Recipe for making a Dumb Cake

This fireplace is from Dolgoch Youth Hostel in Wales, not Devon!  - If you want to use my images, please do, but I would appreciate it if you attributed this blog

"IN the preparation of a dumb cake, if perfection be desired, it is imperative to observe strict: silence, and to follow these instructions closely.

Let any number of unmarried ladies each take a handful of wheaten flour, and place it on a sheet of white paper, then sprinkle it with as much salt as can be held between the finger and thumb ; then, one must put as much clear spring-water as will make it into dough, which being done, each of the party must roll it up, and spread it thin and broad, and each maid must, at some distance apart, make the first letters of their Christian and surname with a large new pin, towards the end of the cake ; if more christian-names than one, the first letter of each one must be made. Then set the cake before the fire, and each girl must sit down in a chair, as far from the fire as the room will admit, not speaking a word all the time. This must be done between eleven and twelve o'clock at night. Each person in rotation must turn the cake once, and five minutes after midnight the husband of her who is to be wed first will appear and lay his hand upon that part of the cake bearing her initials. From the Norwood Gipsy Fortune-teller.

If the cake be eaten, strict silence must be observed from the moment a slice is cut. The person walks backwards from the room, up the stairs, and after undressing goes into bed, still backwards. Stumbling and giggling are inadmissible. It is presumed that happy dreams of " the loved one" will occupy the hours of slumber."

Hewett 1900

[This recipe seems to be taken from a publication talking about London, but as "Dumb Cake" is used in one of the previous post I thought it was worth posting. The last paragraph could well be referring to a Devon practice - the area covered by Hewetts book.]