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1
Pound the spice and sift it. There should be twice as much cinnamon as mace. Mix the cinnamon, mace, and nutmeg together. Sift the flour in a broad pan or wooden bowl.
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2
Sift the powdered sugar into a large deep pan, and cut the butter into it in small pieces. If the weather is very cold and the butter hard, set the pan near the fire for a few minutes. If the butter is too warm, the cake will be heavy. Stir the butter and sugar together with a wooden stick until they are very light and white and look like cream (cream thoroughly).
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3
Beat the eggs in a broad shallow pan with a wooden egg-beater (or whisk). They must be beaten till they are thick and smooth and of the consistence of boiled custard.
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4
Pour the mixed liquor and rose-water gradually into the butter and sugar, stirring all the time. Add by degrees, the essence of lemon and spices.
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5
Stir the egg and flour alternately into the butter and sugar with a handful of flour and about 2 spoonfuls of the egg (which you must continue to beat all the time). When all is in, stir the whole mixture very hard for near 10 minutes.
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6
Butter a large tin pan or cake mould with an open tube rising from the middle. Put the mixture into it as evenly as possible. Bake in moderate oven (about 350F) for 2 [- 3 - 4 hours---- ? - watch this the time posted was before modern oven) in proportion to its thickness and to the heat of the fire.
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7
When you think it is nearly done, thrust a twig or wooden skewer (often a clean broom straw, now a cake tester) into it down to the bottom. If the stick comes out clean and dry, the cake is almost baked. When quite done, it will shrink from the sides of the pan and cease making a noise. Then withdraw the coals (if baked in a Dutch oven, coals were put on top of the oven in an effort to keep heat even), take off the lid and let the cake remain in the oven to cool gradually.
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8
You may ice it either warm or cold. Before you put the icing on a large cake, dredge the cake all over with flour, and then wipe the flour off. This will make the icing stick on better.
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9
If you have sufficient time, the appearance of the cake will be much improved by icing it twice. Put on the first icing soon after the cake is taken out of the oven, and the second the next day when the first is perfectly dry. While the last icing is moist, ornament it with colored sugar-sand or nonpareils.
