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- BREAD AND BISCUIT BAKER'S
- AND
- SUGAR-BOILER'S ASSISTANT
- Including a large variety of Modern Recipes
- FOR
- BREAD -- TEA CAKES -- HARD AND FANCY BISCUITS -- BUNS -- GINGERBREADS --
- SHORTBREADS -- PASTRY -- CUSTARDS -- FRUIT CAKES -- SMALL GOODS FOR
- SMALL MASTERS -- CONFECTIONS IN SUGAR -- LOZENGES -- ICE CREAMS -- PRESERVING FRUIT -- CHOCOLATE, ETC. ETC.
- WITH REMARKS ON
- THE ART OF BREAD -- MAKING
- AND
- CHEMISTRY AS APPLIED TO BREAD -- MAKING
- BY
- ROBERT WELLS
- PRACTICAL BAKER! CONFECTIONERY, AND PASTRYCOOK, SCARBOROUGH
Second Edition, with Additional Recipes.
LONDON
CROSBY LOCKWOOD AND SON
7, STATIONERS' HALL COURT, LUDGATE HILL
1890
[All rights reserved.]
Electronic Edition: Raymond
A. Weston For EMAIL.
PREFACE.
In submitting the following pages for
public approval, the Author hopes that the work may prove acceptable
and useful to the Baking Trade as a Book of Instruction for Learners,
and for daily reference in the Shop and Bakehouse; and having
exercised great care in its compilation, he believes that in all its
details it will be found a trustworthy guide.
From his own experience in the
Baker's business, he is satisfied that a book of this kind, embodying
in a handy form the accumulated results of the work of practical men,
is really wanted; and as in the choice of Recipes he has been guided
by an intimate acquaintance with the requirements of the trade, and
as every recipe here given has been tested by actual and successful
use, he trusts that the labour which he has bestowed upon the
preparation of the work may be rewarded by its wide acceptance by his
brethren in the trade.
The work being divided into sections,
as shown in the Contents, and a full Index having been added,
reference can readily be made, as occasion may arise, either to a
class of goods, or to a particular recipe.
Any suggestions for the improvement
of the work, which the experience of others may lead them to propose,
will, if communicated to the Author, be gratefully esteemed and
carefully dealt with in future editions.
SCARBOROUGH,
October, I888.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE
SECOND EDITION.
It is very gratifying to both Author
and Publishers that this little book has been so favourably received
by the Baking Trade and the public that a second edition is required
within a few months of the first issue of the work. The opportunity
has been taken to insert some additional recipes for the whole-meal
and other breads which of late have been so frequently recommended as
substitutes for the white bread in established use, together with
some remarks on the subject by Professors Jago and Graham; and a few
corrections in the text (the necessity for which escaped notice when
the work was first in the press) have also been made.
August, 1889.
CONTENTS.
BREAD AND BISCUIT
BAKING, ETC.
Slow Process in the Art of
Bread-making Need of Technical Training Chemistry as applied to Bread-making.
Liebig on the Process of Bread-making
Professors Jago and Graham on Brown Bread
II. --
GENERAL REMARKS ON BAKING
Baking and its several Branches
Essentials of good Bread-making German Yeast and Parisian Barm Recipe
for American Patent Yeast. Judging between good and bad Flour Liebig
on the Action of Alum in Bread Professor Vaughan on Adulteration with
Alum Importance of good Butter to the Pastrycook.
III. --
BREAD, TEA CAKES, BUNS, ETC.
- 1. To make Home-made Bread
- 2. Bread-malting by the Old Method
- 3. Modern Way of making Bread
- 4. Scotch Style of making Bread
- 5. Home-made Whole Meal Bread
- 6. Whole Meal Bread for Master Bakers
- 7. Unfermented or Diet Bread
- 8. Rye Bread
- 9. Coarse Bread
- 10. Germ Flour Bread
- 11. Tea Cakes
- 12. Queen's Bread
- 13. Sally Luns, Yorkshire, or Tea Cakes
- 14. Muffins
- 15. Another Way
- 16. Crumpets
- 17. Oatmeal Cake
- 18. Bath Buns
- 19. Another Way
- 20. Hot Cross Buns
- 21. Chelsea Buns
- 22. Balmoral Cakes
- 23. Balloon or Prussian Cakes
- 24. Saffron Buns
- 25. Cinnamon Buns
- 26. Jubilee Buns
- 27. German Buns
- 28. Common German Buns (for wholesale purposes)
- 29. London Buns
- 30. Penny Queen Cakes
- 31. Patent Flour
- 32. Penny Rice Cakes
- 33. Coconut Cakes
- 34. Albert Cakes
IV. -- GINGERBREAD,
PARKINGS, SHORTBREAD, ETC.
- 35. Queen's Gingerbread
- 36. German Gingerbread
- 37. Spiced Gingerbread
- 38. Scarborough Gingerbread (for wholesale purposes)
- 39. Ginger Cakes
- 40. Prepared Treacle
- 41. Prepared Treacle for Thick Gingerbread
- 42. Laughing or Fun Nuts
- 43. Grantham or White Gingerbread
- 44. Spice Nuts
- 45. Another Way
- 46. Another Way
- 47. Light Gingerbread
- 48. Italian Jumbles, or Brandy Snaps
- 49. Halfpenny Gingerbread Squares
- 50. Hunting Nuts
- 51. Parkings
- 52. Another Way
- 53. Parking Cake
- 54. Scotch Shortbread
- 55. English Shortbread
- 56. French Shortbread
- 57. Machine-made Biscuits
- 58. Ship Biscuits
- 59. Captains' Biscuits
- 60. Thick Captains
- 61. Abernethy Biscuits (Dr. Abernethy's original recipe)
- 62. Abernethys as made in London
- 63. Usual Way of making Abernethy Biscuits
- 64. Wine Biscuits
- 65. Soda Biscuits
- 66. Boston Lemon Crackers
- 67. Pic-Nics
- 68. Common Pic-Nics
- 69. Luncheon Biscuits
- 70. Digestive Biscuits
- 71. Another Way
- 72. Small Arrowroot Biscuits
- 73. Coffee Biscuits
- 74. Victoria Biscuits
- 75. Shell Biscuits
- 76. York Biscuits
- 77. Machine Biscuits
- 78. Bath Oliver Biscuits
- 79. Edinburgh Biscuits
- 80. Nursery Biscuits
- 81. Soda Biscuits
VI. -- FANCY BISCUITS,
ALMONDS, Etc.
- 82. Digestive Biscuit
- 83. Kent Biscuits
- 84. Imperial or Lemon Biscuits
- 85. Venice Biscuits
- 86. Shrewsbury Biscuits
- 87. Another Way
- 88. Another Way.
- 89. Peruvian Biscuits
- 90. Currant Fruit Biscuits
- 91. Snowdrop Biscuits
- 92. Rice Biscuits
- 93. Genoa and Toulouse Biscuits, Exhibition Nuts and Marseillaise Biscuits
- 94. Walnut Biscuits
- 95. Queen's Drops
- 96. Cracknel Biscuits
- 97. Premium Drops
- 98. German Wafers
- 99. Crimp, or Honeycomb Biscuits
- 100. Hermit Biscuits
- 101. Italian Macaroons
- I02. Common Macaroons
- 103. French Macaroons
- 104. Ratafias
- 105. Princess Biscuits
- 106. Rusks
- 107. Rock Almonds (White)
- 108. Rock Almonds (Pink)
- 109. Rock Almonds (Brown}
- 110. Almond Fruit Biscuits
- 111. Meringues
- 112. Another Way
- 113. Common Drop Biscuits
- 114. Savoy Biscuits.
- 115. French Savoy Biscuits
- 116. Judges' Biscuits
- 117. Lord Mayor's Biscuits
- 118. Fruit Biscuits
- 119. Palais Royal Biscuits
- 120. Rice Biscuits
- 121. Scarborough Water Cakes
- 122. Sponge Biscuits
- 123. Almond Sponge Biscuits.
- 124. Naples Biscuits
VII. --
PASTRY, CUSTARDS, ETC.
- 125. Butter for Puff Paste
- 126. Puff Paste
- 127. Another Way
- 128. Crisp Tart Paste
- 129. Sweet Tart Paste
- 130. Paste for a Baked Custard
- 131. Paste for small Raised Pies
- 132. To make a handsome Tartlet
- 133. Nelson Cake or Eccles Cake
- 134. To make a Custard
- 135. Common Custard
VIII.
-- FRUIT CAKES, BRIDE CAKES, ETC.
- 136. Directions for mixing Cakes made with Butter
- 137. Another Way
- 138. London Way of mixing Cakes
- 139. Another Way of mixing Cakes
- 140. Citron Cake
- 141. Common Fruit Cake
- 142. Pound Cakes
- 143. Seed Cakes
- 144. Two and Three Pound Cakes
- 145. Another Seed Cake
- 146. Four and Six Pound Cakes
- 147. Bride Cakes
- 148. Icing Sugar for Bride Cakes, &c
- 149. Almond Icing for Bride Cakes
- 150. Wedding Cake
- 151. Rich Twelfth Cake
- 152. Madeira Cakes
- 153. Plum Cake (as made for the best shops in Edinburgh)
- 154. Genoa Cake
- 155. Rice Cake (Scotch Mixture)
- 156. Madeira Cake (Scotch Mixture)
- 157. Pond Cake or Dundee Cake
- 158. Silver Cake
- 159. Gold Cake
- 160. Plum Cake at 6d. per lb. (as sold by Grocers}
- 161. Another Way
- 162. Another Way
- 163. Mystery, or Cheap Plum Cake at 3d per lb
- 164. Plum Cake at 4d per lb
- 165. Lafayette Cakes
- 166. American Genoa Cake
- 167. Lemon Cake
- 168. Bristol Cake
- 169. Jubilee Cakes
IX. --
HANDY WHOLESALE RECIPES FOR SMALL MASTERS.
- 170. Soda Cakes or Scones
- 171. Currant or Milk Scones
- 172. Sugar or White Spice Biscuits
- 173. Halfpenny Scotch Cakes
- 174. Large Square Penny Albert Cake
- 175. Brandy Snaps
- 176. Nonpareil Biscuits
- 177. Common Halfpenny Queen Cake
- 178. Halfpenny Lunch Cake
- 179. Polkas or Halfpenny Sponges
SUGAR-BOILING, ETC.
X. --
CONFECTIONS IN SUGAR-BOlLING.
- 180. Clarifying Sugar
- 181. Testing Sugar
- 182. To boil Sugar to the degree called "Pearled"
- 183. To boil Sugar to the degree called "Blown"
- 184. To boil Sugar to the degree called "Feathered"
- 185. To boil Sugar to the "Ball" Degree
- 186. To boil Sugar to the degree called "Crackled"
- 187. To boil Sugar to the degree called "Caramelled"
- 188. To boil Sugar by the Thermometer
- 189. Barley Sugar
- 190. Barley Sugar Drops.
