Lady Cake
This cake must be flavored highly with bitter almonds; without them, sweet almonds have little or no taste, and are useless in lady cake. Blanch, in scalding water, three small ounces of shelled bitter almonds, and then lay them in a bowl of very cold water. Afterwards wipe them dry, and pound them (one at a time,) to a smooth paste in a clean marble mortar; adding, as you proceed, a wine-glass of rose-water to improve the flavor, and prevent their oiling, and becoming heavy and dark. When done, set them away in a cool place, on a saucer. Almonds are always lighter and better when blanched and pounded the day before. Cut up three quarters of a pound of the best fresh butter in a pound of powdered loaf sugar. Mix it in a deep earthen pan, and stir and beat it with a spaddle till it becomes very light and creamy. Then, gradually, stir in the pounded almonds. Take the whites only of seventeen or eighteen fresh eggs, and beat them in a shallow pan to a stiff froth, till they stand alone. Then stir the beaten white of egg, gradually, into the pan of creamed butter and sugar, in turn with three small quarters of a pound (or a pint and a half,) of sifted flour of the very best quality. Stir the whole very hard at the last, and transfer it to a straight-sided tin pan, well greased with excellent fresh butter. Set the pan immediately into an oven, and bake it with a moderate but steady heat. When it has been baking rather more than two hours, probe it by sticking down to the bottom a twig from a corn broom, or a very narrow knife. If it comes out clean the cake is done; if clammy or daubed, keep it longer in the oven. A cake when quite done generally shrinks a little. When you take it out, set it to cool on an inverted sieve. Ice a lady cake entirely with white, and ornament it with white flowers. It is now much in use at weddings, and if well made, and quite fresh, there is no cake better liked.