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Queen cakes are best the day they are baked. Instead of currants, you may put in sultana or seedless raisins, cut in half and floured. You may make a fruit pound cake in this manner. Take a quarter of a pound of shelled bitter almonds, or peach-kernels. Pound them, one at a time, in a mortar; pouring in frequently a few drops of rose water to prevent them from oiling and being heavy.
Mix them gradually with a quart of cold milk and a quarter of a pound of sugar. Put the mixture into a sauce-pan with a bunch of peach leaves, or a handful of broken up peach-kernels or bitter almonds; the yellow peel of a. lemon, and a handful of broken cinnamon; or you may boil in it a vanilla bean. Set it on hot coals, and simmer it slowly, stirring it all the time.
Sometimes it is the fragrance of newly made gingerbread, or the scent of creamy custard with just a suspicion of peach-kernels; sometimes it is the scent of fresh strawberries strawberries that meant the spring, not the hot-house or Bermuda and sometimes it is the smell of roasted oysters or succulent canvas-backs!
If you cannot procure peach leaves, substitute a handful of peach-kernels or bitter almonds, or a vanilla bean split in pieces. When it has boiled hard, strain the milk and set it away to cool. Fill your cups with it; set them in a Dutch-oven, and pour round them boiling water sufficient to reach nearly to the tops of the cups. Send them to table cold, with nutmeg grated over each.
These almond cakes are generally baked in a turban-shaped mould, and the nonpareils put on, in spots or sprigs. Hard, thick-shelled almonds, seldom yield much more than a quarter of a pound, and should therefore never be bought for cakes or puddings. Bitter almonds and peach-kernels can always be purchased with the shells off.
When the icing is dry, cut the cake in squares, cutting through the icing very carefully with a penknife. Or you may cat it in squares first, and then ice and ornament each square separately. Six ounces of shelled sweet almonds. Three ounces of shelled bitter almonds, or peach-kernels. Three ounces of sifted flour, dried near the fire. Fourteen eggs. One pound of powdered loaf-sugar.
Plum marmalade may be made in this manner, flavouring it with pounded plum-kernels. Take fine juicy free-stone peaches and pare and quarter them. Scald them in a very little water, drain and mash them, and squeeze the juice through a jelly-bag. To every pint of juice allow a pound of loaf-sugar, and a few of the peach-kernels.
Boil in the milk the cinnamon, and the peach-leaves, or peach-kernels. When it has boiled, set it away to get cold. As soon as it is cold, strain it through a sieve, to clear it from the cinnamon, peach-leaves, &c. and stir into it gradually, the sugar, spice, and rose-water.
Families should always save their peach-kernels, as they can be used in cakes, puddings and custards. Half a pound of shelled sweet almonds. A quarter of a pound of shelled bitter almonds. The whites of three eggs. Twenty-four large tea-spoonfuls of powdered loaf-sugar. A tea-spoonful of rose-water. A large tea-spoonful of mixed spice, nutmeg, mace and cinnamon.
Put in the mixture, and bake it in a moderate oven, about half an hour. Grate loaf-sugar over it, when cool. Half a pound of sweet almonds, which will be reduced to a quarter of a pound, when shelled and blanched. An ounce of blanched bitter almonds or peach-kernels. The whites only, of six eggs. A quarter of a pound of butter. A quarter of a pound of powdered white sugar.
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