- 191. Acid Drops
- 192. Pineapple Drops
- 193. Poppy Drops
- 194. Ginger Drops
- 195. Cayenne Drops
- 196. Ginger Candy
- 197. Lemon Candy
- 198. Peppermint Candy
- 199. Rose Candy
- 200. Burnt Almonds
- 201. Cast Sugar Drops
- 202. Rose Drops
- 203. Orange-flower Drops
- 204. Chocolate Drops
- 205. Coffee Drops
- 206. Barberry Drops
- 207. Peppermint Drops
- 208. Pineapple Drops
- 209. Vanilla Drops
- 210. Ginger Drops
- 211. Lemon Drops
- 212. Orange Drops
- 213. Pearl Drops
- 214. Lavender, Violet, Musk, and Millefleur Drops
- 215. Pink Burnt Almonds.
- 216. Philadelphia Caramels
- 217. Boston Chips
- 218. Engagement Favours
- 219. Almond Hardbake
- 220. To make Gum Paste
- 221. To spin a Silver Web
- 222. To spin a Gold Web.
- 223. A Spun Sugar Pyramid
- 224. To spin a Gold Sugar Crocanth
- 225. To spin a Gold Cup.
- 226. A Spun Sugar Beehive
- 227. To ornament a Beehive
- 228. To prepare Sugar for Colouring
- 229. To colour Sugar
- 230. Blue Colouring
- 231. Carmine Colouring
- 232. Green Colouring
- 233. Another Way
- 234. Orange Colouring
- 235. Red Colouring
- 236. Yellow Colouring
- 237. Peppermint Lozenges
- 238. Rose Lozenges
- 239. Ginger Lozenges
- 240. Transparent Mint Lozenges
- 241. Cinnamon Lozenges
- 242. Clove Lozenges
- 243. Nutmeg Lozenges
- 244. Lavender Lozenges
- 245. Vanilla Lozenges
- 246. Brilliants
- 247. Vanilla Ice Cream
- 248. Bisque or Biscuit Glace
- 249. Crushed Strawberry Ice Cream
- 250. Hokey Pokey
- 251 Coconut Ice
- 252. Large Strawberries
- 253. Strawberry Jam
- 254. Raspberry Jelly
- 255. Black Currant Jelly
- 256. Red Currant Jam
- 257. Apple Jelly
- 258. Gooseberry Jam
- 259. Orange Marmalade
- 260. General Directions for Making Chocolate
- 261. Chocolate Harlequin Pistachios
- 262. Chocolate Drops with Nonpareils
- 263. Chocolate in Moulds
THE
BREAD AND BISCUIT BAKER'S ASSISTANT.
When we reflect upon the present
conditions under which the bread-making industry is carried on in
most of the large cities and towns of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
and remember the importance of that industry to mankind, we cannot
but be impressed by the little progress that has been made in the art
of bread-making. Whilst other industries have been marked by
important improvements, we find bread being made in much the same
manner as it was five hundred years ago. The mystery is how -- by
accident, it would seem -- We get such well-made bread as we do.
There are very few even now who have the slightest conception of what
yeast really is, and fewer still who know how or why it makes bread
light. But it will surprise me if the trade does not undergo, in the
course of the next ten years, a complete and beneficial change.
Master bakers and confectioners are
everywhere complaining of the incompetency of their workmen; and it
cannot be denied that there is some ground for the complaint. Proper
training in the baking and confectionery trade is of great
importance. A trained servant gives satisfaction to his employer, and
receives a responsive good feeling in return.
Let us see what is meant by
"training." In its broadest and best sense, it is knowing
what to do, and when and how to do it.
Take the first condition -- What to
do. This may be considered on two grounds, generally known as the
practical and the theoretical, though the latter is sometimes
confounded with the scientific, and people are led to sneer at
science. Much has been said lately in our trade journals about
introducing scientific chemistry to the journeyman baker in
connection with his daily work of making bread. But how many
journeyman bakers could we find that even understand the meaning of
the word chemistry, without expecting them to understand mysteries to
which years of study have been devoted by such men as Liebig, Graham,
Dumas, Darwin, Pasteur, and Thorns of Alyth?
CHEMISTRY AS APPLIED
TO BREAD-MAKING.
It is not my intention to depreciate
the great good that would be derived from scientific chemistry if
properly applied to bread-making. But who is to study and apply it?
Surely not a man who earns from 20s. to 30s. per week, and works
twelve, fourteen, and sixteen hours a day in an overheated
atmosphere. What hours of rest he has should be used to recuperate
his lost vitality. Not till scientific chemistry is taught in our
Board schools and made one of the elements of a scholar's ordinary
education, can we hope to see it used successfully with bakers in
making bread.
Chemistry, I believe, is destined to
play as important a part in the annals of the baking trade as did the
substitution of machinery for hand labour. But at the present day how
many bakers know that the decomposition of sugar produces
fermentation; that fermentation destroys sugar and produces alcohol;
that maltose assists fermentation; that starch, however obtained, has
always the same characteristics, though there are different kinds
from different sources; that dextrine is soluble in water and
insoluble in alcohol; that protoplasm, the basis of all life,
consists of proteine, compounds, mineral salts, nitrogen, &c. ?
And do not the meaning and use of terms familiar in scientific
chemistry -- such as diastase, cereslin, gluten, and others -- only
perplex the ordinary journeyman baker, and make him think that the
less he has to do with science, the more easily he will get his life
"rubbed through." It is impossible for working bakers to
become acquainted with these things while in the bakehouse; and while
there are in many towns such valuable institutions as free libraries,
mechanics' institutes, &c., they are not available to the
ordinary baker, as his hours are so exceptional. The baker's hours of
labour, indeed, are shorter in many places than they used to be, and
he is no longer called "the white slave." Still, the spirit
of competition is so strong that a baker has to work much harder
proportionally than other working men, and his mind is in no
condition, in the little spare time he has, to study the problems of
science; and nobody can expect the baker to know, as it were by
intuition, the whys and the wherefores of chemistry. However, what he
has learnt in the practice of his art, and what the common custom of
the trade has handed down to him, he may use to more or less
advantage, according as he has more or less personal skill. In the
case of fermentation, which may be described as the very backbone of
bread-making, a baker will find plenty to study and to think about,
from his first "setting the sponge" until his bread is out
of the oven, without perplexing himself over problems about which he
can understand little or nothing.
With time and money at his disposal,
however, the study of chemistry opens up a wide field to the studious
baker, and would no doubt reward him for his pains, and at the same
time prove a great gain to his trade; and I believe there are not a
few earnest workers labouring at the present time to afford that
knowledge and help to the journeyman baker which will eventually lead
to an easier way of earning his daily bread.
The process of fermentation, which
has for its object either the manufacture of bread, or of an
alcoholic product in a more or less concentrated form, is very
similar in action during its earlier stages. It commences with the
growth and multiplication of the fermenting germs contained in the
minute organisms floating in the air, the inorganic constituents of
the water, and the protoplasm (essence of life) of the yeast; and all
the changes brought about are accompanied by heat. Fermentation is
caused by the decomposition of the starch and gluten of a solution of
either potatoes, flour, or malted barley, which decomposition is
accompanied by an evolution of gas. There is also a peculiar
vibration given to the various bodies in contact, which agitates the
whole. This agitation is increased by the bursting of the
starch-cells and the formation therefrom of maltose, and also by the
changing of the maltose sugar into carbonic acid gas. Substances in a
state of decomposition are capable of bringing about a change in the
chemical composition of bodies with which they are in contact. Most
of the vegetable substances used in fermentation have a constituent
part -- sugar, starch, or some other substance -- which is easily
converted into a fermentable sugar by the action of yeast, or of
diluted mineral acids, or by a constituent of malted barley, called
diastase. The sugar produced by these means is resolved into carbonic
acid gas and alcohol by vinous fermentation. It will be seen,
therefore, that fermentation is started by the saccharine element in
the ferment, which is termed maltose; the process is then kept up by
the gluten, which, becoming decomposed, aids the sugar and starch in
the work of providing food for the yeast as soon as the latter is
brought in contact with it. The fermentation then takes place very
rapidly, and carbonic acid gas is generated and given off in
proportion to the amount of the products contained in the ferment, or
sponge, and also to the strength and freshness of the yeast:
especially is this so with gluten, which is the great agent of
fermentation, when in a state of decomposition and when in contact
with yeast.
PROCESS OF BREAD-MAKING.
It will be useful to give here some
remarks by the great scientist, Liebig, on the best process of making
bread: --
"Many chemists are of opinion
that flour by the fermentation in the dough loses somewhat of its
nutritious constituents, from a decomposition of the gluten; and it
has been proposed to render the dough porous without fermentation by
means of substances which when brought into contact yield carbonic
acid. But on a closer investigation of the process this view appears
to have little foundation.
"When flour is made into dough
with water, and allowed to stand at a gentle warmth, a change takes
place in the gluten of the dough, similar to that which occurs after
the steeping of barley in the commencement of germination in the
seeds in the preparation of malt; and in consequence of this change
the starch (the greater part of it in malting; in dough only a small
percentage)is converted into sugar, a small portion of the gluten
passes into the soluble state, in which it acquires the properties of
albumen, but by this change it loses nothing whatever of its
digestibility or of its nutritive value.
"We cannot bring flour and water
together without the formation of sugar from the starch; and it is
this sugar and not the gluten of which a part enters into
fermentation, and is resolved into alcohol and carbonic acid.
"We know that malt is not
inferior in nutritive power to barley from which it is derived,
although the gluten contained in it has undergone a much more
profound alteration than that of flour in the dough, and experience
has taught us that in distilleries where spirits are made from
potatoes, the plastic constituents of the potatoes, and of the malt
which is added after having gone through the entire course of the
processes of the formation and the fermentation of the sugar, have
lost little or nothing of their nutritive value. It is certain
therefore, that in the making of bread there is no loss of gluten.
"Only a small part of the starch
of the flour is consumed in the production of sugar, and the
fermentative process is not only the simplest and best but also the
cheapest of all the methods which have been recommended for rendering
bread porous. Besides, chemical preparations ought never, as a rule,
to be recommended by chemists for culinary purposes, since they
hardly ever are found pure in ordinary commerce. For example, the
commercial crude muriatic acid which it is recommended to add to the
dough along with bicarbonate of soda, is always most impure, and
often contains arsenic, so that the chemist never uses it without a
tedious process of purification for his purposes, which are of far
less importance than making bread light and porous.
"To make bread cheaper it has
been proposed to add to dough potato starch or dextrine, rice, the
pressed pulp of turnips, pressed raw potatoes, or boiled potatoes;
but all these additions only diminish the nutritive value of bread.
