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Almond Cake
1/2 cupful butter, 2 cupfuls sugar, 4 eggs, 1/2 cupful almonds blanched (by pouring water on them until skins easily slip off) and cut in fine shreds, 1/2 teaspoonful extract bitter almonds, 1 pint flour, 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls baking-powder, 1 glass brandy, 1/2 cupful milk. Rub butter and sugar to smooth, white cream; add eggs, one at a time, beating three or four minutes after each. Sift flour and powder together, add to butter, etc., with almonds, extract of bitter almonds, brandy, and milk; mix into smooth, medium batter; bake carefully in rather hot oven twenty minutes in a fluted mould.
A rich creamed butter cake with shredded almonds and brandy, baked in a decorative mould. Two measurements in the original need interpretation before you start.
- "1 glass brandy"This is genuinely imprecise. A wine glass in period cookbooks is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, a sherry glass rather less; some writers meant as little as a tablespoon or two. Two fluid ounces alongside the half cup of milk gives a workable batter, but the figure is an inference, not a conversion.
- A pint of flourFlour was measured by volume, so a pint is 2 cups, roughly 8 to 9 oz depending on how it is scooped. The recipe sifts the flour with the baking-powder after measuring, not before.
- Extract of bitter almondsNineteenth-century bitter almond essence was distilled from bitter almonds or from stone-fruit kernels. Modern almond extract is either synthetic benzaldehyde or bitter almond oil with the prussic acid removed; either way, use it at the same half teaspoon, which is already assertive against the shredded nuts.
- BlanchingCover the almonds with boiling water for a minute, drain, and slip the skins off between finger and thumb. Shred them with a knife while still damp; dry nuts split and crumble.
- "Rather hot oven"The book gives no temperatures. Somewhere around 375F is a reasonable modern reading; much hotter risks setting the crust before the centre of a moulded cake has risen.
- Twenty minutes is shortThat timing suits small individual moulds or a shallow fluted ring. A full-size tube or bundt tin of this batter wants 40 to 50 minutes; test with a skewer at the thickest point rather than trusting the clock.
- Preparing the mouldFluted moulds need butter worked into every groove and then a dusting of flour or fine crumbs. Turn the cake out after about ten minutes in the tin, while it is still warm enough to release cleanly.
- YieldTwo cups of flour and four eggs give a cake for eight to ten. It is a sweet, close-grained cake and keeps well wrapped for several days.