HONEY GINGER CAKE.—
Rub together a pound of sifted flour and three-quarters of a pound of fresh butter. Mix in, a tea-cup of fine brown sugar, two large table-spoonfuls of strong ginger, and (if you like them) two table-spoonfuls of carraway seeds. Having beaten five eggs, add them to the mixture alternately with a pint of strained honey; stirring in towards the last a small tea-spoonful of pearl-ash, that has been melted in a very little vinegar.
Having beaten or stirred the mixture long enough to make it perfectly light, transfer it to a square iron or block-tin pan, (which must be well buttered,) put it into a moderate oven, and bake it an hour or more, in proportion to its thickness.
When cool, cut it into squares. It is best if eaten fresh, but it will keep very well a week.
ROCK CAKE.—
Blanch three-quarters of a pound of shelled sweet almonds, and bruise them fine in a mortar, but not to a smooth paste as for maccaroons. Add, as you pound them, a little rose-water. Beat to a stiff froth the whites of four eggs, and then beat in gradually a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Add the juice of a lemon. Then mix in the pounded almonds. Flour your hands, and make the mixture into little cones or pointed cakes. Spread sheets of damp, thin, white paper on buttered sheets of tin, and put the rock cakes on it, rather far apart. Sprinkle each with powdered loaf-sugar. Bake them of a pale brown, in a brisk oven. They will be done in a few minutes.
When cold, take them off the papers.
FROZEN CUSTARD.—
Slice a vanilla bean, and boil it slowly in half a pint of milk, till all the strength is extracted and the milk highly flavoured with the vanilla. Then strain it, and set it aside. Mix a quart of cream and a pint of milk, or, if you cannot procure cream, take three pints of rich milk, and put them into a skillet or sauce-pan. Set it on hot coals, and boil it. When it has come to a boil, mix a table-spoonful of flour in three table-spoonfuls of milk, and stir it into the boiling liquid. Afterwards add six eggs, (which have been beaten up with two table-spoonfuls of milk,) pouring them slowly into the mixture. Take care to stir it all the time it is boiling. Five minutes after, stir in gradually half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, and then the decoction of vanilla. Having stirred it hard a few moments, take it off the fire, and set it to cool. When quite cold, put it into a mould and freeze it, as you would ice-cream, for which it frequently passes.
You may flavour it with the juice of two large lemons, stirred in just before you take it from the fire, or with a quarter of a pound of shelled bitter almonds, blanched, pounded in a mortar with rose-water, and then boiled in half a pint of milk, till the flavour is extracted. Then use the milk only.