À la mode cookery

Beat up four eggs, add one ounce of castor sugar and six ounces of fine sifted flour ; then melt half an ounce of butter and add it to the mixture (the butter must not be too hot or it will make the cake heavy) ; now add half a pound of preserved cherries cut in halves, and put in at the last a teaspoonful of baking powder. Bake about an hour and a quarter. When cold, turn it up and cover the bottom with almond paste two inches thick, and when that is smooth and settled, ice it over and ornament it with dried cherries and angelica cut into leaves. The icing should be flavoured with lemon or ratafia. (See Plate XXII.) Chocolate Cake. No. i Take half a pound of castor sugar and mix it with four ounces of grated chocolate and a table-spoonful of flour. Beat separately the whites and yolks of six eggs and beat the sugar and chocolate mixture into the whites ; add to the yolks the juice of one lemon, with the grated rind. Stir next the white and yolk mixture together. Bake in two square pans an inch and a half deep. When baked, spread some preserve on the top of one cake and place the other on the top of it and ice with white-icing flavoured with lemon, and ornament with sugar violets and silver balls. This cake is often cut into three-cornered pieces for afternoon tea. Chocolate Cake. No. 2 Take a cupful of sugar and two eggs, and beat them up together till very light ; add two tablespoonfuls of butter melted, then sift in two cupfuls of flour, one tea-spoonful of cream of tartar, and add half a tea-spoonful of baking powder dissolved in a little milk. Bake in two layers. When baked, put the following cream between each layer : — Heat a large cup of milk, and when boiling stir in the beaten yolks of two eggs, one teacupful of fine sugar, and six table-spoonfuls of grated chocolate, and blend well together. Boil till stiff, and when cool add some essence of vanilla and spread the mixture between the layers. Place the layers one on the other and ice the top of the cake with the following icing : — Beat up the white of one egg stiffly with threequarters of a cup of icing sugar and three tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate ; spread smoothly with a knife dipped in hot water. Coffee Cake Cream together one cupful of butter and two of sugar, then add the beaten yolks of five eggs ; then gradually add one cupful of strong coffee, then three and a half cupfuls of flour and two tea-spoonfuls of baking powder. This mixture should be quite stiff. Add one level tea-spoonful of salt, the same each of ground cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and a CAKES, ETC. 20 1 little nutmeg. Then add one cupful of seedless sultanas and one of currants, plenty of thinly sliced citron, and one spoonful of brandy. Put in the oven and bake ; when cooked, ice the top with coffee-icing and with a rose pipe ornament the edges and middle with coffee cream-icing. Dinner Finger Bread Make some dough, cut it into long strips with a floured knife and then gradually roll out till quite thin ; sprinkle with a little rough dry salt before putting them into the oven, which should be a moderately cool one, and they should be baked for a long time till the biscuits are dry and crisp. Gateau Negresse