Part 37

_Drops._--Whisk ½ teacup water, 6 eggs, and 1 lb. sifted loaf sugar together till thick; add a few caraway seeds, and 18 oz. flour; mix lightly together; drop on wafer-paper, about the size of a small walnut; sift sugar over, and bake in a hot oven.

_Filbert Biscuits._--Rub 1 lb. butter into 3½ lb. flour; make a hole, and put in 10 oz. powdered loaf sugar; wet up with 4 tablespoonfuls honey-water, 1 of orange-flower water, and ¾ pint milk; break dough smooth; mould as large as a nutmeg, and round; cut twice across the top each way, about half through, with a sharp knife; place on tin; bake in steady heat.

_French Rolls._--Set a sponge with 1 qt. warm water, and ½ pint good small-beer yeast; let sponge rise and drop; melt 1 oz. butter in 1 pint warm milk, and 1 oz. salt; wet up about 7 lb. flour; let lie ½ hour; put on warm tins; prove well; bake in quick oven.

_Ginger Cake._--Prepare dough as for Bath cakes; add as much ground ginger as will give a pleasant taste; cut as thick as a shilling and as large as a penny; wash with water; bake quick.

_Hot Cross Buns._--Take 1 qt. milk, 12 oz. butter, 12 oz. sugar, ½ oz. mixed spice, 2 eggs, 2 oz. German yeast, or ½ teacupful of good thick small-beer yeast, and 4 lb. flour. If to be made with currants, add 1 or 1½ lb. currants, clean washed, picked, and dried. Make the milk blood-warm; if the weather is cold, rather warmer; put it into a gallon pan, with half the sugar, 6 oz. of flour, the yeast and eggs; mix together, cover the pan, and put in a warm place. When this has risen with a high, frothy head, and again fallen and become nearly flat, it is ready for the remaining portion of the ingredients to be mixed with it; but while rising, the butter should be rubbed in with the flour between the hands, until reduced to small crumbles. Mix the whole together into a nice mellow dough. If the flour is not very good and strong, about 4-6 oz. more may be required to make the dough of the required consistence. Cover the pan; let remain in a warm place for about ½ hour, or until the dough has risen 4 in. Make into buns by moulding the dough up into small balls lightly under the hands, and place on warm tins, slightly rubbed over with butter, about 3-4 in. asunder. Half-prove, and cross; brush the tops over with milk, and finish proving; bake in a hot oven; when done, brush the tops over again with milk. The best method for proving is to put the tins on shelves in a warm cupboard near the fire. Place a pan with hot water at the bottom, but put no tin on the pan. Put a piece of heated iron or brick into the water in the pan occasionally, to cause a steam to ascend, which will keep the surface of the buns moist, when they will expand or prove to their full size, otherwise the surface will be hardened, and prevent expansion. Keep the cupboard door close shut until ready to bake.

_Italian Bread._--Take 1 lb. butter, 1 lb. powdered loaf sugar, 18 oz. flour, 12 eggs, ½ lb. citron and lemon peel. Mix as for pound-cake. If the mixture begins to curdle, which is most likely from the quantity of eggs, add a little of the flour. When the eggs are all used, and it is light, stir in the remainder of the flour lightly. Bake in long, narrow tins, either papered or buttered; first put in a layer of the mixture, and cover with the peel cut in large thin slices; proceed in this way until ¾ full, and bake in a moderate oven.

_Lemon Biscuits._--Prepare dough as for filbert biscuits, but leave out orange-flower water and use 6 drops essence of lemon; cut out, dock with lemon docker; bake in good steady heat.

_Lemon Cheese Cake._--Prepare as for common cheese-cakes; grate rind of fresh lemon; squeeze the juice, and mix.

_Lord Mayor’s Cake._--Whisk 1 lb. sifted loaf sugar and 8 eggs in a warm earthen pan for 15 minutes, or until quite thick; add a few caraway seeds and 1 lb. flour; mix lightly with a spoon, and drop on paper, about the size of a small teacup; place on iron plates; sift sugar or caraway seeds on top; bake in hot oven; when done, take off the papers, and stick two together.

_Lunch or School Cake._--Mix ½ lb. moist sugar with 2 lb. flour; in a hole in the middle put 1 tablespoonful good thick yeast (not bitter); warm ½ pint milk rather more than blood warm, but not hot enough to scald the yeast; mix ⅓ with the yeast and a little of the flour; when it has risen (say ¾ hour if the yeast is good) melt ½ lb. butter in a little more milk; add 1½ lb. currants, a little candied peel, and grated rind of lemon, and 1 teaspoonful powdered allspice; mix; butter hoop or tin, put in, and set in warm place to rise; bake in warm oven. This cake should be mixed up rather softer than bread dough.

