1. Take one pound each of sugar, butter, eggs, and flour, mixed into a paste, with a teacupful of milk, half an ounce of sal volatile being added to make them light. 2. Take one and a quarter pounds of butter, the same of loaf sugar, one pint of eggs, three-quarters of an ounce of volatile salt, a teacupful of milk, and three pounds of flour. 3. Take one pint of eggs, one pound of loaf sugar, six ounces of butter, two pounds of flour, half an ounce of volatile salt. Beat the butter to a cream in a smooth-glazed warm earthenware dish, stir in the sugar by degrees, then the eggs; also, gradually, before they are all in, add a part of the flour, and mix it with the remaining portion of the eggs well together; then dissolve the volatile salt in the milk; add a little of this and of the flour alternately, till the whole have been added, and until all the ingredients are well incorporated together. It may now be poured into buttered tins, surrounded by paper, filling them about three parts full, and sprinkling a few currants at the top of each. The whole mixing should be completed as rapidly as possible, and the cakes immediately put into a slow oven. To know when it is done, thrust a small wooden skewer into it; if dry when taken out, the cake is done; if sticky, it must be baked longer. 4. Beat one pound of butter in an earthen pan until it is like a fine thick cream, then beat in nine whole eggs till quite light; put in a glass of brandy, a little lemon-peel shred fine, then work in one and a quarter pounds of flour; put it into a hoop or pan and bake it for an hour. A pound plum cake is made the same, with putting one and a half pounds of cleaned washed currants and half a pound of candied lemon-peel.