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Genoese Cake
Melt half a pound of butter by letting it stand near the fire. Mix thoroughly half a pound of flour, half a pound of sugar, a pinch of salt, and the finely-minced rind of a lemon. Make them into a paste with a wine-glassful of brandy, four eggs, well beaten, and the clarified butter. Beat for ten minutes with a wooden spoon. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered pie-dish, and bake in a moderate oven. When the cake is sufficiently cooked (this may be ascertained by pushing a skewer into it, and if it comes out dry and clean the cake is done enough), take it out, and cover it with sugar and blanched almonds (see GENOA CAKE). Time, three-quarters of an hour to bake, a quarter of an hour extra to brown the almonds. Sufficient for a pudding-dish two inches deep and five inches square. Probable cost, 1s 6d., exclusive of the brandy.
A butter cake with no chemical leavening at all — the ten minutes of beating is the whole raising method, so it is the one step not to shorten. Weights are given in Imperial pounds and convert cleanly.
- QuantitiesHalf a pound each of butter, flour and sugar is 225 g each; use plain (all-purpose) flour. Eggs of the period were generally on the small side by modern grading, so four medium eggs are probably the closer match.
- A wine-glassfulIn Victorian cookery books a wine-glass is roughly 2 fl oz, about 60 ml — a quarter cup of brandy. It is flavouring and liquid both; the batter will be stiff without it.
- Melting the butterStanding it near the fire means softened to just-pourable, not hot. The recipe later calls it "clarified", but no clarifying step is given; melted butter, cooled to barely warm, is what is wanted. Hot butter will scramble the eggs.
- Moderate oven350F / 180C. Three-quarters of an hour suits a cake of this depth; start testing at 35 minutes with the skewer as directed.
- Beat for ten minutesWith no baking powder, aeration comes entirely from beating the sugar, fat and eggs. A stand mixer will get there in rather less time than ten minutes by hand — go by the batter, which should visibly pale and thicken.
- The dish size is wrongThe dish size is tight -- The stated pudding-dish, 5 inches square and 2 inches deep, holds about 1.4 imperial pints (roughly 820 ml), and the batter comes to a little more than that. A slightly larger tin, buttered and lined, gives room to rise without altering the stated baking time much.
- Lemon rindRub the zest into the sugar with your fingers before mixing; it releases the oil far better than mincing alone.
- The almond toppingScatter blanched almonds and sugar over the baked cake and return it to the oven for the extra quarter hour, watching closely — nuts on a browned crust scorch quickly. Cover loosely with foil if the cake itself is colouring.
- YieldAbout 10 to 12 slices. It keeps well for several days wrapped.
The name points to Genoa, but this is not the g y kitchens — that is a whisked sponge, eggs and sugar beaten warm over water with the butter folded in last, built to be split and soaked. What is given here is closer to an English pound cake: equal weights of butter, sugar and flour, brandy for both moisture and flavour, and a crust of sugar and almonds shared with Genoa cake, the fruited almond-topped loaf still sold in British bakeries. Nineteenth-century English cookery books were not consistent in their use of "Genoese" and "Genoa", and the two names are sometimes found for related cakes. The costing — 1s 6d, brandy excluded — is in keeping with a book that gives a probable cost for its recipes so a household could budget from the page.