_Macaroons._--Pound 1 lb. blanched and dried sweet almonds fine in a mortar; pass through wire sieve; make into softish batter, with whites of 5 or 6 eggs, and a spoonful or two of orange-flower water; beat well; lay on oval wafer-paper; dredge tops with powdered loaf sugar; bake in rather cool oven.

_Madeira Cake._--Whisk 4 eggs very light, and, still whisking, throw in by slow degrees the following ingredients in the order named--6 oz. each sifted sugar and flour, 4 oz. butter, slightly dissolved but not heated, the rind of a fresh lemon, and ⅓ teaspoonful soda carbonate; beat well just before moulding; bake for 1 hour in moderate oven. Each portion of butter must be beaten into the mixture until no appearance of it remains, before the next is added.

_Muffins._--These should be baked on a hot iron plate. To 1 peck flour add ¾ pint good small-beer yeast, 4 oz. of salt, and water (or milk) slightly warmed, sufficient to form a dough of rather soft consistency; when light, small portions of the dough are put into holes, made in a layer of flour about 2 in. thick, placed on a board; cover up with a blanket, and stand near a fire, to cause the dough to rise to a semi-globular shape; place on heated iron plate, and bake; when bottoms begin to acquire brownish colour, turn, and bake opposite side.

_Naples Biscuits._--Take 6 oz. each moist and loaf sugar, ¼ pint water; proceed as for diet cake, with 6 eggs and ¾ lb. flour; have tins papered: fill nearly full of the batter; sugar the tops; bake in rather slow oven. These biscuits are diet-bread batter, fancifully dropped into tins, papered with white paper, and baked in a warm oven, with a little sugar sifted over the top.

_Oatmeal Cakes._--These are composed of oatmeal and water; and the difficulties lie, first, in wetting, with sufficient quickness, the whole of the meal, without drenching any portion of it; secondly, in properly kneading and rolling out the cakes with dexterity and despatch; and, finally, in turning them while baking, or “firing.” They are sometimes baked on a “girdle” or “griddle”--a flat piece of cast iron, placed over a bright fire; sometimes on a “toaster,” which is similar to a hanger, with a sliding back, which supports the cake in front of the fire; and sometimes in an American oven.

The process of making is as follows:--Put 2 or 3 handfuls of meal into a 3 pint basin; stir while pouring in boiling water; when all is moistened, having scattered a handful of dry meal over the paste-board, turn out the “leaven” with a spoon or your hand, dusted with meal; take a piece, according to the size of cake required, and knead out, using the rolling-pin if wanted thin; shape with a knife or tin cutter 4-5 in. in diameter. As oatmeal swells and dries very rapidly, to have cakes that will stick together, and, at the same time, eat short or “free,” this process cannot be done too expeditiously. Each of the three modes of baking gives a different flavour. For toasting let the cakes be 10 or 12 in. in diameter, nip up the edge all round, and cut them across twice, which makes a square edge for them to stand on. In this form they are called “farls.” For turning, use a broad, supple knife, or a piece of tin plate. A little butter melted in the water is an improvement.

_Parkin._--(_a_) 4 lb. oatmeal, 4 lb. treacle, 1 lb. sugar, 1 lb. butter, 2 oz. powdered ginger. Set a pan before the fire with the treacle and butter in it. When dissolved, add the other ingredients, and stir it as stiff as you can with a knife, but do not knead it. Add 1 teacupful brandy (if liked), and bake it in a cool oven in dripping pans or flat dishes about 2 in. thick. Do not turn it out till quite cold, or it will break, but cut it across with a knife where you would like it divided. It must be baked in a cool oven. Some people make it in round cakes. (_b_) 1 lb. Yorkshire oatmeal, 1 lb. thick treacle (not golden syrup), ¼ lb. butter, ¼ lb. moist sugar, mixed spice and ginger to taste. Rub the butter into the meal with the sugar and spice, then add the treacle (melted, if too thick), mix all well together, and bake in flat tins, such as are used for Yorkshire puddings, in a slow oven, for 2 hours or more. Parkin is not fit for eating for 2-3 days, till it has become perfectly soft. (_c_) 7 lb. oatmeal, 1 lb. butter, 2 lb. treacle, 3 tablespoonfuls soda carbonate; to be baked in hoops the same as teacakes. The butter to be melted and mixed with the treacle warm. (_d_) 4 lb. oatmeal, ¾ lb. butter, ¾ lb. lard; currants, raisins (candied lemon peel if approved), ginger, and cayenne pepper to taste. Add sufficient treacle to make the whole into a soft paste. Bake in a slow oven. The treacle, butter, and lard should be warmed a little together. Butter and lard keep the cake moist longer than if only butter were used.

