Victorian recipe of Apricot Cake

Apricot Cake

• Half a tin of apricots
• Quarter pint of apricot juice
• Four ounces of rich short pastry
• Five ounces of sugar
• Whites of three eggs
• A little almond essence

Method; Roll the pastry into a round the size of a dinner plate, roll scraps of pastry into strips to form edging. Wet the edges of the pastry and form a lip with the strips. Place on a flat baking tin, make two or three incisions with a fork in the centre of the round of pastry to keep it flat and bake until a light brown. Whip the eggs to a stiff paste and sweeten with two ounces of sugar and almond essence. Using a force bag add plenty of the stiff paste around the whole circle to produce a high edge then dust with sugar; return to the oven until it is lightly brown. In tandem with the above place a quarter pint of apricot juice with three ounces of sugar into a saucepan; boil gently until it sets, test by dropping a little from a spoon onto a plate. When both the pastry and the syrup had cooled arrange the apricots and pour over the syrup