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GIPSY CAKE (this is generally known as Tipsy Cake)
Take a good stale spongecake, and in choosing the size, consider the glass dish in which it is to be served. Prick it through in several places with a knitting-needle or skewer, and soak it in sweet wine and brandy. As the liquid runs into the dish, pour it over again. Blanch some sweet almonds. Cut them length-ways into spikes, and stick these into the cake. Pour a good custard into the dish, and serve as soon as possible. Time, half an hour to soak the cake. (See also TIPSY CAKE.)
A trifle in its oldest form: one whole cake, soaked rather than layered, spiked with almonds and flooded with custard. The original assumes you know what a sponge and a boiled custard are, and gives no quantities at all.
- Quantities are left to youNothing is measured. For a 7-8 inch sponge, reckon on about 1 cup (240 ml) sweet wine to 2-3 tablespoons brandy, and a custard made from 2 cups (500 ml) milk or half milk and cream, 4-5 egg yolks and 2-3 tablespoons sugar. That serves six to eight.
- "Sweet wine"In a Victorian English kitchen this usually means sherry or madeira. Cream sherry is the closest thing on a modern shelf; a dry sherry will taste thin and sharp once the brandy is added.
- Stale is not optionalThis is the hinge. A fresh sponge collapses into paste the moment the wine goes in. Leave the cake uncovered for a day or two so the crumb has structure to hold the liquid.
- Half an hour is the minimumHalf an hour -- the stated soaking time presumably suits a small, thoroughly dry sponge; a larger cake may well want longer. The instruction to keep pouring the runoff back over the top matters as much as the clock. Stop when the centre is wet through but the cake still stands.
- Sweet almondsOrdinary blanched almonds. The distinction from bitter almonds mattered when both were sold; bitter almonds are rarely found on general sale now. Cut them lengthways into spikes and push them in point first while the cake is still firm.
- A good custardA stirred custard, not a baked one: cook yolks, sugar and scalded milk over low heat, stirring, until it coats a spoon at about 175-180F, then strain and cool before pouring. Boiling it will curdle it, and it must be cool or it will slump the cake.
- "Serve as soon as possible"The recipe gives no reason; a soaked cake under custard soon loses its shape. Assembled and chilled it keeps a day in the refrigerator, though the almond spikes soften.
- The dishThe recipe assumes a glass dish, chosen to suit the cake, so the soaked cake and custard show through the side. Any straight-sided glass bowl of a size that lets the cake sit with an inch to spare will do.
Tipsy cake and the misspelling "gipsy cake" belong to the same family as trifle, and the name means exactly what it says: the cake is drunk. In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English cookery, a stale sponge or Savoy cake soaked in sweetened wine and served under custard was standard, and the whole-cake version bristling with almonds was sometimes called a hedgehog or porcupine pudding for the obvious reason. "Gipsy" appears to be a mishearing that stuck in print. The recipe also shows the Victorian household's habit of designing dishes around leftovers: a sponge past its best was not wasted but promoted, and the wine did the work that freshness no longer could.