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Irresistibles
I sponge cake or layer 1/2 teaspoonful vanilla cake 4 ozs. (1/2 cup) sugar 1 gill (1/2 cup) ground almonds extract Strawberry jam Whipped and sweetened cream Few chopped nut meats Make and bake a sponge cake or layer cake mixture in a flat, shallow tin; when done, turn it out on a sieve to cool. Mix the sugar and ground almonds; make them into a stiff paste with a very little water flavored with the vanilla extract. Knead this almond paste on a board dusted with sugar and roll out carefully. Cut it out in rounds with a crinkly cutter, then cut out the cake with the same cutter. Slice these pieces of cake into pieces one-fourth of an inch thick. Take one of these pieces, spread it over with a thin layer of strawberry jam, place on this one of the rounds of almond paste, then add another layer of jam and another piece of cake. Top with whipped and sweetened cream and a few chopped nut meats.
Irresistibles are well named and are favorites.
Cakes
A layered petit-four assembled from rounds of sponge, homemade almond paste and jam. The ingredient list as printed is garbled by the column break — read it as sponge or layer cake, 4 oz (1/2 cup) sugar, 1 gill (1/2 cup) ground almonds, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, strawberry jam, whipped sweetened cream and chopped nuts.
- The hinge: bake the cake flat and thinEverything depends on a sheet shallow enough to slice horizontally into quarter-inch layers. A quarter-sheet pan or a 9x13 with the batter no more than an inch deep gives a slab you can cut cleanly; a deep cake will tear when split.
- A gillHalf a cup, as the recipe itself notes. Half a cup of ground almonds is roughly 1.75 oz by weight, so this paste is heavier in sugar than almond — closer to a soft icing than to bought marzipan, which is typically nearer equal parts.
- OvenNo temperature is given. A thin sponge sheet wants 350-375F for 10-15 minutes; it is done when the surface springs back and the edges pull from the tin.
- Cooling on a sieveA wire rack does the same job. The point is airflow underneath so the sheet does not steam itself soggy — which matters here, since a damp crumb will not take a clean cut.
- Making the pasteAdd the water a few drops at a time. Ground almonds absorb slowly and it is very easy to go from crumbly to sticky in one addition; the paste should just hold together under the heel of your hand.
- Cutting orderCut the paste rounds first, while it is freshly rolled and pliable, then use the same cutter on the cake. Wipe the cutter between cake rounds so the crumb edge stays sharp.
- "Nut meats"Simply shelled nuts. The recipe does not say which; almonds or walnuts would suit, chopped fine.
- Yield and servingThe count depends on the depth of the sheet (each round is sliced horizontally into quarter-inch pieces, two to a cake) and on the size of the cutter. Assemble the sponge, jam and paste ahead, but add the cream and nuts only at serving, or the cream will soften the sponge.
Small layered cakes of this kind -- sponge, jam and almond paste stacked and cut into rounds -- belong to the same family as the marzipan-and-jam confections found in English-language cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The recipe's logic is that of the pastry shop scaled down to a home kitchen: bake a plain sheet, cut it into uniform discs with a crinkly cutter, and build the interest in the assembly rather than the batter. The name is the whole marketing pitch, and the closing line -- "Irresistibles are well named and are favorites" -- is the sort of reassurance such books often offered.