Sweet Baked Goods Federal Cake

federal cake
(from Dr. Chase's Recipes; Or, Information for Every Body, by Dr. Alvin Wood Chase, 1865)

Ingredients:

2-1/2 lbs. flour​

1-1/4 lbs. pulverized white sugar​

10 ozs. fresh butter​

5 eggs​

1/8 oz. carbonate of ammonia​

1/2 pt. milk; or water, if no milk is available​

Instructions:

Flour 2-1/2 lbs.; pulverized white sugar 1-1/4 lbs.; fresh butter 10 ozs.; 5 eggs well beaten; carbonate of ammonia 1/8 oz.; water 1/2 pt.; or milk is best, if you have it.​

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Grind down the ammonia, and rub it with the sugar. Rub the butter into the flour; now make a bowl of the flour, (unless you choose to work it up in a dish,) and put in the eggs, milk, sugar, &c. and mix well, and roll out to about a quarter of an inch in thickness; then cut out with a round cutter, and place on tins so they touch each other, and instead of rising up thicker, in baking, they fill up the space between, and make a square-looking cake, all attached together. While they are yet warm, drench over with white coarsely-pulverized sugar. If they are to be kept in a show-case, by bakers, you can have a board as large as the tin on which you bake them, and lay a dozen or more tins full on top of each other, as you sprinkle on the sugar. I cannot see why they are called "Federal," for really, they are good enough for any "Whig."​

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Ammonia should be kept in a wide-mouthed bottle, tightly corked, as it is a very volatile salt. It is known by various names, as "volatile salts," "sal volatile," "hartshorn," "hartshorn-shavings," &c. &c. It is used for smelling-bottles, fainting, as also in baking.​