Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Queen Cakes. — ( Family Recipe.) — A pound of sugar beat and sifted, a pound of flour well dried, a pound of butter, eight eggs, half a pound of currants well cleaned, a nutmeg grated, and the same quantity as that of mace and cinnamon. Work the butter to a cream, then put in the sugar. Beat the whites of the eggs nearly half an hour, then mix them with the butter and sugar ; beat the yolks of the eggs the same, and mix them. Beat these ingredients extremely well together, then add the flour, spices, and currants. Bake them twenty minutes in small tins. Dust a little sugar over the tops. The oven should be moderate. The eggs should be beaten by two people, as the whites must not be kept waiting. Add the flour and currants gradually. Thin shreds of candied peel and a spoonful of brandy are improvements. Soda Cake. — {Family Recipe.) — Rub into one pound of flour one teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, six ounces of butter, six ounces of loaf sugar, six ounces of raisins, and three beaten eggs, leaving out one white. Mix it up into a stiff paste with nearly half a pint of lukewarm milk. Flavour it with lemon peel grated very fine, and put it into the oven immediately. If the quantities are not exact the cake fails. Iced Rolls. — {Family Recipe.) — A quarter of a pound of fine flour, two ounces of butter, one ounce of sifted sugar. Rub all well together and make into a paste with the yolk of an egg and a little cold water. Work it well with your hands for one minute, and roll it out. Line small tins with this paste, put a bit of foolscap in each, put a lid on, and bake in a quick oven. When taken out turn them bottom up. When cold cut a hole the size of a sixpence and take the paper out. Then beat the whites of two eggs to a strong froth, cover the rolls all over, dust them well with sifted sugar, and put them in a cool oven to brown. When to be served fill the rolls with good custard, and lay two or three dried cherries on each. Six for a dish at dessert. Fat Rascals. — Rub half a pound of butter into three-quarters of a pound of flour. Then add half a pound of raisins, and mix all to a stiff paste with a little milk. Roll out, and bake on the girdle till nicely browned, turning it once only. When baked cut the cake into squares, butter well, and serve at once. Petticoat Tails. — This cake is a great favourite in Scotland; the name is merely a corruption of petits gateaux tailles. Take a quarter of a pound of butter, soften it before the fire, and mix it well with two ounces of castor sugar. Work into it half a pound of flour. Make it up into a ball and roll out the size of a dinner plate. Raise the edge a little all round like a saucer and mark the edge with strokes, using the quill end of a feather. Mark a circle in the middle of the cake with a wine-glass, and with the feather mark eight divisions radiating from the centre. Bake on the girdle. When served cut the cake according to the divisions marked out. Gingerbread. — ( Family Recipe.) — One pound two ounces of treacle, near a pound of brown sugar, rather better than a pound of flour, half a pound of butter, and two ounces of grated ginger. When mixed together spread it with a knife on a perfectly clean dripping-pan and bake it in a moderate oven. Whilst it is hot cut it into pieces three inches square.