QUEEN CAKE recipe

1. One pound of powdered white sugar.
2. One pound of fresh butter—washed.
3. Fourteen ounces of sifted flour.
4. Ten eggs.
5. One wine-glass of wine and brandy, mixed.
6. Half a glass of rose-water, or twelve drops of essence of
   lemon.
7. One tea-spoonful of mace and cinnamon, mixed.
8. One nutmeg, beaten or grated.

Pound the spice to a fine powder, in a marble mortar, and
sift it well.
Put the sugar into a deep earthen pan, and cut the butter
into it.
Stir them together, till very light.
Beat the eggs in a broad shallow pan, till they are
perfectly smooth and thick.Stir into the butter and sugar a little of the beaten egg,
and then a little flour, and so on alternately, a little egg and
a little flour, till the whole is in; continuing all the time to
beat the eggs, and stirring the mixture very hard. Add by
degrees, the spice, and then the liquor, a little at a time.
Finally, put in the rose-water, or essence of lemon.
[Footnote: In buying essence or oil of lemon, endeavour to
get that which is white, it being much the strongest and
best. When it looks greenish, it is generally very weak, so
that when used, a double or treble quantity is necessary.]
Stir the whole very hard at the last.
Take about two dozen little tins, or more, if you have room
for them in the oven. Rub them very well with fresh butter.
With a spoon, put some of the mixture in each tin, but do
not fill them to the top as the cakes will rise high in baking.
Bake them in a quick oven, about a quarter of an hour.
When they are done, they will shrink a little from the sides
of the tins.
Before you fill your tins again, scrape them well with a
knife, and wash or wipe them clean.
If the cakes are scorched by too hot a fire, do not scrape
off the burnt parts till they have grown cold.
Make an icing with the whites of three eggs, beaten till it
stands alone, and twenty-four tea-spoonfuls of the best loafsugar, powdered, and beaten gradually into the white of
egg. Flavour it with a tea-spoonful of rose-water or eight
drops of essence of lemon, stirred in at the last. Spread it
evenly with a broad knife, over the top of each queen-cake,ornamenting them, (while the icing is quite wet) with red
and green nonpareils, or fine sugar-sand, dropped on,
carefully, with the thumb and finger.
When the cakes are iced, set them in a warm place to dry;
but not too near the fire, as that will cause the icing to
crack. [Footnote: You may colour icing of a fine pink, by
mixing with it a few drops of liquid cochineal; which is
prepared by boiling very slowly in an earthen or china vessel
twenty grains of cochineal powder, twenty grains of cream
of tartar, and twenty grains of powdered alum, all dissolved
in a gill of soft water, and boiled till reduced to one half.
Strain it and cork it up in a small phial. Pink icing should be
ornamented with white nonpareils.]