In olden days the Twelfth Night after Christ-* mas was looked upon as a great feast day, and a special cake was prepared for consumption on that day. Though many old customs connected with the day are now obsolete, many people still like to have the cake.

To be correct, it must be iced and decorated with candied fruit of various kinds, and it must have stirred into the mixture:

A ring, typifying marriage.

A bean, typifying a year's good luck.

A silver coin, typifying wealth.

A thimble, typifying single blessedness.

The Recipe

Required: One pound of flour.

Half a pound each of butter, sultanas, and castor sugar. Six ounces each of mixed peel and sweet almonds. Four ounces each of currants and muscatels. Four eggs.

One orange and one lemon. Two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. One teaspoonful of mixed spice. One teaspoonful of salt. One and a half gills of milk. Royal icing. Candied fruits for decoration.

Line a cake tin with three layers of buttered paper. Sieve together the flour, salt, spice, and baking-powder. Chop the peel and muscatels, after stoning them. Clean the sultanas and currants, shell and shred the almonds finely, and grate the orange and lemon rinds. Beat the butter and sugar to a soft cream; add the eggs, one by one, beating each in separately. Mix together the fruit, almonds, peel, and grated rinds. Add the flour to the eggs, stirring it in very lightly; then add the fruit. Mix it in, then put the mixture in the prepared tin, and bake in a moderate oven for about two hours, or until a skewer can be stuck into the middle of the cake and comes out quite clean and free from the mixture. Take the cake out of the tin when it is sufficiently baked, and put it on a sieve until cold.

For the Icing:

Two pounds of sieved icing sugar. About four whites of eggs. One lemon.

Put the sugar in a basin. Beat the whites until they are frothy. Make a well in the centre of the sugar, put in the whites, and strain in two tablespoonfuls of lemon-juice. Mix these thoroughly into the sugar with a wooden spoon. The icing must be so stiff, that if a pattern is made on it with a spoon it will remain clear and sharp iri outline, not blurring at all. If it is too thin, add a little more sieved icing sugar; if too thick, more white of egg or lemon-juice.

Lastly, beat the icing well. This will make it white and smooth.

To Ice The Cake

Spread a layer of this icing all over the sides and top of the cake (it should be about a quarter of an inch thick). Use a broad-bladed knife to spread it, dipping it occasionally into warm water for this purpose. Be careful to keep the edge of the cake sharp and straight. If at all rounded its appearance is spoilt. Leave the cake in a warm place for the icing to dry.

Arrange the mixed candied fruits on the top of the cake, blending the colours prettily. It will be necessary to use a little icing to keep them in place.

Put the rest of the royal icing in a forcing bag with a pretty fancy pipe, and decorate the edge and sides of the cake.