St James's Cake is a traditional British recipe, based on Alexis Soyer's recipe of 1849, for a classic sponge cake, using beaten eggs and whipped cream as raising agents that's flavoured with pistachio nuts, angelica, vanilla extract and noyau. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: St James's Cake.
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This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Alexis Soyer's 1849 volume The modern Housewife or Ménagère, a classic Victorian cookbook.
Original Recipe
950. ST. JAMES'S CAKE.—Put one pound of very fresh butter in a good-size kitchen basin, and with the right hand work it up well till it forms quite a white cream; then add one pound powdered sugar, mix well, add ten eggs by degrees; put to dry a pound and a quarter of flour, which mix as lightly as possible with it; branch and cut in slices two ounces of pistachios, two ditto of green preserved angelica, add two liqueur glasses of noyeau, two drops of essence of vanilla; whip a gill and a half of cream till very thick, mix lightly with a wooden spoon, have a mould made the shape of the drawing, put it in, and send to the baker; it will take about one hour and a quarter to bake; ornament as represented in the subjoined cut:
Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly to combine after each addition. Sift over the flour and fold in gently then work in the pistachio nuts, angelica, noyau and vanilla extract.
Ensure that the cream is beaten very thick and fold this into the cake batter. Turn the resultant mixture into a large, shallow, cake tin. Cover the top with baking parchment then place in an oven pre-heated to 180°C and bake for about 60 minutes, or until the top of the cake is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre emerges cleanly.
Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Ice the cake and decorate the top with fruit. In Victorian times, a vase or cornucopia of fruit would have been placed in the centre of the cake.