_Plum Cake._--(_a_) Set a sponge with 1 lb. flour, ½ pint warm milk, and 3 tablespoonfuls good yeast; beat up 4 oz. butter, 4 oz. powdered sugar, 2 eggs, and 4 oz. flour as for pound cake; put in sponge, and beat all well together; add 1 lb. currants; bake without proving in a slow oven.

(_b_) Beat 1 lb. butter with your hand in a warm pan till it comes to a fine cream, add 1 lb. powdered loaf sugar; beat together to a nice cream; have 1¼ lb. flour sifted, put in a little, and stir; add 4 eggs; beat well; add a little more flour and 4 more eggs; beat it well again; stir in remainder of flour; for small cakes, butter the tins; for large ones, paper; sugar over the top, and bake in moderate heat.

(_c_) Sift 1 lb. loaf sugar; add 1 lb. fresh butter, melted a little, and worked by hand to consistency of cream; beat together; while doing so, add 10 eggs; beat till well incorporated; mix 4 oz. candied orange or lemon peel, shred or cut small, a few currants and 1 lb. flour well together; put in a hoop; sift sugar on top; bake in warm oven.

_Porridge._--Put on the fire a pan, of the size that will hold the quantity required, about ⅔ full of water; when the water is quick boiling take a handful of meal, and holding the hand over the pan--of course high enough to avoid being burned by the steam--let the meal slide slowly through the fingers into the water, the other hand stirring all the time with a wooden spoon, or what Scotch cooks call the “spurtle.” Continue this till enough of meal is put into the water, then add salt to taste, and, allow the porridge to boil for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally lest it stick to the pan and scorch. Porridge is not good if boiled less than 20 minutes; but for children, or delicate stomachs it should be boiled the full ½ hour, by which time the meal is so well swelled and softened that it becomes a digestible and most nutritious article of food. Letting the meal slide slowly into the water is an important element in making good porridge. If it is thrown in too quickly, or the water allowed to cease boiling, it forms into lumps, and is not so good. It is not easy to give any rule as to the proportion of meal to water, as the thickness of porridge is quite a matter of taste. Of course it must be still thin when one stops putting in the meal, as it swells to more than half as much again with the boiling.

_Pound Cake._--The following table gives the ingredients necessary for rich pound-, Twelfth-, or bride-cakes of different prices:--

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------- Ingredients. |10s.6d.| 12s. | 15s. | 18s. | 1l.1s.|1l.11s.| 2l.2s. ---------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------- | | | | | | | | lb.oz.| lb.oz.| lb.oz.| lb.oz.| lb.oz.| lb.oz.| lb.oz. Butter | 0 11 | 0 13 | 1 1 | 1 4 | 1 6 | 2 1 | 2 12 Sugar | 0 7 | 0 8 | 0 10 | 0 12 | 1 0 | 1 6 | 1 12 Currants | 1 4 | 1 6 | 1 10 | 2 0 | 2 8 | 3 12 | 5 0 Orange, lemon, | 0 6 | 0 7 | 0 8 | 0 10 | 0 12 | 1 2 | 1 8 and citron | | | | | | | (mixed) | | | | | | | Almonds | 0 1½| 0 2 | 0 2 | 0 3 | 0 3 | 0 4 | 0 6 Mixed spice* | 0 0½| | 0 0¾| | 0 1 | 0 1½| 0 2 Flour | 0 11 | 0 13 | 1 1 | 1 4 | 1 6 | 2 1 | 2 12 Eggs (number) | 6 | 7 | 9 | 10 | 12 | 18 | 24 Brandy, or | Wine | glass | full | | ¼ pt.| | ½ pt. brandy and | | | | | | | wine | | | | | | | ---------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------

* Nutmegs, mace, and cinnamon, of equal parts, in powder.

