Cakes are rendered heavy by moving or shaking them after they have risen in the oven, and before they have become firm. They should be gently loosened and turned from the moulds when sufficiently baked and set for a short time just at the mouth of the oven to dry the surface, then laid upon their sides on a sieve until cold.
TO BLANCH AND TO POUND ALMONDS.
Put them into a saucepan with plenty of cold water, and heat it slowly; when it is just scalding turn the almonds into a basin, peel, and throw them into cold water as they are done: dry them well in a soft cloth before they are used. If the water be too hot it will turn them yellow.
Almonds are more easily pounded, and less liable to become oily, if dried a little in a very gentle degree of heat after they are blanched; left, for example, in a warm room for two or three days, lightly spread on a large dish or tin. They should be sprinkled during the beating with a few drops of cold water, or white of egg, or lemon-juice, and pounded to a smooth paste: this is more easily done, we believe, when they are first roughly chopped, but we prefer to have them thrown at once into the mortar.
TO REDUCE ALMONDS TO A PASTE.
(The quickest and easiest way.)
Chop them a little on a large and very clean trencher, then with a paste roller (rolling-pin), which ought to be thicker in the middle than at the ends, roll them well until no small bits are perceptible amongst them. We have found this method answer admirably; but as some of the oil is expressed from the almonds by it, and absorbed by the board, we would recommend a marble slab for them in preference, when it is at hand; and should they be intended for a sweet dish, that some pounded sugar should be strewed under them. When a board or strong trencher is used, it should be rather higher in the middle than at the sides.
TO COLOUR ALMONDS OR SUGAR-GRAINS, OR SUGAR-CANDY, FOR CAKES, OR PASTRY.
Blanch, dry, and chop them rather coarsely; pour a little prepared cochineal into the hands, and roll the almonds between them until they are equally coloured; then spread them on a sheet of paper, and place them in a very gentle degree of heat to dry. Use spinach-juice (see page [455]), to colour them green, and a strong infusion of saffron to give them a yellow tint. They have a pretty effect when strewed over the icing of tarts or cakes, especially the rose-coloured ones, which should be rather pale. The sugar is prepared in the same way, after being first broken into lumps, and then, with the end of a paste-roller, into grains about the size of a pea; but unless it be dry and hard, and carefully done, it will absorb too much of the cochineal: when but slightly coloured it is very ornamental dropped on the borders of creamed tourtes, or on other varieties of fine pastry. White sugar-candy broken into large grains or crystals and coloured in the same manner has a yet better effect.