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Albert Cake
Take the yolks of twelve eggs and the whites of two, and beat them up with ten ounces of pounded sugar and eight ounces of finely-chopped almonds, for twenty minutes. Whisk the remaining whites of the eggs, and mix with them six ounces of flour, two ounces of finely-shred candied orange-peel, a tea-spoonful of cinnamon powder, half a tea-spoonful of ground cloves, and a little grated lemon-rind. Mix all thoroughly together, pour out the batter into a convenient sized mould, and bake in an oven with a moderate heat for about an hour. When done, and sufficiently cold, cut into thin slices ready for serving. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for a quart mould.
An almond torte in the Continental manner, leavened by nothing but eggs. The whole cake stands or falls on how much air you beat into the yolks and how little you knock out of the whites.
- The egg countTwelve yolks and two whites go into the first mixture; the remaining ten whites are whisked separately and carry the flour and spices. Nothing is wasted, but read the instruction twice before you start cracking.
- Weights in cups10 oz sugar is about 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 cups, 8 oz almonds roughly 2 to 2 1/4 cups once ground, 6 oz flour about 1 1/3 cups. Weighing is better here, since ground almonds vary wildly in packed volume.
- Finely-chopped almondsThis means almond meal, not slivers. Blanched almonds ground in a processor with a spoonful of the sugar will not turn to paste; commercial almond flour works and gives a finer crumb.
- Moderate heatThe book gives no temperatures; a moderate oven is conventionally taken as around 350F, on a rack in the lower third. An hour is realistic for a deep mould; test with a skewer at 45 minutes and again at intervals, as almond batters colour before the centre sets.
- Twenty minutes of beatingThat is a hand-whisk figure. A stand mixer reaches the same pale, thick, ribbon-trailing stage in 8 to 10 minutes on high. Undermixing here is the usual cause of a dense, greasy cake.
- Folding, not mixing"Mix all thoroughly together" is the one line to disobey slightly. Fold the flour-and-white mixture into the yolk base in three additions with a spatula, stopping the moment no dry streaks remain.
- The mouldA quart mould is roughly 4 to 5 cups, depending on whether the quart is imperial (40 fl oz) or American; an 8-inch round tin or a 9x5-inch loaf tin will take it with room to spare, buttered and lined. Fill no more than two-thirds; the cake rises on egg alone and will crack if crowded.
- Cooling and slicingCool completely, and preferably keep it overnight wrapped. Warm almond cake tears; a day-old one cuts into the thin slices the recipe intends. Serves 10 to 12 as a tea cake.
- The cost line2s. 6d. was a real sum in the 1870s, most of it likely the almonds and the twelve eggs. The twenty minutes of beating assumes plenty of hands, or plenty of patience.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of British cakes named after royalty, and Albert Cake, Albert Pudding and Albert Biscuits all appear in cookery books published during or shortly after the Prince Consort's lifetime; the attribution is conventionally to him, though as with most such names no document ties the recipe to the man. The cake itself is not really English in construction. A batter of many yolks, ground almonds, a spoonful of flour and no chemical leavening is the Central European torte, and its arrival in Victorian recipe collections owes something to the German-speaking cooks and confectioners then working in London and to Albert's own Coburg household, which is often said to have brought German baking to Windsor. The spicing, cinnamon, cloves, candied orange-peel and lemon-rind, is older still, the tail end of the medieval and early modern habit of scenting sweet almond mixtures with warm spice, and it survives here long after most English cakes had moved on to plainer flavouring.