These proportions allow for the cake being iced. If more sugar is preferred, it may be the same as the butter; less is used that the cake may be light, and to allow for the sweet fruit. Double the quantity of almonds may be used. To make: warm a smooth pan, large enough for the mixture; put in the butter, and reduce it to a fine cream, by working it about the pan with your hand. In summer the pan need not be warmed; but in winter keep the mixture as warm as possible, without oiling the butter. Add the sugar and mix it well with the butter, until it becomes white and feels light in the hand. Break in 2 or 3 eggs at a time, and work the mixture well before more is added. Continue doing this until all are used and it becomes light; then add the spirit, currants, peel, spice, and almonds, most of the almonds being previously cut in thin slices, and the peel into small thin strips and bits. When these are incorporated, mix in the flour lightly; put it in a hoop with paper over the bottom and round the sides, and place on a baking-plate. Large cakes require 3 or 4 pieces of stiff paper round the sides; and if the cake is very large, a pipe or funnel, made either of stiff paper or tin, and well buttered, should be put in the centre, and the mixture placed round it; this is to allow the middle of the cake to be well baked, otherwise the edge would be burnt 2 or 3 in. deep before it could be properly done. Place the tin plates containing the cake on another, the surface of which is covered 1 or 2 in. thick with sawdust or fine ashes to protect the bottom. Bake it in an oven at a moderate heat. The time required to bake it will depend on the state of the oven and the size of the cake. A guinea cake in an oven of a proper heat will take 4 to 5 hours. When the cake is cold proceed to ice it. Wedding-cakes have generally, first, a coating on the top of almond icing; when this is dry, the sides and top are covered with royal or white icing. Fix on gum paste or other ornaments while it is wet; and when dry, ornament with piping, orange-blossoms, ribbon, &c.; the surface and sides are often covered with small knobs of white sugar candy whilst the icing is wet. Twelfth-cakes are iced with white or coloured icing, and decorated with gum paste, plaster ornaments, piping-paste, rings, knots, and fancy papers, &c., and piped.

_Prussian Cake._--Rub 4 oz. butter into 7 lb. flour; wet up with 1 qt. warm milk, 1 pint warm water, 4 yolks of eggs, and ½ pint good thick yeast; if obliged to take more yeast, leave out some of the water; let dough lie 10-20 minutes; mould up round, ½-¾ lb. each; place on tins, about 2 in. from each other; put in warm place, and prove well; bake in steady heat; melt a little butter and wash over when done.

_Queen’s Biscuits._--Rub 1 lb. butter into 2 lb. flour; add 1 lb. powdered sugar; make a hole and pour in ¼ pint milk, to mix it up with; add a few caraways, if you choose; roll the paste in sheets of the thickness of a halfpenny, cut into biscuits with a small round or oval cutter: place on clean tins, see that they do not quite touch; prick with a fork, and bake in a quick oven till they begin to change colour; when cold, they will be crisp.

_Queen’s Cake._--Warm 1 lb. butter a little in an earthen pan, and work it by hand to a smooth cream; add 1 lb. finely-powdered and sifted loaf sugar; stir well with the butter for 5 minutes; add 8 eggs and 2 spoonfuls water gradually, continuing the beating until the whole is well mixed: stir in lightly 20 oz. flour, and a handful of currants; fill some small round buttered tins; dust tops with powdered loaf sugar; bake in warm oven.

_Queen’s Drops._--Prepare as for pound cakes; add 2 oz. more flour, 1½ lb. currants; drop on whited brown paper, about the size of large nutmegs, about 2 inches from each other; put sheets on tins; bake in steady oven.

_Queen’s Gingerbread._--Take 2 lb. honey, 1¾ lb. moist sugar, 3 lb. flour, ½ lb. sweet almonds blanched, ½ lb. preserved orange peel cut in thin fillets, the yellow rinds of 2 lemons grated off, 1 oz. cinnamon, ½ oz. each cloves, mace, and cardamoms, mixed and powdered; put the honey into a pan over the fire, with a wineglassful of water, and make quite hot; mix other ingredients together; make a bay, pour in the honey, and mix; let stand till next day; make into cakes, and bake; rub a little clarified sugar until it will blow into bubbles through a skimmer, and with a paste-brush rub over gingerbread when baked.

_Rice Pound-cake._--Take 1 lb. butter, 1 lb. powdered loaf sugar, 12 oz. flour, ½ lb. ground rice, and 12 eggs. Mix as Italian bread, and bake in a papered hoop. If required with fruit, put 2 lb. currants, ¾ lb. peel, 1 grated nutmeg, and a little pounded mace.

_Rout Biscuits._--Put 1 lb. powdered loaf sugar into a basin, with 3 gills milk, and let stand 2 hours, stirring occasionally; rub ½ lb. butter into 2 lb. flour; make a hole in it, add a little sal volatile pounded fine, and an egg, with the dissolved sugar; stir together, and mix into smooth dough; let lie 10 minutes; cut out; place on buttered tins; wash with milk; bake quickly.

