Take a pound and a half of butter; beat it to a cream with your hand or a flat stick; beat twelve eggs, the yolks in one pan and the whites in another, as light as possible, and then beat them together, adding by degrees one pound and a half of well dried and sifted loaf-sugar, and a little sack and brandy. When the oven is nearly ready, mix all together, with one pound and a half of well dried and sifted flour, half a pound of sliced almonds, and some caraway seeds: beat it well with your hand before you put it into the hoop.
Seed Cake. No. 3, called Borrow Brack.
Melt one pound and a half of butter in a quart of milk made warm. Mix fourteen eggs in half a pint of yest. Take half a peck of flour, and one pound of sugar, both dried and sifted, four ounces of caraway seeds, and two ounces of beaten ginger. Mix all well together. First put the eggs and the yest to the flour, then add the butter and the milk. Make it into a paste of the substance of that for French bread; if not flour enough add what is sufficient; and if too much, put some warm new milk. Let it stand for above half an hour at the fire, before you make it up into what form you please.
Shrewsbury Cakes.
Take three pounds and a half of fresh butter, work the whey and any salt that it may contain well out of it. Take four pounds of fine flour well dried and sifted, one ounce of powdered cinnamon, five eggs well beaten, and two pounds of loaf-sugar well dried and sifted. Put them all into the flour, and work them well together into a paste. Make it into a roll; cut off pieces for cakes and work them well with your hands. This quantity will make above six dozen of the size of those sold at Shrewsbury. They require great care in baking; a short time is sufficient, and the oven must not be very hot.
Sponge Cake.
Take seven eggs, leaving out three whites; beat them well with a whisk; then take three quarters of a pound of lump-sugar beat fine: put to it a quarter of a pint of boiling water, and pour it to the eggs; then beat it half an hour or more; when you are just going to put it in the oven, add half a pint of flour well dried. You must not beat it after the flour is in. Put a paper in the tin. A quick oven will bake this quantity in an hour. It must not be beaten with a spoon, as it will make it heavy.
Another.
Take twelve eggs, leaving out half the whites; beat them to froth; shake in one pound of lump-sugar, sifted through a fine sieve, and three quarters of a pound of flour well dried; put in the peel of two lemons grated and the juice of one; beat all well in with a fork.