Instead of lemons, you may use for flavouring this cake, the yellow rind of two oranges grated on the sugar, and the juice of three mixed with the spice. Orange-rind being stronger and more powerful in taste than that of lemon, a smaller quantity of it will suffice.
You may bake the above mixture in little tins, like queen-cakes; taking care to grease them with fresh butter.
This mixture will make a nice pudding; using only half a pound of rice-flour, but the above quantities of all the other ingredients. Bake it in china or handsome white-ware, as it must go to table in the dish it is baked in.
RICE SPONGE-CAKE.—Put twelve eggs into a scale, and balance them in the other scale with their weight in broken loaf-sugar. Take out four of the eggs, remove the sugar, and balance the remaining eight eggs with an equal quantity of rice-flour. Rub off on some lumps of the sugar, the yellow rind of three fine large ripe lemons. Then powder all the sugar. Break the eggs, one at a time, into a saucer, and put all the whites into a pitcher, and all the yolks into a broad shallow earthen pan. Having poured the whites of egg from the pitcher through a strainer into a rather shallow pan, beat them till so stiff that they stand alone. Then add the powdered sugar, gradually, to the white of egg, and beat it in well. In the other pan, beat the yolks till very smooth and thick. Then mix them, gradually, a little at a time, with the white of egg and sugar. Lastly, stir in, by degrees, the rice-flour, adding it lightly, and stirring it slowly and gently round till the surface is covered with bubbles. Transfer it directly to a butter tin pan; set it immediately into a brisk oven; and bake it an hour and a half or more, according to its thickness. Ice it when cool; flavouring the icing-with lemon or rose. This cake will be best the day it is baked.
In every sort of sponge-cake, Naples-biscuit, lady-fingers, and in all cakes made without butter, it is important to know that though the egg and sugar is to be beaten very hard, the flour, which must always go in at the last, must be stirred in very slowly and lightly, holding the whisk or stirring-rods perpendicularly or upright in your hand; and moving it gently round and round on the surface of the batter without allowing it to go down deeply. If the flour is stirred in hard and fast, the cake will certainly be tough, leathery, and unwholesome. Sponge-cake when cut should look coarse-grained and rough.
SWEET POTATOE CAKE.—Half-boil some fine sweet potatoes; peel them; and when cold, grate as much as will weigh half a pound. If boiled long enough to become soft, they will render the cake heavy. Stir together in a deep pan, half a pound of fresh butter, and half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, till quite light and creamy. Then add a tea-spoonful of powdered mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon, all mixed together; and the juice and grated rind of two large lemons or oranges. Beat in a shallow pan six eggs till very smooth and thick; and stir them into the pan of butter and sugar in turn with the grated sweet-potatoe, a little of each at a time. Then stir the whole very hard. Butter a deep tin pan with straight sides. Put in the mixture, and bake it well. If you want more cake than the above quantity, double the proportions of each ingredient; but bake the mixture in two pans, rather than in one. Ice it when cold, adding a little lemon or orange-juice to the icing. In spreading the icing, begin by heaping it on the centre of the cake, and then gradually bringing it all over the top and sides, dipping the knife, frequently, into a bowl of cold water.
CHOCOLATE PUFFS.—Beat very stiff the whites of two eggs, and then beat in, gradually, half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar. Scrape down very fine, an ounce and a half of the best chocolate, (prepared cocoa is better still,) and dredge it with flour to prevent its oiling; mixing the flour well among it. Then add it, gradually, to the mixture of white of egg and sugar, and stir the whole very hard. Cover the bottom of a square tin pan with a sheet of fine white paper, cut to fit exactly. Place upon it thin spots of powdered loaf-sugar about the size of a half-dollar. Pile a portion of the mixture on each spot, smoothing it with the back of a spoon or a broad knife, dipped in cold water. Sift white sugar over the top of each. Set the pan into a brisk oven, and bake them a few minutes. When cold, loosen them from the paper with a broad knife.