SPONGE CAKE.

Sift three quarters of a pound of flour, [Footnote: Sponge cake may be
made with rice flour.] and powder a pound of the best loaf-sugar. Grate
the yellow rind and squeeze into a saucer the juice of three lemons.
Beat twelve eggs; and when they are as light as possible, beat into
them gradually and very hard the sugar, adding the lemon, and beating
the whole for a long time. Then by degrees, stir in the flour slowly
and lightly; for if the flour is stirred hard and fast into sponge
cake, it will make it porous and tough. Have ready buttered, a
sufficient number of little square tins, (the thinner they are the
better,) half fill them with the mixture; grate loaf-sugar over the top
of each; put them immediately into a quick oven, and bake them about
ten minutes; taking out one to try when you think they are done. Spread
them on an inverted sieve to cool. When baked in small square cakes,
they are generally called Naples biscuits.

If you are willing to take the trouble, they will bake much nicer in
little square paper cases, which you must make of a thick letter paper,
turning up the sides all round, and pasting together or sewing up the
corners.

If you bake the mixture in one large cake, (which is not advisable
unless you have had much practice in baking,) put it into a buttered
tin pan or mould, and set it directly into a hot Dutch oven, as it will
fall and become heavy if allowed to stand. Keep plenty of live coals on
the top, and under the bottom till the cake has risen very high, and is
of a fine colour; then diminish the fire, and keep it moderate till the
cake is done. It will take about an hour. When cool, ice it; adding a
little essence of lemon or extract of roses to the icing. Sponge cake
is best the day it is baked.

Diet Bread is another name for Sponge Cake.
