FINE VENETIAN CAKE OR CAKES.
Take of sound Jordan almonds, blanched and well dried at the mouth of a cool oven or in a sunny window, seven ounces, full weight, and one of bitter almonds with them; pound the whole to a perfect paste with a few drops of white of egg or orange-flower water; then mix them thoroughly with one pound of flour and eight ounces of butter (which should be cool and firm, or it will render the paste too soft), and break this down quite small; then add eight ounces of pounded sugar, on part of which the rind of a fine lemon has been rasped previously to its being crushed to powder. Make these into a paste with the yolks of four eggs, or with rather less should they be large, for if too moist, it will adhere to the board and roller. To make a Venetian cake of moderate size, roll the paste less than a quarter of an inch thick, and cut with the larger fluted cutter, shown at page [376], six or seven portions of equal size; lay them on lightly floured or buttered tins, and bake them in a slow oven until they are firm and crisp, and equally coloured of a pale brown. Should they seem to require it, lay them one on the other, while they are still warm, and place a baking-tin, with a slight weight upon them to render them quite level. When they are cold, spread upon each a different kind of choice preserve, and pile the whole evenly into the form of an entire cake. The top may be iced, and decorated with pistachio-nuts, or grains of coloured sugar, or with a wreath of almond-paste leaves. There are many varieties of this dish, which is known by different names in different countries. It is sometimes called a Neapolitan Cake, sometimes a Thousand Leaf Cake à la Française. It is occasionally made entirely of almond-paste, and highly decorated; it may be formed also of many layers of puff or fine short crust cut of uniform size, or gradually less, so as to leave round each a clear border of an inch wide, which may be covered with coloured icing, or ornamented with preserved fruit, tinted almonds, grains of white or pink sugar candy, or aught else that the fancy may direct.
To make the small Venetian cakes, roll the paste directed for the large one at the commencement of this receipt, into balls, flatten them with the hand to about the third of an inch thick, brush them with beaten egg, and cover them plentifully with white sugar-candy crushed about half the size of a pea: bake them in a slow oven.
Almonds, 8 oz.; flour, 1 lb.; butter, 8 oz.; sugar, 1/2 lb.; rind of 1 lemon; yolks of eggs, 3 to 4; preserve as needed.
A GOOD MADEIRA CAKE.
Whisk four fresh eggs until they are as light as possible, then, continuing still to whisk them, throw in by slow degrees the following ingredients in the order in which they are written: six ounces of dry, pounded, and sifted sugar; six of flour, also dried and sifted; four ounces of butter just dissolved, but not heated; the rind of a fresh lemon; and the instant before the cake is moulded, beat well in the third of a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda: bake it an hour in a moderate oven. In this, as in all compositions of the same nature, observe particularly that each portion of butter must be beaten into the mixture until no appearance of it remains before the next is added; and if this be done, and the preparation be kept light by constant and light whisking, the cake will be as good, if not better, than if the butter were creamed. Candied citron can be added to the paste, but it is not needed.
Eggs, 4; sugar, 6 oz.; flour, 6 oz.; butter, 4 oz.; rind of 1 lemon; carbonate of soda, 1/3 of teaspoonful: 1 hour, moderate oven.
A SOLIMEMNE.
A rich French breakfast cake, or Sally Lunn.
From three-quarters of a pound of flour take three ounces for the leaven, and make it into a lithe paste with half an ounce of solid, well-washed yeast (see Chapter [XXXI].), mixed with two or three tablespoonsful of just warm cream, or new milk; throw a cloth over and leave it near the fire to rise for about half an hour, or until it is twice its original size. In the interim make a hollow in the centre of the remainder of the flour, and put into it a quarter of an ounce of fine salt, one ounce of pounded sugar, the yolks of four fresh eggs, four ounces of lukewarm butter, and a couple of tablespoonsful of cream, also warm. Mix the whole gently and carefully into a perfectly smooth paste, flatten it with the hand upon the dresser, spread the leaven over it, and blend them thoroughly with light kneading, as directed for brioche paste, page [349]. The whole should be of the same colour throughout.