Potato starch, dextrine, or the pressed pulp of turnips, and
beet-root, when added to flour, yield a mixture the nutritive value
of which is equal to the entire potato, or lower still, but no one
can consider the change of grain or flour into a food of equal value
with potatoes or rice an improvement. The true problem is to render
the potatoes or rice similar or equal to wheat in their effects, and
not vice versa It is better under all circumstances to boil the
potatoes and eat them as such, than to add potatoes or potato starch
to flour before it is made into bread, which should be strictly
prohibited by police regulation on account of the cheating to which
it would inevitably give rise."
BROWN BREAD.
With regard to the nutritive
qualities of brown bread, Professor Jago (who I think one of our
highest authorities) says that whole meal, and flour from which the
bran and germ have not been removed, do not keep well. These bodies
contain oil and nitrogenous principles which readily decompose,
producing rancidity and mustiness in flavour. Not only do these
changes occur in the flour, but they also proceed apace in the dough.
The diastastic bodies of the bran and germ attack the starch, and
more or less convert it into dextrine and maltose; they further
attack the gluten, and that remarkably elastic body which confers on
wheaten flour, alone of all the cereals, the power of forming a
light, spongy, well-risen loaf. The gluten, under the action of the
bran and germ, loses its elasticity, and becomes fragile and
incapable of retaining the gas produced during fermentation; the
result is heavy, sodden, indigestible bread.
Evidence of this is found in the fact
that while whole-meal loaves are so excessively baked as to produce a
crust two or three times the ordinary thickness, the interior is
still in a damp and sodden condition. This is the effect of bran in whole-meal.
"Not only, then, on the ground
of nutritive value may the use of a pure white loaf be urged, but
such bread is more healthily made, and will be sweet and free from
acidity when whole-meal and dark breads are sour and unwholesome. It
has also been pointed out that the nutritive constituents of the bran
are so locked within it that they escape unaltered from the human body."
Such, in brief, is Professor Jago's
opinion of whole-meal, and bread made from it. My own opinion is that
Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest is very forcibly
illustrated in the milling of cereals, and the adoption of food most
proper for the human system. We have had brown bread and white bread
before the public from time immemorial, and what is the result ? Why,
for every sack of wheat-meal bread which is baked we have a thousand
sacks of fine or white bread. And what of our hospitals and our army
and navy, with medical men at the head of them, watching the results
of this food or that food, and its effects on the human body? I admit
that brown bread does suit some constitutions; but to the majority of
people it is nauseous, frequently causing flatulency. I will just
quote another good authority -- Professor Charles Graham.
In his lecture upon ''The Chemistry
of Bread-Making," delivered before the Society of Arts in
December, 1879, he said: "As regards the importance of the
constituents of bran, I say that the analyst, and the physician who
makes use of the analyst as his supporter, in bringing before us the
importance of brown bread as compared with white, and who assert that
in rejecting the bran we are guilty of a serious waste of
flesh-forming and bone-forming material, should not take a mere
chemical analysis as all-sufficient to establish their point. A table
showing, from an analyst's point of view, the comparative merits of
various substances for feeding purposes, shows hay to be of high
value as a food, and even oat straw -- as, indeed, every farmer knows
from experience. Still more valuable for their heat giving, and
especially for their flesh-forming, materials, are linseed-cake, rape-cake,
and decorticated cotton-cake. Now those who hold, from mere chemical
analysis, that bran is of such high value as a food material that its
omission from flour would meet with grave censure, should, from a
similar analytical standpoint, urge us to eat hay, oat-straw, linseed
and cotton cakes. Doubtless these substances are of high value as
food for cattle, because the herbivorous oxen can digest and utilise
them with ease; not so with man, who would starve in a field where a
cow or a sheep would fatten. As with hay or linseed cake, so with
bran; I hold that the best mode of digesting such food substances is
first of all by the aid of our hoofed friends, to convert them into
milk or cream, or bacon, beef, or mutton."
Now these are the scientific opinions
of two of our very highest authorities. But of late I have been
making brown bread out of a blend of cereals made and milled by an
enterprising firm of millers in the North of England, and I must
really say that it meets a long-felt want, as it produces a brown
loaf which is free from that nauseous taste of which complaint is so
often made with brown bread, and has a good nutty flavour of its own.
In conclusion, let me say that we
have reason for great hope for the future of the Bread and
Confectionery trade. Many earnest minds are devoting both time and
money to the development of this important industry, and their
efforts cannot fail to result in bettering the knowledge and
lightening the labour of the practical baker.
II. GENERAL REMARKS ON BAKING.
Baking as a business or profession
has never been confined to the making of bread alone -- that is to
say, bread in everyday use. A baker we take to mean a person who
bakes and prepares any farinaceous substance intended for human food.
Therefore baking not only includes loaf-bread baking, biscuit baking,
fancy-bread baking, but also pastry-making and confectionery. It is
common for all these branches to be practised by the same person, and
it is therefore fitting that they should all be treated of in a work
of this kind. This we intend doing under separate heads.
ESSENTIALS OF GOOD BREAD-MAKING.
Two of the most essential things in
bread-baking, in order to produce a full-flavoured, showy, and sweet
loaf, are good yeast and good flour. A good oven is also necessary.
An oven which is either too hot or too cold will spoil what would
otherwise be a good batch of bread: so great care should be used in
order to have the oven of the proper heat. Pan bread, or bread baked
in tins, need a greater heat than batch bread, as pan-bread dough is
of a lighter nature than batch-bread dough, and consequently requires
more heat to keep it up. I do not intend, however, going into the
merits of different ovens, as I am not competent to do so. There are
so many different kinds, and each baker, as a rule, seems to fancy
what he has been most used to. For heating purposes, cinders have
taken the place of coals and wood, and (I think) to the advantage of
both master and journeyman. Cinders are cheaper for the master and
cleaner for the workman.
GERMAN YEAST AND
PARISIAN BARM.
Yeasts, or barms, are of many
varieties, but I purpose here to deal with only two kinds -- that
commonly known as German yeast, which is mostly used in England, and
Parisian barm, the kind most in use in Scotland.
A great point in working German yeast
is to know when it is in proper condition, as it is very liable to go
bad in very warm weather, or if kept in a very warm place. Care
should be taken to keep it in a place as near a temperature of
56° to 60° Fahr. as possible. Should there be any suspicion
that the yeast is not up to the mark, a simple and sure test is to
get a clean cup or tumbler, half fill it with warm water of a
temperature of 100°, put an ounce of loaf sugar in the water,
and when dissolved add one ounce of yeast. The yeast will, of course,
sink to the bottom, but if it is sound and in good condition it will
rise to the top in two minutes. Should it take much longer than that,
the less you have to do with it the better.
Parisian barm makes a nice showy
loaf, but for flavour I prefer German yeast. To make Parisian barm 1
gallon of water is put into a pan at, say, 140° Fahr.; weigh 2
lbs. of crushed malt, put it into the water at the above temperature,
cover it up for about three hours; one hour before you are going to
make your barm, that is two hours since you put your malt to steep,
put 3 gallons of water into a large pan, put it on the fire; when it
boils, add 2 oz. of good fresh hops, well boil for twenty minutes;
after which well strain the malt through a hair sieve. Put it into
the barm tub and add as much flour as can be nicely stirred in with
the barm-stick. Then put the boiling hop-water through a sieve on top
of the malt water and flour and well stir it. It should be properly
scalded. Some put the hops in a small linen bag made for the purpose
and put it in the boiling water, squeezing it against the side of the
pot before taking it out. Supposing it to be five o'clock in the
afternoon, it may be put by with a couple of sacks over it till five
o'clock next morning. Then "set the barn away" (as they say
in Scotland), by adding to the above liquid half a gallon of the barn
previously made.
After the old barn is added to the
new, in a few hours a scum gathers on the top. This scum will either
start at the side of the tub and work gradually to the other side, or
I have seen it start in the middle and work itself slowly to the
sides of the tub. When ready it should have a nice clear bell top. It
takes from ten to twelve hours to work before it is ready.
By following this method one may
always have good barn. Cleanliness is very essential for barn, and
care should be taken that neither grease nor churned milk shall get
near it. We need scarcely say that experience is required in this as
in other things.
AMERICAN PATENT YEAST.
I may add the following recipe for
American patent yeast :-Take half a pound of hops and two pailfuls of
water; mix and boil them till the liquid is reduced one half; strain
the decoction into a tub, and when luke-warm add half a peck of malt.
In the meantime, put the strained-off hops again into two pailfuls of
water, and boil as before till they are reduced one half; strain the
liquid while hot into a tub. (The heat will not injuriously affect
malt previously mixed with tepid water.) When the liquid has cooled
down to about blood heat, strain off the malt and add to the liquor
two quarts of patent yeast set apart from the previous making by the
above process. Five gallons of good yeast may thus be made which will
be ready for use the day after it is made. It takes about eight
hours' time to manufacture, but gives very little trouble to the baker.
GOOD OR BAD FLOUR.
Experience is also necessary to judge
of flour; but any one in the habit of using flour may form a pretty
accurate idea whether it is good or bad. If fine and white, it may be
considered good so far as colour is concerned; but if it be brown, it
shows that it was either made from inferior wheat, or has been
coarsely dressed -- that is, that it contains particles of bran.
However, brown flour may be of a good sound quality, and fine white
flour may not.
To judge of flour, take a portion in
your hand and press it firmly between the thumb and forefinger, at
the same time rubbing it gently for the purpose of making a level
surface upon the flour; or take a watch with a smooth back and press
it firmly on the flour. By this means its colour may be ascertained
by observing the pressed or smooth surface. If the flour feels loose
and lively in the hand, it is of good quality; if it feels dead or
damp, or, in other words, clammy, it is decidedly bad. Flour ought to
be a week or two old before being used.
ALUM IN BREAD.
A common custom to improve flour was
to add a small quantity of alum to a sack of flour -- a custom which,
it may be hoped, is entirely a thing of the past. According to
Liebig, the action of alum in the process of bread-making is to form
certain insoluble combinations which render digestion difficult, and
detract largely from the value of bread as food. Professor Vaughan,
of the University of Michigan, says: "The use of alum is an
adulteration which is injurious to health. It unites with the
phosphates in the bread, rendering them insoluble, and preventing
their digestion and absorption. In this way, alum, when present,
diminishes the nutritive value of bread. While some gain may perhaps
temporarily accrue to the manufacturer through the covert
perpetration of this fraud, still no good to any one can result therefrom."
BUTTER FOR PASTRY AND CAKES.
Butter, which so largely enters into
the pastry cook's business, is another important point for
consideration. It should be perfectly sweet, and before it is used
made smooth on a marble slab. Salt butter made from cows fed on poor
pasture is the best for puff paste, and is the most proper for
ornamental work; it should be washed in water two or three times
before being used. On the other hand, for every kind of cake the
butter cannot be too rich.
In the course of this work I likewise
intend to touch on the icing of bride and other cakes.
RECIPES.
III. BREAD, TEA CAKES,
BUNS, ETC.
