Beat together one and a half cupfuls of coffee-sugar, half a cupful of butter, and three eggs, to a light froth; add alternately the half cup of milk in which the soda has been dissolved, and the two and a half cups of flour with which the cream-tartar has been sifted; add the half cupful of nuts and bake in one loaf.
Orange Cake.
Take: Flour, 1 lb., lacking 3 even tablespoonfuls; sugar, 1 lb.; butter, ¼ lb.; sweet milk, ½ pt.; baking powder, 1½ even tablespoonfuls; eggs, 5.
Cream the butter with the sugar, adding enough of the milk to make them mix easily; add the yolks of the eggs and beat well, then add the milk, the beaten whites of the eggs and the flour in which the baking powder has been well mixed. Spread one third of an inch deep in jelly-cake pans, and bake in a very quick oven. Make this icing: Whites of three eggs, beaten stiff, one pound and a quarter of powdered sugar; grated rind, soft pulp and juice of two large sour oranges and one lemon. Add sugar for outside icing.
Plum Cake.
Take: Flour, 1½ lbs.; butter, 1 lb.; sugar, 1 lb.; currants, ½ lb.; candied citron, ½ lb.; orange peel, ½ lb.; sweet almonds, 2 oz.; allspice, ½ oz.; cinnamon ½ oz.; eggs, 10.
Beat the sugar and butter to a light cream; add the allspice and pounded cinnamon; work in the yolks of the eggs, two at a time; whip the whites till they are highly frothed, and work them in, keeping the paste warm, or it may become heavy. Cut the citron and orange peel into strips; mix them with the currants (previously well washed and dried before the fire), and also with the almonds; stir in by degrees the flour. Beat the whole together thoroughly, and bake 1½ hours in a moderate oven. There should be a couple sheets of paper both under and over the cake.
Pound Cake.
Recipe No. 1.
Take: White sugar, 1 lb.; butter, ¾ lb.; eggs, 8; flour, 1 lb.; lemon or nutmeg.
Stir one pound of fine white sugar, and three quarters of a pound of butter to a light cream; add eight eggs, the whites and yolks beaten separately to a froth, and one pound of flour; flavor to taste with lemon or nutmeg. Cover with icing as soon as done.