Work smoothly together with the fingers four ounces of good lard, and four pounds of flour; add half a pound of fine brown sugar, two tablespoonsful of allspice, one drachm of pounded cinnamon, half as much of cloves, two large blades of mace, beaten to powder, two tablespoonsful of fresh yeast which has been watered for one night, and which should be solid, and as much new milk as will make the whole into a rather firm dough; let this stand from an hour to an hour and a half near the fire, then knead it well, and make it into balls about the size of a small apple; hollow them with the thumb, and enclose a few currants in the middle; gather the paste well over them, and throw the dough-nuts into a saucepan half filled with boiling lard; when they are equally coloured to a fine brown, lift them out and dry them before the fire on the back of a sieve. When they are made in large quantities, as they are at certain seasons in the island, they are drained upon very clean straw. The lard should boil only just before they are dropped into it, or the outsides will be scorched before the insides are sufficiently done.
Flour, 4 lbs.; lard, 4 oz.; sugar, 1/2 lb.; allspice, 2 tablespoonsful; pounded cinnamon, 1 drachm; cloves and mace, each 1/2 drachm; yeast (solid), two large tablespoonsful: to rise, 1 to 1-1/2 hour. Currants, at choice: dough-nuts boiled in lard, 5 to 7 minutes.
QUEEN CAKES.
To make these, proceed exactly as for the pound currant-cake of page [546], but bake the mixture in small well-buttered tin pans (heart-shaped ones are usual), in a somewhat brisk oven, for about twenty minutes.
JUMBLES.
Rasp on some good sugar the rinds of two lemons; dry, reduce it to powder, and sift it with as much more as will make up a pound in weight; mix with it one pound of flour, four well-beaten eggs, and six ounces of warm butter: drop the mixture on buttered tins, and bake the jumbles in a very slow oven from twenty to thirty minutes. They should be pale, but perfectly crisp.
A GOOD SODA CAKE.
Break down half a pound[[175]] of fresh butter into a pound of fine dry flour, and work it into very small crumbs; mix well with these half a pound of sifted sugar, and pour to them first, a quarter of a pint of boiling milk, and next, three well-whisked eggs; add some grated nutmeg, or fresh lemon-rind, and eight ounces of currants, cleaned and dried; beat the whole well and lightly together, then strew in a very small teaspoonful of good carbonate of soda in the finest powder, which has been rubbed through a sieve and well mixed with a little sugar, and again beat the cake well and lightly for three or four minutes; put it into a buttered mould, and bake it from an hour to an hour and a quarter; or divide it in two, when three-quarters of an hour will be sufficient for each part.
[175]. Six ounces would to many tastes be quite sufficient, and the less butter the cake contains the better.
Flour, 1 lb.; butter, 1/2 lb.; sugar, 1/2 lb.; boiling milk, full 1/4 pint; eggs, 3; currants, 1/2 lb.; good carbonate of soda, 1 very small teaspoonful: 1 to 1-1/2 hour. Or: divided in two, 1/2 to 3/4 hour.