I. --
To make Home-made Bread.
Put 1 stone of fine flour into your
mixing pan; make a hole in the middle of the flour, and press the
sides of the hole to prevent the liquid running through; dissolve 2
1/2 ozs. of yeast in 1 gill of water, and put it in the hole made in
the flour; mix a little flour in the liquid to make a thin batter,
cover your pan over and let it rise to a nice cauliflower top; when
ready, dissolve 2 1/2 ozs. of salt in 1 gill of water, put this into
your pan, and then take sufficient water (or water and milk) to make
all into a nice dough; let it rise a little in the pan, then weigh
off into your tins, and prove and bake. The heat of the water should
be between 80° and 90° Fahr.
2. --
Bread-making by the Old Method.
To make a sack of flour into bread
the baker takes the flour and empties it into the kneading trough; it
is then carefully passed through a wire sieve, which makes it lie
lighter and reduces any lumps that may have formed in it. Next he
dissolves 2 oz. of alum (called in the trade "stuff" or
"rocky ") in a little water placed over the fire. This is
poured into the seasoning tub with a pailful of warm water, but not
too hot. When this mixture has cooled to a temperature of about 84
degrees, from 3 to 4 pints of yeast are put into it, and the whole
having been strained through the seasoning sieve, it is emptied into
a hole made in the mass of flour and mixed up with a portion of it to
the consistency of thick batter. Dry flour is then sprinkled over the
top. This is called the quarter-sponge, and the operation is known as
"setting." The sponge must then be covered up with sacks,
if the weather be cold, to keep it warm. It is then left for three or
four hours, when it gradually swells and breaks through the dry flour
laid upon its surface. Another pail of water impregnated with alum
and salt is now added, and well stirred in, and the mass sprinkled
with flour and covered up as before. This is called setting the
half-sponge. The whole is then well kneaded with about two more
pailfuls of water for about an hour. It is then cut into pieces with
a knife, and to prevent spreading it is pinned, or kept at one end of
the trough by means of a sprint board, in which state it is left to
"prove," as the bakers call it, for about four hours. When
this process is over the dough is again well kneaded for about half
an hour. It is then removed from the trough to the table and weighed
into the quantities suitable for each loaf. The operation of
moulding, chaffing, and rolling up can be learnt only by practice.
3. --
Modern Way of making Bread.
The modern way of making bread is as
follows: Put 1 sack, or 20 stone, of flour into the trough, and, to
take it all up, sponge 12 gallons of water of the required
temperature, and from 10 to 16 ozs. of yeast, according to the
strength. Then dissolve 2 lbs. of salt in the water and mix all
together. In the morning, or when taken up again, add 6 gallons of
water and 1 1/2 lb. of salt. If a quick or "flying" sponge
is required to be ready in an hour and a half, empty the sack of
flour into the trough. Make a sprint, add 12 gallons of water of the
required heat and 2 lbs. of yeast, and as much flour as you can stir
in with the hand. Let it rise for one hour and a half; add 6 gallons
more water (at the temperature the sponge is set, which should be
about 100 degrees Fahr.), and 3 1/2 lbs. of salt. Make all into a
nice-sized dough; let it stand three-quarters of an hour, then scale off.
4. --
Scotch Style of making Bread.
The bread-making industry has made
great strides in Scotland. In Glasgow alone there are two firms which
each bake over two thousand bags of flour a week -- namely, J. and B.
Stevenson and Bilsland Brothers -- while five other firms each bake
from five hundred to one thousand bags a week in respect to the
output, Scotland is a long way in advance of either England or
Ireland. I can well remember the time when oatmeal cakes and scones
were the staple food in Scotland; but such food is now notable by its
absence. This brings to mind a story I once heard of an Englishman
and a Scotchman who were arguing on the merits of their respective
countries. The Englishman said, "Man Sandy, you are all fed on
oatmeal! Why, in England we only feed our horses on oats."
Sandy's reply was, "I don't na but what you say, man, is a very
true, but where wull ye get sic horses and where wull ye get sic men ?"
As I have said before, Parisian harm
is the kind most used in Scotland; in fact, nearly all the Scotch
advertisements require "men used to Parisian barm.' However, I
have noticed lately that German yeast is steadily making its way in
the North. The Scotch used generally to make their bread with what
they called potato ferment. Now it is mostly quarter or full sponges.
To make 1 sack of flour into bread with a quarter sponge take 1
gallon of water of the required temperature, add 1/2 a gallon of
Parisian barm, and sufficient flour to make it into a good stiff
dough. This is generally set between one and two o'clock, and is
ready to take about half-past four. It should be dropped when ready
an inch in the quarter boat or barrel. Empty it into the trough, add
10 gallons of water, dissolve 2 lbs. of salt, and mix all into a
well-beaten sponge. Add 6 gallons of water of the required
temperature and 1 1/4 lb. of salt in the morning, or when you take
the sponge, and make all into a nice dough. The softer you can work
the sponge the clearer and showier will be the loaf.
To make 1 sack of flour with a full
sponge, take 1 to 1 1/2 gallons of barm, about 10 gallons of water of
the proper temperature with 2 lbs. of salt dissolved in it; make all
into a nice-sized sponge. When ready add 6 gallons of water of proper
temperature, and 1 1/4 lb. of salt, and make it into dough.
Care should always be taken to keep
the barm clear of grease and churned milk, especially if the milk is sour.
There are a great many substitutes
for wheat-flour bread, some of which I will enumerate; but I do not
think it needful to give the recipes for them, as the recipes and
formulae I have given are evidently those most popular in the
English, Scotch, and Irish bake houses. Among the many substitutes
for wheat bread are the following: bread corn, rice bread, potato
bread; bread made of roots, ragwort bread, turnip bread, apple bread,
meslin bread, salep bread, Debreczen bread, oat and barley bread. The
Norwegians, we are informed, make bread of barley and oatmeal baked
between two stones; this bread is said to improve by age, and may be
kept for as long as thirty or forty years. At their great festivals
the Norwegians use the oldest bread, and it is not unusual at the
baptism of infants to have bread made at the time of the baptism of
their grandfathers.
5. --
Home-made Whole Meal Bread.
Take 1 stone of wheat meal
(granulated is best); put your flour in the basin or mixing bowl, and
make a hole in the centre of the meal: dissolve 2 ozs. of yeast in a
gill and a half of water, about 90° Fahr.; pour the yeast and
water into the hole, and mix in as much of the meal as will make a
soft batter; cover it up, and when it is ready (which you will know
by its having a nice cauliflower top), add 2 1/2 ozs. of salt, and
sufficient water, at a temperature of say 80° Fahr., and mix all
lightly into a nice mellow dough; put it past, with a cover over it,
till you see it commence to rise; then divide it into the sizes
required and place in tins to prove; bake in a moderate oven.
Wheat meals, and brown or second
flours, do not require so much working, either in the sponge or with
the hands, in making it into dough, as do the flours of a finer quality.
(For Master Bakers, as generally used
in the Trade.) When setting your ordinary sponges at night for fine
bread, dissolve 2 1/2 ozs. of yeast and 2 1/2 ozs. of salt in 1 1/2
gallons of water, about 4° to 6° Fahr., under whatever heat
at which you may be setting your fine sponges (according to the
nature of the meal you are using); take as much whole meal flour as
will make this quantity of water into a weak sponge, and in the
morning, when it is ready, give it half a gallon of water off same
heat as your fine sponges, with 5 ozs. of salt, and make all lightly
into a dough so that there is no "scrape" about it, and
work off in the same way as your ordinary bread.
7. --
Unfermented, or Diet Bread.
Take 8 lbs. of granulated wheat meal
(or meal made with a mixture of barley meal and wheat meal properly
blended), 4 ozs. of cream of tartar, and 2 ozs. of carbonate of soda;
mix the tartar and soda amongst the flour and sift all through a
sieve; make a bay, and add 2 ozs. of crushed salt and 4 ozs. of
castor sugar, putting the above in the bay and pouring in a little
churned milk to dissolve the salt and sugar; then add as much churned
milk as will take the 8 lbs. of meal in, and make into a nice-sized
dough; weigh off, and bake in oval tins. They should be put
immediately into the oven.
I consider this the very best mode of
making wheat meals into bread; bread thus made eats well, and keeps
moist longer than fermented meals.
Eye bread used to be in greater
favour with the public than it now is, but I consider that is owing
to the sodden, heavy way in which it is generally made; for if rye
flour is properly blended with fine flour, instead of the barley meal
generally used, it produces a very nice-flavoured loaf.
Set a sponge at night with fine flour
-- say, 1 gallon of water, 1 1/2 ozs. of yeast, and l 1/2 ozs. of
salt; let your sponge be about the same consistency as for muffin
batter; in the morning add 1 quart of water and 3 ozs. of salt, and
make your dough up with rye meal; let your sponge be set of the same
heat as for wheat meal bread.
I have adopted this plan, and find it
gives general satisfaction. In baking wheat meals, or other meals of
the same nature, your oven should be 30° or 40° by the
pyrometer under the heat used for fine bread.
Coarse flour (or
"overheads," as it is generally called in the south of
Scotland) is the cheapest grade of flour made, and if properly
manufactured it will vie with any class of flour in the market for a
fine, sweet, nutty flavour; but of course it is dark in colour, and I
have seen four of this grade very strong and carry an exceedingly
large quantity of water.
In a test I had some time ago, I
produced 110 - 41b. loaves, weighed in dough at 4 lbs. 6 ozs., out of
20 stone of this flour; but I may say that the flour was
stone-dressed, and milled in the old style. This same class of flour
was in general use in Scotland twenty years ago, and was generally
made into coarse or second bread, and coarse "two pennies."
Many a poor family -- ay, and rich families too -- have thriven and
had their hearts made glad on the produce of this grade of flour.
To make Coarse Bread. --
Take, say 1 gallon of water, at the same temperature as for wheat
meal bread; dissolve 1 1/4 ozs. of yeast, and the same quantity of
salt, in the water; make into an ordinary-sized sponge, and when
ready in the morning add half a gallon of water and about 4 ozs. of
salt; then make all into a dough, and work off as other doughs.
This flour can be sponged the same
way as fine flour for a quick or flying sponge, only care should be
used in not setting the sponge too warm, as I find that it ferments
and works more quickly than the finer grades of flour.
Germ flour is amongst one of the
newest kinds of flour placed before the public as a speciality. It is
in appearance something like granulated wheat meal, and the vendors
of it claim to have found a new process of removing the germ from the
flour, and subjecting it to a certain process before it is again
mixed with the flour. I am having germ bread made almost daily. Our
mode of making it is as follows: -
Dissolve 1 1/2 ozs. of yeast in half
a gallon of water, say 90° Fahr., and mix with this about 7 lbs.
of germ flour; it should be ready in about an hour and a half; weigh
off and prove; use no salt, as we think there is a certain amount of
salt (or some substitute for salt) ground amongst the flour. For this
class of bread it makes a very nice-eating loaf.
