Like all others that have yeast in them, this cake is best when fresh.
AUSTRIAN CAKE.—Take a thick straight-sided pound cake about the circumference of a large dinner-plate, and cut it horizontally into slices, the whole breadth of the cake, and rather more than half an inch thick. Spread each slice, thickly and smoothly, with marmalade of peach, raspberry, strawberry, or orange. The marmalade may be all the same, or of a different sort on each slice. Lay the slices, nicely, and evenly, one upon another, taking care that none of the marmalade oozes down from between the edges. Then make a thick icing of white of egg and powdered loaf-sugar, and flavour it with rose or orange-flower water. Heap a large portion of it on the centre of the cake, and with a broad knife (dipped frequently in cold water) spread it smoothly all over the top and sides. Then set it away to harden. You may ornament it by putting icing into a small syringe and pressing it out into the form of a centre-piece and border of flowers. To do this requires practice, taste, and ingenuity.
When the cake is to be eaten, cut it down into triangular pieces; each including a portion of the different layers of marmalade.
Instead of marmalade you may use for this cake, fresh strawberries, mashed smoothly and sweetened with white sugar.
MADISON CAKE.—Pick clean two pounds of sultana raisins, (those that have no seeds,) and cut them in half. If you cannot procure the sultana, use the bloom or muscatel raisins, removing all the seeds. When the raisins are cut in two, dredge them thickly on all sides with flour, to prevent their sinking or clodding in the cake while baking. Sift into a pan a pound and three quarters (not more) of flour. Cut up a pound of fresh butter into a deep pan. Mix with it a pound of white lump-sugar finely powdered; and stir them together till they become a thick, white, cream. Have ready a tea-spoonful of powdered nutmeg, and a table-spoonful of powdered cinnamon, and mix these spices, gradually, with the butter and sugar. Beat fourteen eggs (not fewer) till very light and thick. Then stir them, gradually, into the beaten butter and sugar, alternately with the flour and a pint of rich milk, (sour milk will be best.) Add at the last a very small tea-spoonful of pearlash, or of bi-carbonate of soda, dissolved in a large wine-glass of brandy. Give the whole a hard stirring, and then put it immediately into a deep circular tin pan, the sides and bottom of which have been first well greased with fresh butter. Set it directly into a well-heated oven, and let it bake from five to six hours, according to its size. It requires long and steady baking. When cool, cover it (top and sides) with a thick icing, made in the usual way of beaten white of egg and sugar, and flavoured with rose-water or lemon.
If the above directions are closely followed this will be found a very fine cake, and it will keep soft and fresh a week if the air is carefully excluded from it.