Half a pound of butter, one pound of sugar, six eggs – whites and yolks beaten separately, juice of one lemon, grated rind of two lemons, a grated nutmeg, half a glass of brandy.
Cream butter and sugar light, beat in the yolks, spice, and brandy, and, last of all, fold in the stiffened whites. Bake in open crust of the best puff paste.
The above recipe is a hundred years old and is as delicious (and as rich) now as when it was inscribed upon the sallowed leaves of my grandmother’s recipe book. A note below adds:
“If you would make this into a more elegant dish, you may beat the whites of but four eggs into the mixture and whip the whites of four more into a standing froth with four tablespoonfuls of fine white sugar and a little lemon juice to spread over the top of the pie. The recipe should make two large pies. They are very nice baked in patty pans, when they are called by some ‘cheese cakes.’ Some fanciful persons insist that they were the very ‘cheese cake’ spoken of in the Arabian Nights, and that ‘pepper,’ in the tale, meant nutmeg.”
One may use four eggs instead of six.