First stir the butter and sugar to a light cream, and add to them the spice and liquor. Then beat the eggs in a shallow pan till very thick and smooth, breaking them one at a time into a saucer to ascertain if there is a bad one among them. One stale egg will spoil the whole cake. When the eggs are very light, stir them gradually into the large pan of butter and sugar in turn with the flour, that being the mixing pan. Lastly, add the fruit and citron, a little at a time of each, and give the whole a hard stirring. If the fruit is well floured it will not sink, but it will be seen evenly dispersed all over the cake when baked. Take a large straight-sided block tin pan, grease it inside with the same butter used for the cake, and put the mixture carefully into it. Set it immediately into a well-heated oven, and keep up a steady heat while it is baking. When nearly done, the cake will shrink a little from the sides of the pan; and on probing it to the bottom with a sprig from a corn broom, or a splinter-skewer, the probe will come out clean. Otherwise, keep the cake in the oven a little longer. If it cracks on the top, it is a proof of its being very light. When quite done, take it out. It will become hard if left to grow cold with the oven. Set it to cool on an inverted sieve.
ICING.—
Allow to the white of each egg a quarter of a pound of the best loaf sugar, finely powdered; but if you find the mixture too thin, you must add still more sugar. Put the white of egg into a shallow pan, and beat it with small rods or a large silver fork, till it becomes a stiff froth, and stands alone without falling. Then beat in the powdered sugar, a tea-spoonful at a time. As you proceed, flavor it with lemon juice. This will render the icing whiter and smoother, also improving the taste. You may ice the cake as soon as it becomes lukewarm, without waiting till it is quite cold. Dredge it lightly with flour to absorb the grease from the outside; then wipe off the flour. With a broad knife put some icing on the middle of the cake, and then spread it down, thickly and evenly, all over the top and sides, smoothing it with another knife dipped in cold water. When this is quite dry, spread on a second coat of icing rather thinner than the first, and flavored with rose. Set it a few minutes in the oven to harden the icing, leaving the oven-door open; or place it beneath the stove. When the icing is quite dry, you may ornament it with sugar borders and flowers; having ready, for that purpose, some additional icing. By means of a syringe, (made for the purpose, and to be obtained at the best furnishing stores) you can decorate the surface of the cake very handsomely; but it requires taste, skill, and practice. You may first cover the cake with pink, brown, green, or other colored icing, and then take white icing to decorate it, forming the pattern by moving your hand skilfully and steadily over it, and pressing it out of the syringe as you go. An easier way is to ornament the cake (when the top-icing is nearly dry, but not quite,) with large strawberries or raspberries, or purple grapes placed very near each other, and arranged in circles or patterns. Be careful not to mash the berries.
Warm Icing.—This is made in the usual proportion of the whites of four eggs, beaten to stiff froth, and a pound of finely powdered loaf sugar afterwards added to it, gradually. Then boil the egg and sugar in a porcelain kettle, and skim it till the scum ceases to rise. Take it off the fire, and stir into it sufficient orange juice, lemon juice, or rose-water, to flavor it highly. Flour your cake—wipe off the flour, put on the icing with a broad knife, and then smooth it with another knife dipped in cold water. For this icing the cake should be warm from the oven, and dried slowly and gradually afterwards. Warm icing is much liked. It is very light; rises thick and high in cooling, and has a fine gloss. Try it. The mixture called by the French a meringue, and used for macaroons, kisses, and other nice articles, is made in the same manner as icing for cakes, allowing a quarter of a pound of powdered loaf sugar to every beaten white of egg.
POUND CAKE.—
One of Mrs. Goodfellow's maxims was, "up-weight of flour, and down-weight of every thing else"—and she was right, as the excellence of her cakes sufficiently proved, during the thirty years that she taught her art in Philadelphia, with unexampled success. Therefore, allow for a pound cake a rather small pound of sifted flour; a large pound of the best fresh butter, a large pound of powdered loaf sugar, ten eggs, or eleven if they are small; a large glass of mixed wine and brandy; a glass of rose-water; a grated nutmeg, and a heaped tea-spoonful of mixed spice, powdered mace, and cinnamon. Put the sugar into a deep earthen pan, and cut up the butter among it. In cold weather place it near the fire a few minutes, till the butter softens. Next, stir it very hard with a spaddle till the mixture becomes very light. Next, stir in, gradually, the spice, liquor, &c. Then beat the eggs in a shallow pan with rods or a whisk, till light, thick, and smooth. Add them gradually to the beaten batter and sugar, in turn with the flour; and give the whole a hard stirring at the last. Have the oven ready with a moderate heat. Transfer the mixture to a thick straight-sided tin pan well greased with the best fresh butter, and smooth the butter on the surface. Set it immediately into the oven, and bake it with a steady heat two hours and a half, or more. Probe it to the bottom with a twig from a corn broom. When it shrinks a little from the pan it is done. When taken out, set it to cool on an inverted sieve. When you ice it, flavor the icing with lemon or rose.
It should be eaten fresh, as it soon becomes very dry.
Pound cake is not so much in use as formerly, particularly for weddings and large parties; lady cake and plum cake being now substituted. A pound cake may be much improved by the addition of a pound of citron, sliced, chopped well, dredged with flour to prevent its sinking, and stirred gradually into the batter, in turn with the sifted flour and beaten egg.