For three gallons, peel the yellow rind from one and a half dozen fresh lemons, very thin, and steep the peelings for forty-eight hours in a gallon of brandy; then add the juice of the lemons, with five quarts of water, three pounds of loaf sugar, and two nutmegs grated; stir it till the sugar is completely dissolved, then pour in three quarts of new milk, boiling hot, and let it stand two hours, after which run it through a jelly bag till it is fine. This is fit for immediate use, but may be kept for years in bottles, and will be improved by age.
PLUM, OR BLACK CAKE.
For this Christmas luxury take one pound of butter and one pound of pulverized sugar; beat them together to a cream, stir in one dozen eggs beaten to a froth, beat well together, and add one pound of sifted flour; continue the beating for ten minutes, then add and stir in three pounds of stoned raisins, three pounds of Zante currants, washed, cleaned, and dried, a pound and a half of citron sliced and cut into small pieces, three grated nutmegs, quarter of an ounce of powdered mace, half an ounce of powdered cinnamon, and half a teaspoonful of ground cloves; mix all well together; bake in a well-buttered pan in a slow oven for four hours and a half.
BLACK CAKE (PARKINSON'S OWN).
"If you have lips, prepare to smack them now."
—Shakspeare, slightly altered.
Take one and a half pounds of the best butter, and the same weight of pulverized sugar; beat them together to a cream; stir into this two dozen eggs, beaten to a froth; add one gill of old Jamaica rum; then add one and a half pounds of sifted flour. Stir and beat all well together, and add two pounds of finest bloom raisins, stoned; two pounds of Zante currants, washed, cleaned, and dried; one pound of preserved citron, sliced thinly and cut into small pieces; one pound of preserved French cherries, in halves; one pound of green gages, and one pound of preserved apricots, stoned and cut into small pieces; half a pound of preserved orange and lemon peel, mixed, and cut into small pieces; three grated nutmegs, half an ounce of ground mace, half an ounce of powdered cinnamon, and a quarter ounce of ground cloves. Mix all the ingredients well together, and bake in a well-buttered mould or pan, in a slow oven, for five and a half hours.
This cake is vastly improved by age. Those intended for the Christmas festivities should be made at or about the first of October; then put the cake into a round tin box, half an inch larger in diameter than the cake; then pour over it a bottle of the best brandy mixed with half a pint of pure lemon, raspberry, strawberry, or simple sirup, and one or more bottles of champagne. Now put on the lid of the box, and have it carefully soldered on, so as to make all perfectly air-tight. Put it away in your store-room, and let stand till Christmas, only reversing the box occasionally, in order that the liquors may permeate the cake thoroughly.
This heroic treatment causes the ingredients to amalgamate, and the flavors to harmonize and blend more freely; and when, on Christmas day, you bring out this hermit, after doing a three months' penance in a dark cell, it will come out rich, succulent, and unctuous; you will not only have a luxury, "fit to set before a king," or before the Empress of India, but fit to crown a feast of the very gods themselves, on high Olympus' top.