A Dover Cake

Ingredients:

Half a pint of milk.
A half tea-spoonful of pearl ash, dissolved in a little vinegar.
One pound of sifted flour.
One pound of powdered white sugar.
Half a pound of butter.
Six eggs.
One glass of brandy.
Half a glass of rosewater.
One grated nutmeg.
A tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon.

Preparation Steps:

Dissolve the pearl ash in vinegar. Stir the sugar and butter to a cream, and add to it gradually, the spice and liquor. Beat the eggs very light, and stir them into the butter and sugar, alternately, with the flour. Add, gradually, the milk, and stir the whole very hard.

Butter a large tin pan, and put in the mixture. Bake it two hours or more, in a moderate oven. If not thick, an hour or an hour and a half will be sufficient.

Wrap it in a thick cloth, and keep it from the air, and it will continue moist and fresh for two weeks. The pearl ash will give it a dark colour.

It will be much improved by a pound of raisins, stoned and cut in half, and a pound of currants, well washed and dried.

Flour the fruit well, and stir it in at the last.