A Good Madeira Cake

Instructions

1. Whisk four fresh eggs until they are as light as possible.
2. Then, continuing still to whisk them, throw in by slow degrees the following ingredients in the order in which they are written: six ounces of dry, pounded, and sifted sugar; six of flour, also dried and sifted; four ounces of butter just dissolved, but not heated; and the rind of a fresh lemon.
3. The instant before the cake is moulded, beat well in the third of a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda.
4. Bake it an hour in a moderate oven.
5. Observe particularly, in this as in all compositions of the same nature, that each portion of butter must be beaten into the mixture until no appearance of it remains before the next is added; and if this be done, and the preparation be kept light by constant and light whisking, the cake will be as good, if not better, than if the butter were creamed.
6. Candied citron can be added to the paste, but it is not needed.
7. Proportions: eggs, 4; sugar, 6 oz.; flour, 6 oz.; butter, 4 oz.; rind of 1 lemon; carbonate of soda, 1/3 of teaspoonful: 1 hour, moderate oven.