To be able to make a good tea-cake is
considered a great point in the baking trade. The following not only
makes good tea-cakes, but also capital Scotch cookies.
Take 1/2 a gallon of water at, say,
94° Fahr. add 1 lb. of moist sugar, 5 ozs. of German yeast;
dissolve all together, add, say, 1 1/2 lb. of flour and mix. When
well risen, add 1 lb. of lard and butter, 2 ozs. of salt, a few
currants to taste; mix all together into tea-cake dough. Let it
remain in a warm place for about half an hour, then weigh off at 8 or
9 ozs. for 2d.; prove, and bake.
This can be made with the same dough,
but omitting the currants, and making the dough tighter than for tea-cakes;
add 1 egg to each pound of dough. Weigh at 3 ounces for a penny, and
make into different shapes, such as half-moons, cart-wheels, twists, &c.
13.
-- Sally Luns, Yorkshire, or Tea Cakes.
Take 1 quart of milk, 1/4 lb.
of moist sugar, and 2 ozs. of German yeast. Ferment this with a
little flour, and when ready, add 1/2 lb. of butter (some add also 4
eggs to this quantity) and make into dough as for tea-cakes; butter
some rings or hoops, and place them on buttered tins, weigh or divide
into 5 or 6 ozs. for two pence; mould them round, put them in the
hoops, and, when half proved, make a hole in each with a piece of
stick. Do not overprove them, or they will eat poor and dry. When
baked, which will be in about ten or fifteen minutes, wash over the
top with egg and milk.
Sift through the sieve 4 lbs. of good
Hungarian flour; take as much water and milk as will make the above
into a nice-sized batter, having previously dissolved 2 ozs. of
yeast, 1 oz. of sugar, and 3/4 oz. of salt in the liquid; then beat
this well with your hand for at least ten minutes; after it has half
risen in your pan beat again for other ten minutes; then let it stand
till ready, which you will know by the batter starting to drop. Have
one of your roll-boards well dusted with sifted flour, and with your
hand lay out the muffins in rows. The above mixture should produce 24
muffins. Then, with another roll-board slightly dusted with rice
flour, take the muffins and with your fingers draw the outsides into
the centre, forming a round cake; draw them into your hand and brush
off any flour that may be adhering to them; place them on the board
dusted with rice, and so on till all are finished; then put them in
the prover to prove, which does not take long. The heat of the liquid
for muffins (or crumpets) should range from 90° to 100°
Fahr., according to the temperature of the bakehouse.
One great point to guard against in
fermenting cakes or bread, is to see that your sponge or dough does
not get chilled. By the time your muffins are ready, have the stove
or hot plate properly heated, then row them gently on to the hot
plate so as not to knock the proof out of them; when they are a nice
brown turn them gently on the other side and bake a nice delicate brown.
15.
Another Way. -- Some
persons now make muffins after the same formula as for teacakes,
namely, moulding one in each hand and pinning out the size required,
then proving and baking. I have tried that way more than once, but I
cannot get the muffins to appear anything like what my experience
teaches me a muffin should be. Practice and judgment are required to
make one proficient in muffin making.
There has recently been introduced to
the trade a hot plate heated with gas, which will go a long way in
helping the muffin-maker. It is both cleaner, handier, and you can
bake with it to a more certain degree of heat.
Crumpets are generally made by
muffin-makers, the most modern formula being the following: -- Take 4
lbs. of good English flour, 2. ozs. of good yeast, and 2 ozs. of
salt. The flour and salt may be sifted together. Take 1 quart of
milk, and 1 1/2 quarts of water, at about 100° Fahr.; dissolve
your yeast in the water, then mix in your flour and salt; make all
into a thin liquid paste, giving it a thoroughly good mixing; let it
stand for one hour, when you may again give it a thoroughly good
beat; let it stand for another hour, when it will be ready to bake
off. In the meantime thoroughly clean your stove or hot plate before
it gets hot, and give it a rub over with a greasy cloth; then have
your rings of the size required (they should be half an inch in
depth); slightly grease them, and see that they are greased for each
round of the hot plate; have a cup in one hand and a saucer in the
other to prevent the batter dropping; pour half a cup of the batter
into the rings and spread them with a palette knife to a level
surface, putting what comes off (if any) back into your pan. Then,
when the bottom part is of a nice golden colour, turn them over with
your palette knife, turning the ring at the same time, and bake off a
nice colour. Remove them from the stove or hot plate, and lay them on
clean boards for a couple of minutes, when with a gentle tap your
rings will come clear; and so on till finished. Nothing but careful
practice, and particular attention to the whys and wherefores of both
hot plates and batter," will make a good muffin or crumpet-maker.
Take 7 lbs. of medium oatmeal, 1 1/2
oz. salt, 1 1/2 oz. Carbonate of soda, 1 1/2 oz. cream of tartar, 1
1/2 lb. of flour, 1 1/2 lb. of lard.
Rub the lard in the oatmeal and
flour, having previously mixed all the other ingredients in the
oatmeal; make a bay, add sufficient cold water to make all into a
good working dough, weigh off at 8 ozs., mould up, pin out the size
you think most suitable, cut into four, and place on clean dry tins.
Bake in a sharp oven.
1 lb. of flour, 8 ozs. of butter, 8
ozs. of sugar, 4 eggs, a little warm milk, 1 oz. of Parisian yeast,
some citron peel cut small, and half a nutmeg grated. This will make
fourteen two penny buns.
Rub the butter in with the flour,
make a bay and break in the eggs, add the yeast with sufficient milk
to make the whole into a dough of moderate consistency, and put in a
warm place to prove. When it has risen enough mix in the peel, a
little essence of lemon, and the sugar, which should be in small
pieces about the size of peas. Divide into pieces for buns, prove and
bake in gentle heat. They may be washed with egg and dusted with
sugar before proving.
19.
Another Way. -- 4 lbs. of
flour, 1 lb. of butter, 6 ozs. of sugar, 4 ozs. of yeast, 4 eggs, and
sufficient milk to make all into a dough; add essence of lemon.
Warm the milk, add the sugar and
yeast with sufficient flour to make a ferment; when ready, add
butter, eggs, and remainder of flour, with currants or peel to taste.
Weigh or divide into 3 ozs. each, mould them up round egg on top
rolled in castor sugar; slightly prove, bake in moderate oven.
Take 1 quart of milk or water, 3 ozs.
of yeast, 12 ozs. of moist sugar, 12 ozs. of butter, 1 oz. of salt,
with sufficient flour to make a nice mellow dough.
Proceed the same as for tea-cakes,
adding spice, currants, and peel to taste; weigh 4 ozs. for a penny,
make a cross in the middle of the bun, wash over with egg, and prove.
Spice, however, is very seldom used, as it tends to darken the buns,
and thus giving them a poor appearance. An ingenious apparatus has
been invented called a Patent Bun Divider, which greatly facilitates
the making of these buns, and cannot fail to be of great service
where large quantities of buns or cakes are required to be divided.
All that is needed is to weigh 8 lbs. of dough, place it in the pan,
and at one stroke of a lever thirty buns or cakes are divided ready
to mould.
Take plain bun dough (or if for
common buns, bread dough), roll it out in a sheet, break some firm
butter in small pieces and place over it, roll it out as you would
paste; after you have given it two or three turns, moisten the
surface of the dough, and strew over it some moist sugar; roll up the
sheet into a roll, and cut it in slices; or cut the dough in strips
of the required size and turn them round; place on buttered tins
having edges, half-an-inch from each. Prove them well, and bake in a
moderate oven. They may be dusted with loaf sugar either before or
after they are baked. The quantity of ingredients used must be
regulated by the required richness of the buns. 1/2 lb. of butter,
1/2 lb. of sugar, with 4 lb. of dough, will make a good bun. When bun
dough is used, half the quantity of sugar will be sufficient; some
omit it altogether.
3 1/2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of butter,
1 lb. of sugar, 5 eggs, nearly 1 quart of milk, a few caraway seeds,
with 1 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda and tartaric acid, mixed in
proportion of 1 oz. of soda to 3/4 oz. of acid.
Mix the soda and acid well with the
flour, then rub in the butter and sugar; make a bay with the flour,
add the seeds, beat up the eggs with the milk, and make all into a
dough. Put into buttered pans according to the size; dust with castor
sugar, and bake in a moderate oven.
23.
-- Balloon or Prussian Cakes.
Take currant bun dough and make it
into a round flat cake of any required size, and place it on a
buttered tin. When it is about half proved, divide it with a long,
flat piece of wood having a thin graduated edge, into eight equal
parts, and place it again to prove. When it is proved enough, brush
over the top lightly with the white of an egg well whisked, dust it
with fine powdered sugar and sprinkle it with water, just sufficient
to moisten the sugar. Bake it in a rather cool oven to prevent the
icing getting too much coloured.
Take the same mixture as for
teacakes, add 1 oz. of caraway seeds, and colour it with saffron.
Mould them round, and put them on the tins so as not to touch. When
they are near proof, wash the tops with egg and milk, and dust them
with castor sugar. Put them in the oven to finish proving, and bake
them in a moderately hot oven.
Made same way as saffron buns, but
leaving out the caraway seeds and saffron, and using instead
sufficient ground cinnamon to flavour them.
2 lbs. of flour, 3/4 lb. of butter,
3/4 lb. of sugar, 4 eggs, 1/2 oz. of voil.
Rub the butter in with the flour,
make a bay and add the sugar, pound the salt in a little milk and
pour it in, break the eggs, and mix all together into a dough. Make
six buns out of 1 lb. of dough, mould them round, wash the top with
eggs, put some currants on the top, and dust with sugar.
4 lbs. of flour, 2 ozs. of tartar, 1
oz. of carbonate of soda, 12 ozs. of butter, 1 1/2 lbs. of sugar, 4
eggs, 10 drops of essence of lemon, with milk.
Mix tartar and carbonate of soda with
the flour, make a sprint or bay, put butter and sugar in bay, cream;
add eggs, then milk, make all into a dough, and size them off on
buttered tins one inch apart. Wash over with egg, and put a little
sugar on top, and bake in a moderate oven.
28.
-- Common German Buns (for wholesale purposes).
4 lbs. of flour, 2 ozs. of tartar, 1
oz. of carbonate of soda, lb. of lard, 1 1/2 lb. of moist sugar, a
little turmeric and churned milk; then proceed as for best German
buns. Bake in a sharp oven.
Take 1 pint of milk warmed in a
basin, add 2 ozs. of yeast, 8 ozs. of moist sugar, and make a dough
with sufficient flour.
When the sponge is ready add 12 ozs.
of butter, a pinch of salt, and have ready 4 ozs. of chopped peel.
Mix all in the dough with 2 eggs and lemon, and prove. When about
half proved wash over with yolk of egg. Put sugar on top when full proved.
