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Pound Cake

Ingredients

• 1 pound of flour, sifted
• 1 pound of white sugar, powdered and sifted
• 1 pound of fresh butter
• 10 eggs
• 1/2 glass of wine
• 1/2 glass of brandy
• 1/2 glass of rose-water
• 12 drops of essence of lemon
• 1 table-spoonful of mixed mace and cinnamon
• 1 nutmeg, powdered

Instructions

Pound the spice and sift it. There should be twice as much cinnamon as mace. Mix the cinnamon, mace, and nutmeg together.

Sift the flour in a broad pan, or wooden bowl. Sift the powdered sugar into a large deep pan, and cut the butter into it, in small pieces. If the weather is very cold, and the butter hard, set the pan near the fire for a few minutes; but if the butter is too warm, the cake will be heavy. Stir the butter and sugar together, with a wooden stick, till they are very light, and white, and look like cream.

Beat the eggs in a broad shallow pan with a wood egg-beater or whisk. They must be beaten till they are thick and smooth, and of the consistence of boiled custard.

Pour the liquor and rose-water, gradually, into the butter and sugar, stirring all the time. Add, by degrees, the essence of lemon and spice.

Stir the egg and flour alternately into the butter and sugar, a handful of flour, and about two spoonfuls of the egg (which you must continue to beat all the time,) and when all is in, stir the whole mixture very hard, for near ten minutes.

Butter a large tin pan, or a cake mould with an open tube rising from the middle. Put the mixture into it as evenly as possible. Bake it in a moderate oven, for two, or three, or four hours, in proportion to its thickness, and to the heat of the fire.

When you think it is nearly done, thrust a twig or wooden skewer into it, down to the bottom. If the stick come out clean and dry, the cake is almost baked. When quite done, it will shrink from she sides of the pan, and cease making a noise. Then withdraw the coals (if baked in a dutch oven), take off the lid, and let the cake remain in the oven to cool gradually.

You may ice it either warm or cold. Before you put the icing on a large cake, dredge the cake all over with flour, and then wipe the flour off; this will make the icing stick on better. If you have sufficient time, the appearance of the cake will be much improved by icing it twice. Put on the first icing soon after the cake is taken out of the oven, and the second the next day when the first is perfectly dry. While the last icing is wet, ornament it with coloured sugar-sand or nonpareils.

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Source

Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats (1832).