pale browm. Flour 1 lb. ; butter, 6 oz. ; sugar, 8 oz. ; currants, 6 oz. ; candied peel, 2 oz ; rind of 1 lemonImperials ; eggs, 4 ; 15 to 20 minutes. FINE ALMOND CAKE. Blanch, dry, and pound to the finest possible paste, eight ounces of fresh Jordan almonds, and one ounce of bitter ; moisten them writh a few drops of cold w'ater or white of egg, to prevent their oiling ; then mix with them very gradually twelve fresh eggs wdiich have been whisked until they are exceedingly light ; throw in by degrees one pound of fine, dry, sifted sugar, and keep the mixture light by constant beating, with a large wrooien spoon, as the separate in- gredients are added. Mix in by degrees three-quarters of a pound of dried and sifted flour of the best qua’ity; then pour gently from the sediment a pound of butter which has been just melted, Lut not allowed to become hot, and beat it very gradually, but very thoroughly, into the cake, letting one portion entirely disappear before another is thrown in ; add the rasped or finely-grated rinds of two sound fresh lemons, fill a thickly-buttered mould rather more than half full with the mixture, and bake the cake from an hour and a half to ;wo hours in a well-heated oven. Lay paper over the top when it is sufficiently coloured, and guard carefully against its being burned. s s 546 MODERN COOKERY. [chap, xxyi. Jordan almonds, ^ lb.; bitter almonds, 1 oz. ; eggs, 12 ; sugar, 1 lb. ; flour, § lb. ; butter, 1 lb. ; rinds lemons, 2 : 1^ to 2 hours. Obs. — Three-quarters of a pound of almonds may be mixed with this cake when so large a portion of them is liked, but an additional ounce or two of sugar, and one egg or more, will then be required. PLAIN POUND OR CURRANT CAKE. (Or rich Brawn Brack , or Borrow Brack.') Mix, as directed in the foregoing receipt, ten eggs (some cooks take a pound in weight of these), one pound of sugar, one of flour, and as much of butter. For a plum-cake, let the butter be worked to a cream ; add the sugar to it first, then the yolks of the eggs, next stir lightly in the whites, after which, add one pound of cur- rants and the candied peel, and, last of all, the flour by degrees, and a glass of brandy when it is liked. Nearly or quite two hours’ Daking will be required for this, and one hour for half the quantity. To convert the above into the popular Irish “ speckled bread,” or Brawn Brack of the richer kind, add to it three ounces of carraway- seeds : these are sometimes used in combination writh the currants, but more commonly without. To ice a cake see the receipt for Sugar Glazings at the commencement of this Chapter, page 543. A rose- tint may be given to the icing with a little prepared cochineal, as we have said there. RICE CAKE.