1 1/2 lb. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar,
15 eggs, 2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of patent flour. Cream butter and
sugar in a basin, add eggs, then flour, and as much milk as will make
a nice batter. Bake
in fluted pans.
Take 4 ozs. of tartar, and 2 ozs. of
carbonate of soda, and 8 lbs. of flour, and sift through a sieve
three times.
4 lbs. of flour, 2 1/2 lbs. of castor
sugar, 1 1/4 lb. of butter, 10 eggs, 1 oz. of tartar, 3/4 oz. of
carbonate of soda, 1/2 lb. of ground rice, milk to dough. Cream
butter and sugar together, add eggs; when well creamed, add flour,
rice, and milk. Bake in small round hoops papered round the side.
These are made in the same way, with
the same mixture, but leaving out the rice and adding the same
quantity of Coconut Dust Coconut on the top of each.
Cream 12 oz. of butter with 1 lb. of
sugar, add 13 eggs; mix 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda and 1/4 oz. of
acid with 2 lbs. of flour; weigh 8 ozs. of currants. Mix all together
with milk, and bake in a small edged pan. Cut into squares when cold.
IV. GINGERBREAD,
PARKINGS, SHORT-BREAD, ETC.
Take 2 lbs. of honey, 1 1/2 lb. of
best moist sugar, and 3 lbs. of flour, 1/2 lb. of sweet almonds
blanched, and 1/2 lb. of preserved orange peel cut into thin fillets,
the yellow rinds of two lemons grated off, 1 oz. of cinnamon, 1/2 oz.
of cloves, mace, and cardamoms mixed and powdered.
Put the honey in a pan over the fire
with a wineglassful of water, and make it quite hot; mix the other
ingredients and the flour together, make a bay, pour in the honey,
and mix all well together. Let it stand tilt next day, make it into
cakes, and bake it. Rub a little clarified sugar until it will blow
in bubbles through a skimmer, and with a paste-brush rub over the
gingerbread when baked.
Same as Queen's Gingerbread, but dust
tins with flour instead of grease.
Take 3 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of
butter, 1 lb. of moist sugar,
4 ozs. of candied lemon or orange
peel cut small, 1 oz. of powdered ginger, 2 ozs. of powdered
allspice, 1/2 oz. of powdered cinnamon, 1 oz. of caraway seeds, and 3
lbs. of treacle.
Rub the butter into the flour, then
add the other ingredients, and mix in the dough with the treacle.
Make it into nuts or cakes, and bake in a cool oven.
38.
-- Scarborough Gingerbread (for wholesale purposes).
Take 180 lb. of treacle, 4 lbs. of
lard, 4 lbs. 10 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 2 lbs. 11 ozs. of caraway
seeds, 2 lbs. 11 ozs. of ginger, and 1/2 a gallon of water to
dissolve the soda. Mix all together with a sufficient quantity of flour.
This should turn out about 390 lbs.
of very good gingerbread. Wash with glue and water which has been boiled.
The taste for gingerbread is very
widespread, large quantities of the best quality being exported to
India. Holland is regarded as carrying off the palm for making good
gingerbread. Shakespeare makes mention of it in Love's Labour's Lost,
where he says, "An I had but one penny in the world thou
should'st have it to buy gingerbread."
2 1/4 lbs. of flour, 1/2 lb. of
butter, 1 lb. moist sugar, 2 ozs. of ginger. Rub the butter in with
the flour and make the whole into a paste with prepared treacle. Make
them into round flat cakes, wash the top with milk, lay a slice of
peel on each, and bake in a cool oven.
Take 4 lbs. of treacle, 1 oz. of
alum, 2 ozs. of pearlash, and mix.
41.
-- Prepared Treacle for Thick Gingerbread,
Take 7 lbs. of treacle, 3 ozs. of
potash, 1 oz. volatile salt, and ozs. of alum. The colour of the
gingerbread when baked will be according to the quality of the
treacle used. Golden syrup makes the lightest coloured and best.
1 lb. of gingerbread dough, 3 ozs. of
butter, 3 ozs. of sugar, 1 oz. of cayenne pepper. Mix all together,
pin out in a sheet, one-eighth of an inch thick. Cut them out the
size of a penny. They are very hot.
43.
-- Grantham or White Gingerbread.
4 lbs. of flour, 2 1/2 lbs. of loaf
sugar, 4 ozs. of butter, 1 oz.' of volatile salt, 1 pint of milk, 1/2
oz. of ginger, 1/4 oz. of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace, 1/2 oz.
caraway seeds.
3 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of butter, 1
lb. of moist sugar, 4 ozs. of candied peel cut small, 1 oz. ginger, 2
ozs. allspice, 1/4 oz. of cinnamon, 1 oz. caraway seeds, 3 lbs.
prepared treacle. Mix same as other doughs.
45.
Another Way. -- Take 3
lbs. of flour, 2 lbs. of sugar, 2 lbs. of treacle, 2 ozs. of ginger,
1/4 oz. of carbonate of soda, 2 drs. of tartaric acid. Mix the day
before baking.
46.
Another Way. -- 7 lbs. of
flour, 5 lbs. of syrup, 2 3/4 lbs. of moist sugar, 1 lb. of lard, 4
ozs. ginger, 1/2 oz. of tartaric acid, 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda,
1/2 oz. of cinnamon, 1/2 oz. of mace. Mix and work same as other
doughs. This is a capital mixture.
Dr. Colquhoun gives a recipe for
preparing a light gingerbread as follows: Take 1 lb. of flour, I oz.
of carbonate of magnesia, and 1/8 oz. of tartaric acid. Mix the flour
and magnesia thoroughly, then dissolve and add the acid; take the
usual quantity of butter, treacle, and spice; melt the butter and
pour it with the treacle and acid into the flour and magnesia. The
whole must then be made into a dough by kneading, and set aside for a
period varying from half an hour to an hour; it will then be ready
for the oven, and should not on any account be kept longer than two
or three hours before being baked. When taken from the oven it will
prove a light, pleasant, and spongy bread, having no injurious
ingredients in it. That made with potash, says Dr. Colquhoun, gives
the bread a disagreeable alkaline flavour, unless disguised with some
aromatic ingredient, and is likely to prove injurious to delicate persons.
48.
-- Italian Jumbles, or Brandy Snaps.
6 lbs. of flour, 7 lbs. of good rich
sugar, 1 1/4 lb. of butter or lard, 2 ozs. of ginger or mixed spice,
6 lbs. of raw syrup. Make the whole into a moderately stiff paste or
dough, roll out into sheets fully an eighth of an inch thick, cut
them with a plain round cutter of 3 inches diameter, put them on tins
well greased, and bake in a moderate oven. When baked cut them from
the tin and lay them on the peel-shaft till they are hard. If they
should get too cold to turn, put them in the oven to warm. Brandy
snaps are the same as above, without being turned.
Note. --
For cakes, spice nuts, or biscuits of a small size, that require
washing on top, use a piece of linen the size of the tin, dip it in
water, squeeze it, and spread it on top of the snaps or biscuits and
gently press your hand over it. This
will prevent them from running together on the tins.
49.
-- Halfpenny Gingerbread Squares.
8 lbs. of flour, 4 lbs. of treacle, 3
ozs. of pearlash, 3 ozs. of alum, and 1 oz. of carbonate of soda.
Make a bay, put in the treacle, add the soda, dissolve the pearlash
in 1 gill of cold water and pour it on the treacle; put another gill
of water in a small pan, add the alum, and let it boil till it is
dissolved; then pour it on the other ingredients. Mix all together,
put into two tins about 24 inches by 18 inches with an edge 1 inch
high. Cut out of each tin 2s. 3 1/2d. worth. This mixture is for
wholesale purposes, and pays well.
Note. --
Nearly all mixtures made in this way are best made the day before.
7 lbs. of flour, 3 1/2 lbs. of
treacle, 1 lb. of sugar, 1 lb. of butter, 3 ozs. of pearlash, 3 ozs.
of alum, half a teaspoonful of essence of lemon, 1 lb. of lemon peel
cut small. Mix as above; roll out the dough in strips, and with the
fingers break off pieces the size of a small marble, lay on the tins
in rows and bake in a moderate oven on tins slightly buttered.
3 1/2 lbs. of oatmeal, 1 lb. of
flour, 1 lb. of butter, 8 ozs. of moist sugar, 1/2 oz. of baking
powder, with sufficient syrup to make all into a moderately stiff
dough; weigh off at 4 ozs. for a penny, mould up round, and place on
tins 2 1/2 inches apart. Bake in a cool oven.
52.
Another Way. -- 6 lbs. of
snap dough, 12 ozs. of moist sugar, 10 ozs. of butter, 1 3/4 lb. of
oatmeal, 1 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda, 1 oz. of caraway seeds, 1
oz. of seasoning. Proceed
as above.
3lbs. of oatmeal, 1 lb. of flour, 4
lbs. of treacle, 1 lb. of good butter, 2 teaspoonfuls of carbonate of
soda, 1 gill of beer. Mixed up as above. Baked in an edged pan 3
inches high, in a cool oven.
Take 1 lb. of butter, 2 lbs. of
flour, 8 ozs. of powdered sugar. Mix the sugar in the butter, then
take in all the flour and thoroughly mix and rub all together till of
a nice mellow colour and easy to work; weigh off the size required,
and shape into square or round pieces; dock them on the top, notch
them round the sides, put on clean dry tins, and bake in a moderate oven.
1 lb. of flour, 1/2 lb. of sugar, 1/2
lb. butter, 2 eggs. Mix as for Scotch Shortbread, ornament the tops
with designs of neatly-cut lemon peel and caraway comfits.
2 lbs. of flour, 3/4 lb. of butter,
3/4 lb. of sugar, 4 eggs, 1/2 oz. of ammonia. Rub the butter in the
flour, make a bay, put in the eggs, sugar, and ammonia; beat them
well with your hand, then draw in the flour and butter; make all into
a dough, weigh at 12 ozs., chaff them up round, pin out a good
breadth, mark them off into eight, place a piece of peel on each, and
bake in good oven. Cut the marked pieces with a sharp knife after
they are baked.
In making the dough for hard biscuits
it should be kept in a loose crumbly state until the whole is of an
equal consistency, then work, rub, or press it together with your
hands until the whole is collected or formed into a mass. If the
old-fashioned biscuit brake is replaced by a biscuit machine so much
the better for the baker and the goods he turns out. If so, then all
that is necessary will be to properly adjust the rollers whether, for
braking (that is making the dough) or rolling out for the cutter. If
an amateur tries to make biscuits he will always experience some
difficulty in moulding them if they are hand-made. When this is so it
would be better to cut them out with a cutter.
These were evidently the first
biscuits, from which have sprung all the varieties of hard biscuits
which we at present possess. They are of the same character as those
which were first made by man in his progress towards civilisation,
and were baked or roasted on hot embers. Before this, men knew of no
other use for their meal than to make it into a kind of porridge.
