ANOTHER VERY GOOD CAKE
Take four quarts of fine flower, two pound and half of butter, three quarters of a pound of Sugar, four Nutmegs; a little Mace; a pound of Almonds finely beaten, half a pint of Sack, a pint of good Ale-yest, a pint of boiled Cream, twelve yolks, and four whites of Eggs; four pound of Currants. When you have wrought all these into a very fine past, let it be kept warm before the fire half an hour, before you set it into the oven. If you please, you may put into it, two pound of Raisins of the Sun stoned and quartered. Let your oven be of a temperate heat, and let your Cake stand therein two hours and a half, before you Ice it; and afterwards only to harden the Ice. The Ice for this Cake is made thus: Take the whites of three new laid Eggs, and three quarters of a pound of fine Sugar finely beaten; beat it well together with the whites of the Eggs, and Ice the Cake. If you please you may add a little Musk or Ambergreece.
EXCELLENT SMALL CAKES
Take three pound of very fine flower well dryed by the fire, and put to it a pound and half of loaf Sugar sifted in a very fine sieve and dryed; Three pounds of Currants well washed and dryed in a cloth and set by the fire; When your flower is well mixed with the Sugar and Currants, you must put in it a pound and half of unmelted butter, ten spoonfuls of Cream, with the yolks of three new-laid Eggs beat with it, one Nutmeg; and if you please, three spoonfuls of Sack. When you have wrought your paste well, you must put it in a cloth, and set it in a dish before the fire, till it be through warm. Then make them up in little Cakes, and prick them full of holes; you must bake them in a quick oven unclosed. Afterwards Ice them over with Sugar. The Cakes should be about the bigness of a hand-breadth and thin: of the cise of the Sugar Cakes sold at Barnet.
MY LORD OF DENBIGH'S ALMOND MARCH-PANE
Blanch Nut-Kernels from the Husks in the best manner you can. Then pun them with a due proportion of Sugar, and a little Orange-flower, or Rose-water. When it is in a fitting uniform paste, make it into round Cakes, about the bigness of your hand, or a little larger, and about a finger thick; and lay every one upon a fine paper cut fit to it; which lay upon a table. You must have a pan like a tourtiere, made to contain coals on the top, that is flat, with edges round about to hold in the coals, which set over the Cakes, with fire upon it. Let this remain upon the Cakes, till you conceive, it hath dryed them sufficiently for once; which may be within a quarter of an hour; but you take it off two or three times in that time, to see you scorch not the outside, but only dry it a little. Then remove it to others, that lye by them; and pull the Papers from the first, and turn them upon new Papers. When the others are dryed enough, remove the pan back to the first, to dry their other side: which being enough, remove it back to the second, that by this time are turned, and laid upon new Papers. Repeat this turning the Cakes, and changing the Pan, till they are sufficiently dry: which you must not do all at once, least you scorch them: and though the outside be dry, the inside must be very moist and tender. Then you must Ice them thus: Make a thick pap with Orange flower or Rose-water, and purest white Sugar: a little of the whites of Eggs, not above half a spoonful of that Oyl of Eggs, to a Porrenger full of thick Pap, beaten exceeding well with it, and a little juyce of Limons. Lay this smooth upon the Cakes with a Knife, and smoothen it with a feather. Then set the pan over them to dry them. Which being if there be any unevenness, or cracks or discolouring, lay on a little more of that Mortar, and dry it as before. Repeat this, till it be as clear, and smooth, and white, as you would have it. Then turn the other sides, and do the like to them. You must take care, not to scorch them: for then they would look yellow or red, and they must be pure, white and smooth like Silver between polished and matte, or like a looking Glass. This Coat preserves the substance of the Cakes within, the longer moist. You may beat dissolved Amber, or Essence of Cinnamon, with them.
TO MAKE SLIPP COAT CHEESE
According to the bigness of your moulds proportion your stroakings for your Cheese-curds. To six quarts of stroakings, take a pint of Springwater: if the weather be hot, then let the water be cold, and before you put it into the stroakings, let them stand a while to cool after they are milked, and then put in the water with a little Salt first stirred in it: and having stirred it well together, let it stand a little while, and then put in about two good spoonfuls of Runnet, stir it well together, and cover it with a fair linnen-cloth, and when it is become hard like a thick jelly, with a skimming-dish lay it gently into the moulds, and as it sinks down into the moulds, fill it still up again, till all be in, which will require some three or four hours time. Then lay a clean fine cloth into another mould of the same cise, and turn it into it, and then turn the skirts of the cloth over it, and lay upon that a thin board, and upon that as much weight, as with the board may make two pound or thereabouts. And about an hour after, lay another clean cloth into the other mould, and turn the Cheese into that; then lay upon the board so much, as will make it six or seven pound weight; and thus continue turning of it till night: then take away the weight, and lay it no more on it; then take a very small quantity of Salt finely beaten, and sprinkle the Cheese all over with it as lightly as can be imagined. Next morning turn it into another dry cloth, and let it lye out of the mould upon a plain board, and change it as often as it wets the cloth, which must be three or four times a day: when it is so dry, that it wets the cloth no more, lay it upon a bed of green-rushes, and lay a row upon it; but be sure to pick the bents clean off, and lay them even all one way: if you cannot get good rushes, take nettles or grass. If the weather is cold, cover them with a linnen and woollen cloth; in case you cannot get stroakings, take five quarts of new Milk, and one of Cream. If the weather be cold, heat the water that you put to the stroakings. Turn the Cheese every day, and put to it fresh of whatsoever you keep it in. They are usually ripe in ten days.
TO MAKE SLIPP-COAT-CHEESE