_Rout Cake._--Pound 1 lb. sweet almonds, blanched and dried, and 1 lb. loaf sugar in a mortar; sieve; put what will not pass into a mortar again, with 4 yolks of eggs, and the rind of a lemon; pound very fine, put in what has passed through sieve, and mix all together; make any shape; sprinkle lightly with a little water; sift sugar over, and put on tins that have been rubbed with a bit of butter, so as not to touch each other; bake in rather brisk oven till lightly coloured over; if coloured too deep at bottom, put cold tins under to finish baking.

(_c_) Take shape, butter it, sift sugar into it, and turn out all the sugar that does not stick to the butter; mix ½ lb. sifted sugar, and 6 oz. sifted flour; warm pan, put in sugar, break in 4 whole eggs and 1 yolk; whisk till warm and then cold; stir in flour, turn batter into the shape, and bake in slow oven about 1 hour; when done, turn out bottom uppermost.

_Rusks._--Put 1 qt. warm milk into a pan, with 1 oz. German yeast, 4 oz. moist sugar, and about 6 oz. flour; mix, and put aside in warm place to rise. Rub 6 oz. butter into 3½ lb. flour, and make into a dough with the ferment as soon as ready; prove a little, and divide in pieces of about 1½ lb. each; roll in long rolls about size of rolling-pin; place on buttered tins, 3-4 in. apart; flat down a little with the hand; prove well; bake in moderately heated oven; when cold, cut across in slices; place on tins, and brown off on both sides in brisk oven.

_Saffron Buns._--Made with the same mixture as hot cross buns, but with the addition of 1 oz. caraway seeds, and colouring with saffron.

_Sally Lunns._--Take flour, a little salt and butter, 2 or 3 eggs, a small quantity of yeast, and milk and water; make light dough; set to rise after kneading; make dough into cakes, large enough to slice into rounds for toasting; bake slightly and quickly in hot oven.

_Savoy Biscuits._--Powder and sift 1 lb. loaf sugar; sift 1 lb. flour; warm a pan, and put in the sugar; break 1 lb. eggs upon it; beat both together with a whisk till warm; beat till cold; stir in your flour; have a bladder and pipe ready; put batter into the bladder, and force through on sheets of paper; sift sugar over, and bake in quick oven; when cold, turn up, and wet bottom of paper; turn back again, and in 5 minutes they will come off easily.

_Savoy Cake._--(_a_) Hot Mixture.--Take 1 lb. powdered loaf sugar, 1 pint good eggs, and 14 oz. flour. Warm a pan, free from grease, with the sugar in it, in the oven until you can scarcely bear your hand against it; then take out and pour in the eggs; whisk with a birch or wire whisk until quite light and cold, when it will be white and thick. If it should not whisk up well, warm again and beat as before; or it may be beat over the stove fire until it is of the warmth of new milk. When finished, sift the flour and stir it in lightly with a spoon, adding a few drops of essence of lemon to flavour it. Butter some tin or copper moulds regularly, with rather less on the top than the sides. Dust with loaf sugar sifted through a lawn sieve. Knock out all that does not adhere, and again dust with fine flour; turn out, and knock the mould on the board. Tie or pin a piece of buttered paper round the mould, so as to come 2 or 3 in. above the bottom. Fix the mould in a stand and nearly fill it. Bake in a moderate oven. When done, the top should be firm and dry. Try it by pushing in a small piece of stick or whisk, and if it comes out dry, it is done. The surface of the cake should be quite smooth. There is as much art in buttering the mould properly as in preparing the mixture.

(_b_) Cold Mixtures.--Separate the yolks from the whites when you break the eggs. Put the yolks into a clean pan with the sugar, and the whites in another by themselves. Let the pans be quite free from grease. If they are rubbed round with a little flour, it will take off any which may be left. Wipe out with a clean cloth. Beat up the yolks and sugar by themselves, with a wooden spoon, and afterwards whip up the whites to a very strong froth. If they should happen to be rather weak, a bit of powdered alum may be added. When the whites are whisked up firm, stir in the yolks and sugar. Sift the flour and mix it lightly with the spatula, adding a little essence of lemon to flavour. Fill the moulds and bake as before. When cakes are made in this way, the eggs should be quite fresh and good, otherwise the whites cannot be whipped up. When weak, pickled eggs are used. A good method is to beat the eggs first by themselves, over a fire, until they are warm; then add the sugar, and whip it over the fire until again warm, or make as for hot mixtures, and heat twice.

_Scones._--Warm fresh milk almost to boiling; stir in as much flour as will make a mass that will turn clean out of the bowl without leaving anything adhering to the sides, roll out thin; cut into rounds; bake lightly and quickly.

_Seed Cake._--As for pound cakes, but instead of currants and candied lemon peel, substitute a few caraway seeds; omit sugar on top.