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Imperial Cake
Separate the yolks from the whites of six eggs, beat the yolks until light, and the whites to a firm froth. Have ready the crumb of three French rolls soaked in milk and squeezed dry. Beat the bread and four ounces of melted butter together, then add the egg-yolks, two ounces of fine sugar (pounded), and some grated lemon-peel. While beating the mixture, add currants, sultana raisins, pounded blanched almonds, and candied peel, two ounces of each, and lastly stir in the frothed whites of the eggs. Bake in a shallow cake-tin and a moderate oven. Sprinkle the tin with fine crumbs, and the cake, when done, with fine sugar. Time, one hour. Probable cost, 2s.
A flourless cake built on soaked bread crumb rather than batter — closer to a baked pudding than a modern sponge. Two things decide whether it works: how dry you squeeze the bread, and how gently you fold in the whites.
- The hinge: squeeze the bread hardWet crumb gives a heavy, sodden cake, since there is no flour to carry structure. Press the soaked crumb firmly in a sieve or a clean cloth until no more milk runs, then break it up with the butter into a smooth paste before anything else goes in.
- French rollsA Victorian French roll was a small soft white roll; three of them, crusts removed, give somewhere in the region of half a pound of crumb. A plain white loaf with the crusts cut away is the nearest modern substitute.
- Milk quantity is unstatedThe original assumes you soak until saturated and squeeze, so no volume is given. Around a cup is usually enough for that much crumb; the amount left in the bread after squeezing is what matters, not the amount poured on.
- A moderate oven350F (175C). At an hour in a shallow tin this is a long bake for the depth, so check at 40-45 minutes — the cake should be set in the centre and springy, not dry.
- Fine sugar"Fine sugar (pounded)" is caster sugar. Two ounces for six eggs is barely sweet by modern taste; the dried fruit and candied peel carry most of the sweetness.
- Pounded blanched almondsGround almonds work directly, but a coarser texture is truer to the original — pulse blanched almonds briefly rather than grinding to flour.
- Preparing the tinButter the tin, then dust with fine dry crumbs rather than flour, as the recipe directs. A shallow tin of about 8 inches square or a 9-inch round suits this quantity.
- Folding the whitesThe whites are the only lift in the cake. Fold them in in two additions with a light hand and get it into the oven at once; there is no chemical raising agent to rescue a deflated mixture.
- YieldServes eight to ten in small squares. It keeps two or three days wrapped.
Bread-crumb cakes of this kind were common across nineteenth-century British and continental cookery, descendants of the older custom of using stale bread where flour was expensive or where a moister, closer crumb was wanted — a relation of the German Semmelkuchen and the many baked bread puddings of the period. Names like Imperial, Royal, Victoria and Balmoral were widely attached to richer versions of plain dishes, and no particular monarch or occasion is known to lie behind this one; here the richness comes from the currants, sultanas, almonds and candied peel rather than from any technique. The "probable cost, 2s." was no small sum for a household cake, which is what the dried fruit and almonds account for, and the habit of pricing every dish points to a book written for cooks answerable to someone else's accounts.