Sponge Cake - Victorian Recipes

From 'The Dictionary of Daily Wants' - 1859

SPONGE CAKE. This cake may be made in the following ways:

l. Take sixteen ounces of finely-powdered loaf sugar, eight eggs, and twelve ounces of dried and sifted flour; then whisk the eggs, yolks and whites, nearly half an hour; beat in the sugar with a horn spoon, and, just before it is to be put into a buttered tin, stir in the flour lightly, adding a few caraway seeds. Bake it for one hour.

2. Take the juice and grated rind of a lemon, twelve eggs, twelve ounces of finely-pounded loaf sugar, the same of dried and sifted flour, then with a horn spoon beat the yolks of ten of the eggs, add the sugar by degrees, and beat it till it will stand when dropped from the spoon; put in at separate times the two other eggs, yolks and whites, whisk the ten whites for eight minutes, and mix in the lemon-juice, and, when quite stiff, take so much as the whisk will lift, and put it upon the yolks and sugar, which must be beaten all the time; mix in lightly the flour and grated peel, and pour it all gradually over the whites; stir it together, and bake it in a buttered mould or small tins. Do not more than half-fill them.

3. Three-quarters of a pound of loaf sugar, a quarter of a pint of water, boil the sugar and water, skim it well; six well-beaten eggs, pour in the sugar boiling hot, whisk it till cold; seven ounces of flour well dried, mixed in gradually with the grated peel of a lemon. This sponge cake will keep moist and good for weeks.

4. Take one pound of dried flour, three-quarters of a pound of finely-pounded loaf sugar, seven eggs, the yolks and whites beaten separately, the grated peel and juice of a lemon, a tablespoonful of rose-water, and one of brandy, and half an ounce of caraway seed, dried and pounded; beat all for an hour with the hand; butter a tin, line it wits paper also buttered, put in the cake, and sift pounded sugar over the top. Bake it for an hour. Potatoe flour may be substituted for wheat flour in this and the other sponge cakes.

* 1. Loaf sugar, 1lb.; eggs, 8; flour, 12 ozs.; caraway seeds, a few.

* 2. Lemon, l; eggs, 12; sugar, 12ozs.; flour, 12ozs.

* 3. Loaf sugar, 3/4lb.; water, 1/4 of a pint; eggs, 6; flour, 7 ozs.; lemon-peel, 1.

* 4. Flour, 1 lb.; loaf sugar, 3/4 lb.; eggs, 7; lemon, 1; rose-water, l tablespoonful; brandy, 1/2 table-spoonful; caraway seeds, 1/2 oz.

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