Take two pounds of flour, a pound of sugar, and a pound of butter; wash the butter in orange-flower water, and dry the flour; rub the butter into the flour as for puff-paste, beat three eggs fine in three spoonfuls of cream, and a little mace and salt, mix these well together with your hand, and make them into little cakes; rub them over with white of egg, and grate sugar upon them; a quarter of an hour will bake them in a slow oven.
39. A Rich White PLUMB-CAKE.
Take four pounds of flour dry'd, two pounds of butter, one pound and a half of double refin'd sugar beat and searc'd, beat the butter to cream, then put in the sugar and beat it well together; sixteen eggs leaving out four yolks; a pint of new yeast; five jills of good cream, and one ounce of mace shred; beat the eggs well and mix them with the butter and sugar; put the mace in the flour; warm the cream, mix it with the yeast, and run it thro' a hair sieve, mix all these into a paste; then add one pound of almonds blanch'd and cut small, and six pounds of currans well wash'd, pick'd and dry'd; when the oven is ready, stir in the currans, with one pound of citron, lemon or orange; then butter the hoop and put it in.
This cake will require two hours and a half baking in a quick oven.
40. An ISING for the CAKE.
One pound and a half of double-refin'd sugar, beat and searc'd; the whites of four eggs, the bigness of a walnut of gum-dragon, steep'd in rose or orange-flower water; two ounces of starch, beat fine with a little powder-blue (which adds to the whiteness) while the cake is baking beat the ising and lie it on with a knife as soon as the cake is brought from the oven.
41. LEMON BRANDY.
Pour a gallon of brandy into an earthen pot, put to it the yellow peel of two dozen lemons, let it stand two days and two nights, then pour two quarts of spring water into a pan and dissolve in it two pounds of refin'd loaf sugar, boil it a quarter of an hour, and put it to the brandy; then boil and scum three jills of blue milk, and mix all together, let it stand two days more, then run it thro' a flannel bag, or a paper within a tunnel, and bottle it.
42. To make RATIFEE another Way.
Take a hundred apricocks stones, break them, and bruise the kernels, then put them in a quart of the best brandy; let them stand a fortnight; shake them every day; put to them six ounces of white sugar-candy, and let them stand a week longer; then put the liquor thro' a jelly bag, and bottle it for use.