Miss Leslie's Complete Cookery / Directions for Cookery, in Its Various Branches

by Eliza Leslie

ORANGE CAKE.—

Take four ripe oranges, and roll them under your hand on the table. Break up a pound of the best loaf-sugar, and on some of the pieces rub off the yellow rind of the oranges. Then cut the oranges, and squeeze their juice through a strainer. Powder the sugar, and mix the orange-juice with it; reserving a little of the juice to flavour the icing. Wash, and squeeze in a pan of cold water, a pound of the best fresh butter, till you have extracted whatever milk and salt may have been in it, as they will impede the lightness of the cake. Cut up the butter in the pan of sugar and orange, and stir it hard till perfectly light, white, and creamy. Sift into a pan fourteen ounces (two ounces less than a pound) of fine flour. Beat ten eggs till they are as thick and smooth as a fine boiled custard. Then stir them, by degrees, into the butter and sugar, alternately with the flour, a little of each at a time. Continue to beat the whole very hard for some time after all the ingredients are in; as this cake requires a great deal of beating. Have ready a large square, shallow pan, well buttered. Put in the mixture, and set it immediately into a brisk oven. It must be thoroughly baked, otherwise it will be heavy, streaked, and unfit to eat. The time of baking must of course be in proportion to its thickness, but it requires a much longer time than pound-cake, queen-cake, or Spanish buns. When it shrinks from the sides of the pan, and looks as if done, try it by sticking in the middle of it, down to the bottom, a twig from a corn-broom, or something similar. If the twig comes out dry and clean, the cake is done; but if the twig remains moist and clammy, let the cake remain longer in the oven. When it is quite done, make an icing of beaten white of egg, and powdered loaf-sugar, mixed with a spoonful or more of orange juice. Dredge the cake with flour, then wipe off the flour and spread on the icing thick and evenly, scoring it in large squares. Before you put it into baskets, cut the cake into squares about the usual size of a Spanish bun. It should be eaten fresh, being best the day it is baked.

This cake will be found very fine. It is, of course, best when oranges are ripe and in perfection, as the orange flavour should be very high. We recommend that at the first trial of this receipt, the batter shall be baked in small tins, such as are used for queen-cake, or Naples biscuit, as there will thus be less risk of its being well baked than if done in a larger pan. When they seem to be done, one of the little cakes can be taken out and broken open, and if more baking is found necessary, the others can thus be continued longer in the oven. After some experience, an orange cake may be baked, like a pound cake, in a large tin pan with a tube in the centre; or in a turban mould, and handsomely iced and ornamented when done. A fine orange cake will, when cut, perfume the table.

Lemon cake may be made and baked in a similar manner, adding also a little lemon juice to the icing.

CITRON CAKE—

Cut a pound of candied citron into slips. Spread it on a large dish. Sprinkle it thickly with sifted flour till it is entirely white with it, tumbling the citron about with your hands till every piece is well covered with flour. Then sift into a pan fourteen ounces (two ounces less than a pound) of flour. Beat together in a deep pan, till perfectly light, a pound of fresh butter cut up in a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Then add, by degrees, a glass of wine, a glass of brandy, and a table-spoonful of powdered mace and cinnamon mixed, and a powdered nutmeg. Have ready twelve eggs beaten in a shallow pan till very smooth and thick. Stir the beaten egg into the beaten butter and sugar, alternately with the flour and citron, a little at a time of each. Then, at the last, stir the whole very hard. Butter a large tin pan (one with a tube in the centre will be best), put in the mixture, set it directly in a moderate oven, and bake it at least four hours. Put it on an inverted sieve to cool.

When the cake is cool, ice and ornament it.

Common pound cakes are now very much out of use. They are considered old-fashioned.

BOSTON CREAM CAKES—

From a quart of rich milk or cream take half a pint, and put it into a small saucepan, with a vanilla bean, and a stick of the best Ceylon cinnamon, broken in pieces. Cover the saucepan closely, and let it boil till the milk is highly flavoured with the vanilla and cinnamon. Then strain it, take out the vanilla bean, wipe it, and put it away, as it will do for the same purpose a second time. Mix the flavoured milk with the other pint and a half, and let it get quite cold. Beat very light the yolks only of twelve eggs, and stir them into the milk alternately with a quarter of a pound, or more, of powdered white sugar. Put this custard mixture into a tin pan, set it in a Dutch oven or something similar, pour round the pan some boiling water, enough to reach half-way up its sides, and bake the custard ten minutes. Instead of vanilla, you may flavour the custard by boiling, in the half pint of milk, a handful of bitter almonds or peach kernels, blanched and broken in half, and stirring into the custard when it has done baking, but is still hot, a wine glass of rose water. As rose water loses most of its taste by cooking, it is best, when practicable, to add it after the article is taken from the fire.