Orange Cake.
3 table-spoonfuls butter.
2 cups of sugar.
Yolks of 5 eggs, whites of three, beaten separately—the yolks strained through a sieve after they are whipped.
1 cup of cold water.
3 full cups of flour—enough for good batter.
1 large orange, the juice, and half the grated peel.
½ teaspoonful soda, dissolved in hot water.
1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, sifted in flour.
Cream the butter and sugar; add the eggs; heat in the orange, the water, soda, and stir in the flour quickly.
Bake in jelly cake tins.
Filling.
Whites of two eggs, whisked stiff.
1 cup powdered sugar.
Juice, and half the peel of an orange.
Whip very light, and spread between the cakes when cold.
Reserve a little, and whip more sugar into it for frosting on top layer.
Charlotte Polonaise Cake. (Very fine.)
2 cups powdered sugar.
½ cup of butter.
4 eggs, whites and yolks beaten separately.
1 small cup of cream, or rich milk.
3 cups of prepared flour.
Bake as for jelly cake.
Filling.
6 eggs, whipped very light.
3 cups of cream—scalding hot.
6 table-spoonfuls grated chocolate.
6 table-spoonfuls powdered sugar.
½ pound sweet almonds, blanched and pounded.
¼ pound chopped citron.
¼ pound apricots, peaches, or other crystallized fruit.
½ pound macaroons.
Beat the yolks of the eggs very light. Stir into the cream the flour which has been previously wet with a little cold milk.
Add very carefully the beaten yolks, and keep the mixture at a slow boil, stirring all the time, for five minutes. Take from the fire and divide the custard into three equal portions. Put the grated chocolate, with the macaroons, finely crumbled (or pounded), with one table-spoonful of sugar, into one pan of the mixture, stirring and beating well. Boil five minutes, stirring constantly; take from the fire, whip with your egg-beater five minutes more, and set aside to cool.
Pound the blanched almonds—a few at a time—in a Wedgewood mortar, adding, now and then, a few drops of rose-water. Chop the citron very fine and mix with the almonds, adding three table-spoonfuls of sugar. Stir into the second portion of custard; heat to a slow boil; take it off and set by to cool.
Chop the crystallized fruit very small, and put with the third cupful of custard. Heat to a boil; pour out and let it cool.
Season the chocolate custard with vanilla; the almond and citron with bitter almond. The fruit will require no other flavoring. When quite cold, lay out four cakes made according to receipt given here, or bake at the same time a white cake in jelly-cake tins, and alternate with that. This will give you two good loaves. Put the chocolate filling between the first and second cakes; next, the almond and citron; the fruit custard next to the top. There will be enough for both loaves.
Ice the tops with lemon icing, made of the whites of the eggs whisked very stiff with powdered sugar, and flavored with lemon-juice.
Lest the reader should, at a casual glance through this receipt, be appalled at the length and the number of ingredients, let me say that I have made the “polonaise” frequently at the cost of little more time and trouble than is required for an ordinary cream or chocolate cake. I would rather make three such, than one loaf of rich fruit-cake.