BLACK CAKE

Prepare two pounds of currants by picking them clean, washing and draining them, through a cullender, and then spreading them out on a large dish to dry before the fire or in the sun, placing the dish in a slanting position. Pick and stone two pounds of the best raisins, and cut them in half. Dredge the currants (when they are dry) and the raisins thickly with flour to prevent them from sinking in the cake. Grind or powder as much cinnamon as will make a large gravy-spoonful when done; also a table-spoonful of mace and four nutmegs; sift these spices, and mix them all together in a cup. Mix together two large glasses of white wine, one of brandy and one of rose water, and cut a pound of citron into large slips. Sift a pound of flour into one pan, and a pound of powdered loaf-sugar into another. Cut up among the sugar a pound of the best fresh butter, and stir them to a cream. Beat twelve eggs till perfectly thick and smooth, and stir them gradually into the butter and sugar, alternately with the flour. Then add by degrees, the fruit, spice and liquor, and stir the whole very hard at the last. Then put the mixture into a well-buttered tin pan with straight or perpendicular sides. Put it immediately into a moderate oven, and bake it at least four hours. When done, let it remain in the oven to get cold; it will be the better for staying in all night. Ice it next morning; first dredging the outside all over with flour, and then wiping it with a towel. This will make the icing stick.

A quarter of a pound of finely powdered loaf-sugar, of the whitest and best quality, is the usual allowance to one white of egg. For the cake in the preceding receipt, three quarters of a pound of sugar and the whites of three eggs will be about the proper quantity. Beat the white of egg by itself till it stands alone. Have ready the powdered sugar, and then beat it hard into the white of egg, till it becomes thick and smooth; flavouring it as you proceed with a few drops of oil of lemon, or a little extract of roses. Spread it evenly over the cake with a broad knife or a feather; if you find it too thin, beat in a little more powdered sugar. Cover with it thickly the top and sides of the cake, taking care not to have it rough and streaky. To ice well requires skill and practice. When the icing is about half dry, put on the ornaments. You may flower it with coloured sugar-sand or nonparels; but a newer and more elegant mode is to decorate it with, devices and borders in white sugar; they can be procured at the confectioners, and look extremely well on icing that has been tinted with pink by the addition of a little cochineal.

You may colour icing of a pale or deep yellow, by rubbing the lumps of loaf-sugar (before they are powdered) upon the outside of a large lemon or orange. This will also flavour it finely.

Almond icing, for a very fine cake, is made by mixing gradually with the white of egg and sugar, some almonds, half bitter and half sweet, that have been pounded in a mortar with rose water to a smooth paste. The whole must be well incorporated, and spread over the cake near half an inch thick. It must be set in a cool oven to dry, and then taken out and covered with a smooth plain icing of sugar and white of egg.

Whatever icing is left, may be used to make maccaroons or kisses.