Hannah Glasse, 1747

Take two pounds of white flour, and two pounds of coarse loaf sugar well dried and fine sifted; after the flour and sugar are sifted and weighed, then mingle them together, sift the flour and sugar together, through a hair-sieve, into a bowl you use it in; to them you must have two pounds of good butter, eighteen eggs, leaving out eight of the whites; to these you must have four ounces of candied orange, five or six ounces of caraway comfits; you must first work the butter with rosewater, till you can see none of the water, and your butter must be very soft; then put in flour and sugar, a little at a time, and likewise your eggs; but you must beat your eggs very well, with two spoonfuls of sack [sherry], you must put each as you think fit, keeping it constantly beating with your hand, till you have put it into the hoop [mould] for the oven; do not put in your sweetmeats and seeds, till you are ready to put it into your hoops; you must have three or four doubles of cap-paper [fairy-cake cases] under the cakes, and butter the paper and hoop: you must sift some fine sugar upon your cake, when it goes into the oven.

Here Pen shares her experience of cooking caraway cakes.

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