Martha Washington'S Great Cake - cooking recipe

Ingredients

40 eggs, separated
4 lbs butter, softened
4 lbs sugar
5 lbs flour
5 lbs fruit (pears & apples)
1/2 ounce mace
1 nutmeg
1 cup wine
french brandy

Preparation

WRITTEN AS PER MARTHA WASHINGTON'S DIRECTIONS.
Take forty eggs and divide the whites from the yolks, and beat them (whites) to a froth.
Then work the butter to a cream, and put the whites of the eggs to it, a cup at a time, until well-worked.
Then add sugar (finely powdered) to it in the same manner (one cup at a time).
Then put the egg yolks and flour and fruit to it.
Add to it mace, nutmeg, wine and brandy.
Two hours will bake it. (350 degrees).
In the TV program: Martha Stewart baked this in a 16x16x3-inch square pan (it was HUGE!). I suppose you could divide the batter between two 13x9 pans, too.
She frosted it with a meringue (whipped egg white & sugar) that was lightly baked to give it a crunch -- and claimed that it would keep for weeks if the cake wasn't cut.
She's got a smaller version on her website.