Biscuits prepared in a simple fashion were for centuries the food of
the Roman soldiers. The name is derived from the Latin bis, twice,
and the French cuit = coctus, meaning twice baked or cooked.
Ship biscuits are composed of flour
and water only; but some think a small proportion of yeast makes a
great improvement in them. The method adopted is to make a small weak
sponge as for bread previous to making the dough; the necessary
quantity of water is then added. The flour used for the commoner sort
of these biscuits is known as middlings or fine sharps; and those
made from the finer or best are called captains or cabin biscuits. A
sack of flour loses, by drying and baking, 28 lbs.
7 lbs. of fine flour, 6 ozs. of
butter, 1 quart of water or milk. Rub the butter in with the flour
until it is crumbled into very small pieces, make a bay in the centre
of the flour, pour in the water or milk, make it into a dough, and
break it when made into dough, chaff or mould up the required size, 4
or 5 ozs. each, pin out with a rolling pin about 5 inches in
diameter, dock them and lay them with their faces together. When they
are ready bake them in a moderately quick oven, of a nice brown
colour. These are seldom made with hand, as the machinery in use
outstrips hand-made biscuits of this class in speed and gives a
better appearance and quality.
7 1/2 lbs. of flour, 1/2 lb. of
butter, 1 quart of water or milk. Mix as directed. When ready weigh
out at 2 ozs. each, mould or chaff, roll out, dock quite through and
bake in a hot oven. Ail biscuits of this class require thorough
drying in the drying room.
6l.
-- Abernethy Biscuits. (Dr. Abernethy's Original Recipe.)
1 quart of milk, 6 eggs, 8 ozs. of
sugar, 1/2 oz. of caraway seeds, with flour sufficient to make the
whole of the required consistency. They are generally weighed off at
2 ozs. each, moulded up, pinned and docked, and baked in a moderate oven.
Note. --
The heat of an oven is not required so strong for biscuits containing
sugar, as it causes them to take more colour in less time.
62.
-- Abernethys as made in London.
7 lbs. of flour, 8 ozs. of sugar, 8
ozs. of butter, 4 eggs, 1 1/2 pint of milk, 2 tablespoonfuls of
orange-flower water, 1/2 oz. of caraway seeds.
63.
-- Usual Way of making Abernethy Biscuits.
Take 8 lbs. of flour, 1 1/2 lb. of
butter and lard, 12 ozs. of sugar, 1/2 oz. of caraway seeds; some use
about 1/2 oz. of powdered volatile salts. Proceed to make into dough
as before. Well break the dough and finish with either hand or machine.
Take 8 lbs. of flour, rub in 2 lbs.
of good butter. Make a bay, add about 1 quart of water, take in your
flour and butter and well shake up, and note the more your mixture is
shaken up and worked the better biscuits you will have. Also note in
shaking up these biscuits, when they are mixed let your two thumbs
meet, giving the mixture a shake up in the air till you have all the
dry flour worked in and the mixture is nice and moist. Bake in a
smart oven on wires.
14 lbs. of flour, 1 1/4 lb. of
butter, 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda, 3 drachms of muriatic acid, 2
quarts of water. Mix as the last, adding the acid mixed with
half-a-pint of the water after the dough is shaken up, then finish
with the machine.
26 lbs. of flour, 2 1/4 lbs. of
butter, 5 lbs. of sugar, 2 ozs. of ammonia, 1/2 oz. of essence of
lemon, 3 quarts of water. This should be made into small round
biscuits rather larger than pic-nics. Bake them in a sound oven.
30 lbs. of flour, 4 lbs. of butter, 4
lbs. of castor sugar, 3 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 2 ozs. of muriatic
acid, 4 quarts of milk.
28 lbs. Of flour, 2 lbs. of lard, 2
lbs. of sugar, 2 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 2 ozs. of hydrochloric
acid. Mix as above and finish the dough in the usual way. Bake in a
moderately brisk oven.
56 lbs. of flour, 3 1/2 lbs. of lard,
3 1/2 lbs. of butter, 1 1/4 lb. of castor sugar, 4 quarts of milk, 4
quarts of water, 2 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 1 1/2 oz. of
hydrochloric acid. Mix as before described. Let the dough be of a
good stiffness and broken very clear. The cutters may be either round
or oval. They require about 20 minutes' baking. As soon as they are
drawing put them in the stove for about two hours.
Take equal parts of fine flour and
wheat-meal flour and mix them together to 5 quarts of milk and water.
Use 2 1/2 lbs. of butter and 2 ozs. of German yeast. Rub the butter
in the flour, make a bay, pour in your liquor and yeast. Mix the
whole into a dough, break it a little, and put it in a warm place to
prove. After it is light enough, break it quite smooth and clear,
roll it out in a sheet one-eighth of an inch in thickness and cut out
your biscuits. As soon as the biscuits are cut out bake in a hot oven.
71.
Another way. -- 5 lbs. of
granulated wheat meal, 1 lb. of butter, 1/4 lb. of sugar, 1/4 lb. of
ground arrowroot, 4 eggs, 1 quart of milk, 1/4 oz. of carbonate of
soda. These are mixed up in the usual way, pinned out and cut with a
small round cutter, docked and baked in a moderate oven.
72.
-- Small Arrowroot Biscuits.
5 1/2 lbs. of flour, 8 ozs. of
butter, 6 ozs. of sugar, 6 ozs. of arrowroot, 3 eggs, 1 pint of
liquor. Prepare as the last. Make 16 biscuits from 1 lb. of dough.
Mould and pin into round cakes 3 inches in diameter, dock them with
an arrowroot docker, and bake them in a sound oven.
4 lbs. of flour, 4 ozs. of butter, 4
ozs. of castor sugar 5 large eggs, with enough water to fill a pint.
Make a bay; after the butter is rubbed in with the flour, add the
sugar and beat up the eggs and water together; pour into your bay,
make the whole into a dough, break it clear and make it quite thin.
When you finish it roll it out the tenth of an inch in thickness, cut
with your coffee biscuit cutter and bake them in a brisk oven. If the
oven should not be hot enough to raise them round the edges twist up
a handful of shavings rather hard and place them round the edges of
the biscuits when baking.
3 1/2 lbs. of flour, 2 ozs. butter, 2
ozs. of sugar, 1 pint of eggs. Make a bay, rub the butter in the
flour before you make a bay, add the sugar, pour in the eggs, beat
them well up with your hands, make the whole into a dough, break well
that it may be clear, roll into thin sheets, cut with an oval cutter
the same as used for Brightons, put them on clean tins, and bake in a
hot oven the same as Coffee Biscuits.
5 lbs. of flour, 12 ozs. of castor
sugar, 12 ozs. of butter, 1 pint of milk. Make all into a good dough,
roll into sheets half-an-inch thick, cut with an oval-pointed cutter
in shape thus - 0, place them on a crimp board and with a knife or
scraper curl them up, put on clean dry tins. Bake in moderate heat.
5 1/4 lbs. of flour, 12 ozs. of
butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 1 pint of milk. Mix as before into a dough,
roll out the dough 1/4 of an inch thick, cut them into long strips,
and cut them diamond shape or square, dock them either on the table
or crimping-board as your fancy dictates. Bake them in a rather warm oven.
10 lbs. of flour, 2 1/4 lbs. of
butter, 10 ozs. of castor sugar, 1 quart of water. Mix up the same as
the others, roll out a sheet 1/2 inch in thickness, cut them out in
various forms, dock them, and bake on clean dry tins in a moderate oven.
1 quart of milk, 1 lb. of butter, 2
ozs. of German yeast, 6 1/2 lbs. of flour. Make the milk warm, add
the sugar, yeast and a handful of flour to form a ferment, let it
ferment for an hour and a half. Rub the butter into the remaining
flour and make all into a nice smooth dough; let it stand about two
hours, then roll it out thin; cut the biscuits out with a cutter
about three inches in diameter, dock them well, place on clean tins
sprinkled with water, wash over with milk when you have them all off,
put them in a steam press or drawers for half an hour, and bake in a
cool oven.
4 lbs. of flour, 12 ozs. of butter, 6
ozs of sugar, 1 pint of milk. Mix up in the usual way, break smooth,
and make 12 biscuits out of a pound of dough; roll thin, dock them,
and bake in a brisk oven. Sold at a halfpenny each.
Take 1 quart of milk, 5 ozs. sugar, 3
ozs. yeast, 1/4 lb. of flour. Mix all together into a ferment and let
it drop, add 1/4 lb. arrowroot, 5 ozs. butter, and as much flour as
will make a good dough. Put it away till you think it is ripe enough
to work off, which you will know by its appearing light and spongy.
When it has reached this stage take 4 lbs. of the dough and roll it
out 1/2 inch thick, cut out with a plain round cutter an inch and a
half in diameter, put them on tins a quarter of an inch apart, prove
them in steam press, and when ready bake in a sound oven. Put them in
a drying stove or some warm place to thoroughly dry them, to make
them light and easily digestible.
12 1/2 lbs. of flour, I oz. of salt,
6 ozs. of lard, 1 oz. of acid, 1 1/2 oz. of soda, 2 quarts of water.
Mix as for Machine Biscuits, break the dough smooth and clear, let it
lay for about half an hour, then roll out in large sheets nearly the
thickness of three penny pieces, cut out with an oval spring cutter
five inches in length and three inches in breadth. The dough must be
well made and of a good stiffness. When cut out lay them on top of
each other in sixes on carrying boards. Have the oven of a good sound
heat and well cleaned out, have a running peel that will hold six
biscuits, and run them on the sole of the oven.
VI. FANCY BISCUITS,
ALMONDS, ETC.
5 lbs. of wheat meal, 1 lb. of
butter, 4 ozs. of sugar, 4 eggs, 1/4 oz. of carbonate of soda in 1
quart of water. Rub the butter in the wheat meal, make a bay, add the
sugar, eggs, and soda; mix well together, add the water, and take in
the wheat meal. After making it into dough, take about 2 lbs., roll
it out into a sheet the thickness of a penny; take it on the pin
again, and roll it on to a piece of cloth spread on the table; cut
them out with a small oval cutter, put on tins well cleaned but not
greased, and bake in a cool oven.
4 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of butter, 1
1/2 lb. of sugar, 10 eggs, and 3 drs. of volatile salt. Rub butter in
with flour; or make a bay, put in the butter, partly cream it, add
eggs and sugar, and voil after well mixing all together; take in the
flour and make it into a dough. Roll out a sheet the thickness of two
penny pieces, cut out with a small fluted cutter, lay them in rows,
take a brush and egg-wash top, lay them on lump sugar previously
broken into pieces the size of split peas, and bake on tins slightly
buttered, in a moderate oven.
84.
-- Imperial or Lemon Biscuits.
