HFF #10: Let Them Eat Cake

Monday, October 6, 2014

HFF #10: Let Them Eat Cake

The Challenge: Make a cake.

The Recipe: Lemon Cake with Almond Icing from Mrs. Beeton's.

Date/Year & Region: 1861, British

How Did You Make It: Separated 10 eggs; beat the whites, then added orange-flower water, 1.5 cups granulated sugar, minced lemon rind, and mixed well. Stirred the juice of 1 lemon into the 10 egg yokes and added to the preceding mixture. Slowly stirred in 3 cups of flour. Baked in an oiled bundt pan for 55-60 minutes at 350F.

For the icing, whipped 4 egg whites (used pasteurized egg whites since this is to be served uncooked), added 4 cups powdered sugar, about 1 tsp almond extract and 1 tsp rosewater. Poured over cake (letting it set made the icing runny), and garnished with fresh lemon wedges (Friday) or strips of candied peel (Saturday).

Time to Complete: About 90 minutes.

Total Cost: Uncertain. Probably on the order of $6.

How Successful Was It: It seemed well received. The cake came out a bit dark, having been cooked in an aluminum pan--the closest one I had to a period cake tin. It was also a little bit dense, which I'm attributing to the lack of chemical leavening. The lemon, almond and rosewater flavors were very interesting together, and I think I would use this recipe again. However, I would not make the icing early as it became very viscous.

How Accurate Was It: Fairly. I already mentioned the "make do" pan; again, I used converted volume measures instead of weights. In the icing, pasteurized egg whites were an intentional decision, as was using almond extract instead of grinding up almonds in rosewater--which I considered, but dismissed because I had a lot of other things which needed to be done (this being part of my first big dinner). Using an electric mixer was also a compromise, but I'm not quite mad enough to voluntarily beat than many egg whites by hand.