You may bake it in a large loaf; adding double portions of all the ingredients, and ornamenting the icing handsomely.
Sweet Potato Cake—Is made like the above cocoa-nut cake. The sweet potatos must be pared and grated raw, till you have as much as weighs half a pound. Then proceed as above, and with the same ingredients and proportions. You may boil and mash the sweet potatos; but be sure, afterwards, to pass them through a coarse sieve, or they may chance to clod and become heavy. If well made, and well flavored, this cake is very nice.
GOLDEN CAKE.—
The best time for making this cake is when ripe oranges are plenty. For one cake select four large deep-colored oranges, and roll each one under your hand upon a table to soften them, and increase the juice. Weigh a pound of the best loaf sugar. On some of the largest pieces rub off the yellow or outer rind of the oranges, omitting the white entirely. The white or inner rind of oranges or lemons should never be used for any thing. Cut the oranges, and squeeze their juice through a strainer into a large saucer or a small deep plate. Powder all the sugar, including that which has the orange zest upon it, and put it into a deep earthen pan, with a pound of the best fresh butter cut up among it. With a wooden spaddle stir the butter and sugar together, till very light and creamy. In a shallow pan beat twelve eggs, omitting the whites of three. Sift into a dish a small quart of the best and finest flour, and stir it gradually into the pan of butter and sugar and orange, in turn with the beaten egg, a little at a time of each. Stir the whole very hard; and when done, immediately transfer the batter to square tin pans, greased with the same fresh butter that was used for the cake. Many a fine cake has been spoiled, at last, by the poor economy of greasing the pans with salt butter. Fill the pans to the top. If the cake has been well made, and well beaten, there is no danger of the batter running over the edges. Put it, immediately, into a quick oven and bake it well, not allowing the heat to be lessened till the cake is quite done. When cool, cut it into squares. If you ice it, flavor the icing with orange juice.
Do not attempt to make this cake with yolk of egg only, by way of improving the yellow color. Without any whites, it will assuredly be tough and heavy. Cakes may be made light with white of egg only, but never with yellow of egg only.
If you use soda, saleratus, hartshorn, or any of the alkalis, they will entirely destroy the orange flavor, and communicate a bad taste of their own.
SILVER CAKE.—
Scald in a bowl of boiling water two ounces of shelled bitter almonds. As you peel off the skins throw each almond into a bowl of ice-cold water. When all are blanched, take them out, and wipe them dry on a clean napkin. Put them, one at a time, into a very clean marble mortar, and pound each one separately to a smooth paste, adding, as you pound them, a few drops of strong rose-water, till you have used up a large wine-glass full. As you remove the pounded almonds from the water, lay them lightly and loosely on a plate. When all are done, put them into a very cool place. In a deep earthen pan cut up a pound of fresh butter into a pound of powdered sugar, and with a wooden spaddle stir the butter and sugar together till perfectly light. Into another pan sift three quarters of a pound of fine flour, and in a broad shallow pan beat with small rods the whites only of eighteen eggs till they are stiff enough to stand alone. Then, gradually, and alternately, stir into the pan of beaten butter and sugar the flour, the beaten white of eggs, and the pounded almonds. Give the whole a hard stirring at the last. Transfer it to square tin pans greased with the same butter, and bake it well. When cool, cut it into square cakes, and send it to table on china plates, piled alternately with pieces of golden cake, handsomely arranged. If you ice silver cake, flavor the icing with strong rose-water.