Genoese Cake

Ingredients required:—Half a pound of flour, half a pound of sugar, half a pound of butter, four eggs, a small glass of brandy, and a little salt.

Mix the flour, sugar, eggs, brandy, and salt well together in a basin with a wooden spoon; then add the butter (merely melted by the side of the fire), and when this is thoroughly incorporated with the batter, pour it into an appropriate-sized baking-sheet (previously spread with butter), to the thickness of about a quarter of an inch, and bake this in an oven moderately heated.

When the Genoese paste is done, it should be turned out upon a sheet of paper, and cut or stamped out, either in circular, oblong, oval, angular, leaf-like, or any other fancy shape that taste may suggest. These may then be decorated with white of egg and sugar prepared as for meringues (No. 766), or with icing prepared as directed for wedding-cakes (No. 746), and ornamented with pistachio-kernels, currants, &c. Those cut in the form of leaves, rings, oblongs, &c, may be ornamented by forming a design composed of leaves and pearls (using for that purpose some meringue-paste in a paper cornet, or small biscuit forcer). When the Genoese cakes are ornamented in this manner, shake some fine sugar over them with a dredger, and dry them either in the screen or at the entrance of the oven; then, finish decorating them by placing some neat stripes or dots of any kind of bright preserve, such as red-currant jelly, apple jelly, apricot jam, greengage jam, &c, between the leaves or pearls of the white-of-egg decoration. By these means a very pretty effect is produced; and as no artificial or unwholesome substance is used in its composition, it may be partaken of with safety.