This recipe caught my eye for the underlining (italicised here) and for the stern admonition at the end.  Being a novice I made one cake with the smaller quantities as I wouldn’t have wanted to waste good ingredients on a potential failure!

• 3 eggs
• 1/4 lb. flour, well sifted
• 1/4 lb. sugar
• 1/2 gill (1/8 of a pint) water
• 1/2 lemon juiced

for two cakes:

• 7 eggs
• 1/2 lb. flour well sifted
• 3/4 lb. sugar
• 1 gill (1/4 of a pint) water
• 1 lemon juiced.

Let sugar and water come to boiling point, meanwhile thoroughly whip whites and yolks of eggs together. Pour boiling sugar slowly and steadily over the eggs, beating constantly.  Continue beating rapidly until cold.  Gently stir in flour (really just lightly lift it in) and then lemon juice.  Pour into a cake tin which has been well lined with butter paper.  Bake in a moderately high oven.  The novice must not be discouraged by a few failures.  Success will repay all efforts.

This uses store cupboard ingredients and thus is relatively easy to knock up in an afternoon.  The 21st century has made the techniques easier too as the eggs need A LOT of beating: the food processor certainly came into its own making this cake.  Also it is pretty healthy using very little sugar and no fat.

I baked this at 170 degrees centigrade for about 40 minutes though checked regularly from about 20 minutes onwards as the instructions were pretty vague.  I should think the novice would benefit from more precise cooking times but this does not seem to be a strong point of the recipe box.

The resulting cake had risen evenly and looked sponge-like which was a good sign.  It was springier in texture than normal sponge with a tighter crumb and benefited enormously from the addition of raspberry jam, though we managed without cream so not totally negating all the health benefits!

I think this is definitely a hit and will be made again.  Especially good for those with lactose intolerance…