Pick, wash, and dry a pound of currants, and sprinkle
them well with flour; and prepare two nutmegs, and a large table-spoonful
of powdered cinnamon. Sift half a pound and two ounces
of flour. Stir together till very light, six ounces of fresh
butter, and half a pound of powdered white sugar; and add
gradually the spice, with two wine glasses of brandy, (or one of
brandy and one of white wine.) Beat four eggs very light, and stir
them into the mixture alternately with the flour. Add by degrees
half a pint of brisk cider; and then stir in the currants, a few
at a time. Lastly, a small tea-spoonful of pearl-ash or sal-aratus
dissolved in a little warm water. Having stirred the whole very
hard, put it into a buttered tin pan, and let it stand before the
fire half an hour previous to baking. Bake it in a brisk oven an
hour or more according to its thickness. Or you may bake it as
little cakes, putting it into small tins; in which case use but
half a pound of flour in raising the batter.