The CWI Cookbook

 Cream filling:
1 qt. milk
4 tbs. flour, sifted
4 eggs, separated and beaten
5 heaping tablespoons sugar
Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon

Cakes:
1 pint flour, sifted
1/4 lb (1 stick) butter
1 qt milk
3/4 lb. flour
12 eggs, separated
Butter for greasing baking tins
1 egg to coat finished cakes

Take one quart of sweet new milk, from which take three table-spoonfuls to moisten four tablespoonfuls of sifted flour, and put the remainder on to boil; separate four eggs and beat them as stiff as possible; add to the yolks five heaping table-spoonfuls of pulverized loaf-sugar; when the milk is boiling hot, stir in first the moistened flour, let it thicken but not boil, then stir the whites and yolks together and beat them well, pour a little of the boiled milk in the egg, stir it well, and then mix it in the hot milk, let it boil three minutes, then add the grated rind and juice of one lemon, and set it away to cool, then proceed to make the paste [dough for the cakes]; take one pint of sifted flour and one-fourth of a pound of butter, set it over hot water until it melts, then add a quart of milk and stir in three-fourths of a pound of flour, let it scald through; then let it become cold, beat all the lumps out, separate and beat twelve eggs, stir them in the paste, first the yolks and then the whites; butter twenty-four round tins, fill them not quite half full; bake thoroughly; when cold, open them a little with a knife and put in the cream; press the edges together and wet them over with egg. These cakes must be used the same day they are baked.

The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia by Mrs. E. F. Haskell, 1861

Comment: We freely confess this is not a recipe we have ever actually tried to make, nor for that matter even seriously considered it. Just reading the recipe–was it a matter of actual law or merely custom that seems to have barred the use of the period as a punctuation mark? This entire recipe, for two totally separate items, the cakes and the filling, uses a mere two sentences, the second of which is just advisory–is so exhausting that we have to go lie down rather than reach for the flour, eggs and utensils.