Brunswick Jelly Cakes

Original Recipe

Stir one cup of powdered white sugar and one-half cup of butter together, till perfectly light; beat the yolks of three eggs till very thick and smooth; sift three cups of flour and stir it into the beaten eggs with the butter and sugar; add a teaspoonful of mixed spice (nutmeg, mace and cinnamon) and half a glass of rose-water or wine; stir the whole well and lay it on your paste-board, which must first be sprinkled with flour; if you find it so moist as to be unmanageable, throw in a little more flour; spread the dough into a sheet about half an inch thick and cut it out in round cakes with a biscuit-cutter; lay them in buttered pans and bake about five or six minutes; when cold, spread over the surface of each cake a liquor of fruit jelly or marmalade; then beat the whites of three or four eggs till they stand alone; beat into the froth, by degrees, a sufficiency of powdered loaf sugar to make it as thick as icing; flavor with a few drops of strong essence of lemon, and with a spoon heap it up on each cake, making it high in the centre; put the cakes into a cool oven, and as soon as the tops are colored a pale brown, take them out.