How about a Regency Era Christmas cake (and not one, but two icings!) to help celebrate the season?

These recipes make a very rich, dense cake that will keep for some time.

Christmas Cake

1754. INGREDIENTS.—5 teacupfuls of flour, 1 teacupful of melted butter, 1 teacupful of cream, 1 teacupful of treacle, 1 teacupful of moist sugar, 2 eggs, 1/2 oz. of powdered ginger, 1/2 lb. of raisins, 1 teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, 1 tablespoonful of vinegar.

Mode.—Make the butter sufficiently warm to melt it, but do not allow it to oil; put the flour into a basin; add to it the sugar, ginger, and raisins, which should be stoned and cut into small pieces. When these dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed, stir in the butter, cream, treacle, and well-whisked eggs, and beat the mixture for a few minutes. Dissolve the soda in the vinegar, add it to the dough, and be particular that these latter ingredients are well incorporated with the others; put the cake into a buttered mould or tin, place it in a moderate oven immediately, and bake it from 1-3/4 to 2-1/4 hours.

Time.—1-3/4 to 2-1/4 hours. Average cost, 1s. 6d.

In the image above, the cake is first wrapped in an almond icing much like marzipan then covered wtih a sugar icing resembling modern royal icing. Below are the recipes for those.

ALMOND ICING FOR CAKES.

1735. INGREDIENTS.—To every lb. of finely-pounded loaf sugar allow 1 lb. of sweet almonds, the whites of 4 eggs, a little rose-water.

Mode.—Blanch the almonds, and pound them (a few at a time) in a mortar to a paste, adding a little rose-water to facilitate the operation. Whisk the whites of the eggs to a strong froth; mix them with the pounded almonds, stir in the sugar, and beat altogether. When the cake is sufficiently baked, lay on the almond icing, and put it into the oven to dry. Before laying this preparation on the cake, great care must be taken that it is nice and smooth, which is easily accomplished by well beating the mixture.

SUGAR ICING FOR CAKES.

1736. INGREDIENTS.—To every lb. of loaf sugar allow the whites of 4 eggs, 1 oz. of fine starch.

Mode.—Beat the eggs to a strong froth, and gradually sift in the sugar, which should be reduced to the finest possible powder, and gradually add the starch, also finely powdered. Beat the mixture well until the sugar is smooth; then with a spoon or broad knife lay the icing equally over the cakes. These should then be placed in a very cool oven, and the icing allowed to dry and harden, but not to colour. The icing may be coloured with strawberry or currant-juice, or with prepared cochineal. If it be put on the cakes as soon as they are withdrawn from the oven, it will become firm and hard by the time the cakes are cold. On very rich cakes, such as wedding, christening cakes, &c., a layer of almond icing, No. 1735, is usually spread over the top, and over that the white icing as described. All iced cakes should be kept in a very dry place.

From:

Beeton, Isabella. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. London: S. O. Beeton Publishing, 1861.