Venice Seed Cake

by C. H. K., from The Cottage Hearth, June 1877

The accompanying illustration shows a very effective style of icing or frosting combining richness of color and contrast, yet free from any deleterious ingredient in the matter of color. Proceed as follows:

Bake a pound, sponge, or any other cake, in a large shallow tin; when baked and cold, turn it bottom up, brush off the crumbs, have ready (prepared according to the instructions for making frosting), enough frosting to thinly cover it.

Divide the frosting into two parts, let one remain plain white, color the other any desired color of pink you choose, with cochineal, or prepared vegetable pink color, place it in two separate paper cones, same as you use for ornamenting purposes.

Now take a tablespoonful of chocolate, warm it in a teacup and thin it a little with white of eggs, place this in another cone; cut off the points of each cone sufficient to admit of the sugar, &c., being pushed out the size you require it, then force it out across the cake in straight lines, chocolate, white, red, alternately; when the bottom is covered in this manner, take a knife and draw it from Fig. 1 to 2 in illustration, then 3 to 4, and so on till complete. It will then show as in illustration.

Then with the plain white sugar cone, run a fancy border round the edge as in Fig. II and it is complete. Set it by to dry, then place a dish with fancy paper under, and serve to table. The dark lines, medium and white, in the illustration, represent dark for chocolate, medium for pink sugar, and white for white sugar.