Lady Cake

Put fourteen ounces of butter and twenty ounces of sugar in a metal bowl and work together with the hands for fifteen or twenty minutes to have it quite frothy, then add four ounces of almonds, including a few bitter ones, pounded with a little water, and work again for a few moments. Now put in one gill of brandy or rum, twenty ounces of flour and finally twenty very stiffly whipped egg-whites. Butter a pound-cake mold, line it throughout with paper and fill it three-quarters full with the preparation; bake in a very slow oven. (Once the cake is in the oven it must not be touched until baked.) Take it out, unmold and leave to get thoroughly cold. Then ice with royal icing (No. 101) and stand it at once on a lace-paper covered board. After the icing has dried decorate the cake with more royal icing.