Take 1 1/4 lb. of flour, 1 1/4 lb. of
sugar, 4 eggs, 4 ozs. of butter, and a pinch of volatile salt. Rub
butter in the flour, then take the sugar and mix it with the flour
and butter; make a bay; put in your eggs and voil, and mix all
lightly but well together. Take a piece, roll it out same as for
hunting nuts, in strips, place on slightly buttered tins t inch
apart, and bake on double tins, unless the oven is very cold.
Note.. --
In making fancy biscuits the tins must be as clean as it is possible
to get them. I have seen a whole batch of biscuits spoiled through
"only a little bit of dirt," as the boy said when taken to
task for his carelessness.
5 lbs. of flour, 1 1/2 lb. of butter,
2 1/2 lbs. of sugar, 11 eggs, 1 lb. of mixed peel and 1 oz. of
volatile salt. Proceed to make the dough in the same way as for
Imperial or Lemon Biscuits, roll out in a sheet, and cut out with a
small oval fluted cutter; egg them on the top, and throw them on
large crystallised sugar. Bake on slightly buttered tins in a
moderate oven.
2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of sugar, 1
lb. of butter, 4 eggs, pinch of powdered cinnamon, and a little milk.
87.
Another Way. -- 14 ozs. of
flour, 10 ozs. of sugar, 10 ozs. of butter, 2 small eggs, half a
nutmeg grated, a little cinnamon and mace, and a pinch of voil.
88.
Another Way. -- 1 1/2 lb.
of flour, 1/2 lb. of butter, 1/2 lb. of sugar, 1 egg, with sufficient
milk to make dough. Some add about 1/4 oz. of volatile salt. Rub the
butter in with the flour, make a bay, add the sugar, eggs, milk, and
spice; make the whole into a dough, roll it out on an even board to
the thickness of an eighth of an inch, cut out with a plain round
cutter two and a half inches in diameter, place them on clean tins,
not buttered, bake in a cool oven. When the biscuits are a little
coloured on the edges they are done.
4 ozs. of flour, 1 lb. of rice-flour,
1/2 lb. of arrowroot, 1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 6 eggs, 1/2
oz. of voil. Make into a dough same as for other biscuits, roll into
strips the thickness of your finger, cut them the size of small
marbles, and bake on slightly greased tins in a moderate oven.
90.
-- Currant Fruit Biscuits.
3 lbs. of flour, 12 ozs. of
arrowroot, 14 ozs. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 10 eggs, 20 ozs. of
currants, 1/2 oz. of voil. Proceed to make dough as before; roll out
in a sheet the thickness of two penny pieces. Cut with a plain round
cutter, and bake in a moderate oven.
1 lb. of arrowroot, 1 lb. of flour,
the whites of 10 eggs, 1/2 lb. of butter, a lb. of sugar, 1/4 oz. of
voil. Rub the butter in the flour, add the arrowroot, make a bay, add
all the other ingredients, mix into a dough. Proceed the same as for
Peruvian biscuits, and bake in a very cool oven.
1 1/4 lb. flour, 3/4 lb. rice-flour,
1/2 lb. butter, 1 lb. sugar, 2 eggs, 1/4 oz. of voil. Make into dough
with a little milk, roll out in sheets same size as for Currant
Fruit, place on dry tins, and dust the tops with ground rice.
93.
-- Genoa and Toulouse Biscuits, Exhibition Nuts and Marseillaise Biscuits.
6 lbs. flour, 14 ozs. butter, 4 lbs.
sugar, 10 eggs, 1/4 oz. voil. Make a nice stiff dough with the rest milk.
Genoas are made by rolling out the
dough in strips and cutting off in pieces the length of the little
finger. Wash them on top with white of egg and throw on lump sugar
the size of split peas.
Marseillaise Biscuits are made from
the same dough, rolled out in strips, but cut the size of small
marbles. Put about twenty or thirty of them into a sieve, and roll
them about to make them round. These are baked on dry tins.
Toulouse Biscuits and Exhibition Nuts
have currants added to them. For Toulouse biscuits, roll out the
dough in strips, cut the same length as Genoas, and wash the top with
yolk of egg. Place on slightly greased tins 1/2 inch apart.
For Exhibition Nuts cut the dough the
size of small marbles, lay in the tin with the cut side down, and
press gently with heel of the hand.
2 lbs. flour, 1/2 lb. brown sugar,
1/2 lb. castor sugar, 1/2 lb. butter, and yolk of one egg. Simmer the
sugar and a little milk over a slow fire, rub the butter into the
flour; after the sugar has become cold put it into the bay and make
into a stiffish dough. Put the dough into blocks, and give them the
impression of half a walnut, after which cut off the surplus dough
with a sharp knife, knock out the biscuits, and bake on slightly
buttered tins until a nice brown. After they are baked dip in white
of egg, and put two together so as to form a walnut.
8 ozs. butter, 8 ozs. sugar, 4 eggs,
10 ozs. flour, 6 ozs. currants. Some add a little voil, but if well
creamed there is no use for voil. Cream the butter and sugar
together, add the eggs, then flour and currants; have ready a linen
bag with a small tin funnel at the end of it; have a small cork in
the funnel so as to keep the mixture from dropping out, drop them on
paper about the breadth of a shilling, put them on tins, and bake in
a sound oven.
3 1/2 lbs. flour, 3 ozs. butter, 6
ozs. castor sugar, 13 eggs, 2 drs. voil. Rub the butter in the flour,
make a bay, put in the sugar in powder with the eggs and voil, make
the whole into a dough of moderate consistence; break it well and let
it be quite clear and smooth; roll out a quarter of an inch thick,
cut out with an oval cutter, or one in the form of an oak-leaf, dock
them in the centre, lay them on a tray in rows, cover them with a
damp cloth. Have a copper on the fire boiling, throw them into the
water one at a time face upwards, and after they have risen to the
top be careful to turn each biscuit face uppermost. Let them remain
this way for two or three minutes for the edges to turn up. When
ready take a skimmer and throw them into a pail of cold water. When
they have been in the water for about an hour put them in a sieve to
strain, and bake on buttered tins in a moderate oven. When baked they
should be placed in the drying stove for a few hours.
1 lb. butter, 1 lb. sugar, 9 eggs, 1
lb. rice-flour, 1/4 oz. voil, 1 lb. flour, 4 drops essence of lemon.
Proceed the same as for Queen's Drops. The batter, however, will be
found a good deal stiffer. This makes a nice drop when well got up.
8 ozs. sugar, 8 ozs. eggs, 4 ozs.
flour, 1 oz. butter. Put the flour in a small basin, rub in the
butter and add eggs and sugar; have the tins well greased, and drop
the batter on them with a spoon in pieces a little larger than a
penny. Bake in a cool oven. When baked form into the shape of a cone,
dip each edge in white of egg, and then each end in coloured sugar.
They make a nice show for a window.
99.
-- Crimp, or Honeycomb Biscuits.
4 lbs. flour, 2 lbs. sugar, 1 lb.
butter, 9 eggs, 1/2 oz. voil. Rub the butter in with the flour, make
a bay, add the sugar, eggs and voil. Roll out a sheet a nice
thickness. Cut out with a small round plain cutter, but before doing
so run over the surface of the dough with a crimp-pin. Bake in a
moderate oven.
2 lbs. flour, 4 oz. butter, 12 ozs.
sugar, 1/4 oz. caraway seeds, 5 or 6 eggs, 1/4 oz. voil. Make up the
dough as usual for biscuits, cut them out the size of spice nuts with
spice-nut cutter, egg them on top; have some loaf sugar, and almonds
with the skins on cut the size of split peas, place the biscuits on
the sugar and almonds, gently press them down before putting them on
slightly buttered tins, and bake in a moderate oven.
1 lb. of Valentia almonds, 2 lbs. of
powdered sugar, 7 or 8 whites of eggs. Beat the almonds with whites
of eggs, but not so fine as for common macaroons; lay out stiff on
wafer-paper; have almonds cut in slices, one into six pieces, lay
them on the sides and top of each macaroon; ice them well from the
icing-bag, and bake in a slow oven.
1 lb. Valentia almonds, 1 1/2 lb.
sugar, about 8 whites of eggs. Beat the almonds very fine with the
white of an egg in a mortar, and then add the sugar and two or three
whites of eggs; beat well together. Take out the pestle, add two more
whites, and work them well with a spatter until the whole of the
whites, are incorporated. Lay out one on wafer-paper and bake it in a
slow oven. If it appears smooth and light the mixture is ready, but
if not add one more white of egg, as it is hardly possible to
ascertain the exact number of whites to use. If ready lay out on
wafer-paper, ice them with sugar on top, and bake in a moderate oven.
1 lb. of Valentia almonds, 1 lb. of
sugar, 5 or 6 whites of eggs. Proceed as before, but instead of
beating the almonds with whites of eggs use rose or orange-flower
water, and when beaten very fine put in the whites of eggs and sugar,
beating them well with the spatter. Lay out one oval on wafer-paper
and bake it. If it runs into its shape the mixture is ready; if too
stiff, add one more white of egg; lay out on wafer-paper, dust sugar
on top, and bake them in a good oven.
8 ozs. of bitter almonds, 8 ozs. of
sweet almonds, 2 1/2 lbs. of sugar, and about eight whites of eggs.
Blanch and beat the almonds with white of egg as fine as possible,
and be careful when beating them you do not oil them. When beaten
fine, mix {n the sugar and beat both well together; then add more
whites of eggs, work them well with the spatter, adding more whites
of eggs as you proceed. Then lay one or two on dry paper half the
size of a macaroon, and bake them in a slow oven. If they are of
proper stiffness lay them out; if too stiff, add more whites of eggs
to them. Should they be good they will come off the paper when cold;
if not, the paper must be laid on a damp table, when they will come
off easily.
These are exactly the same as common
macaroons, but must be laid out on wafer paper half the size, and a
dried cherry put on the top for effect. Use a square of citron on
some, and a square of angelica on others. Dust them on top with
sugar, and bake them in a slow oven.
1 quart of sponge, 4 ozs. sugar, 2
eggs, 2 ozs. of butter. Mix all the ingredients together, make it up
the size of bun dough with best flour, let it lie for two hours, make
into long rolls and batch them on tins, greasing between each roll.
Bake in moderate oven for thirty-five minutes. After they are baked
let them lie for one day. Rasp top and bottom off, cut into neat
slices, and bake again in a moderate oven until thoroughly crisp and
dry, and of a nice brown colour. Put them in a basket, and leave them
all night in a warm place. This will make them much crisper. Some add
a pinch of ground alum.
Blanch and cut the long way any
quantity of almonds. Make some icing pretty stiff, put the almonds
into it and let them take up all the icing. Citron, lemon, and orange
cut small may also be added. Lay out on wafer paper in small heaps
and bake in a very slow oven.
Make any desired quantity of icing,
colour it with lake finely ground, mix in as many cut almonds,
citron, and lemon as it will take; lay out on wafer paper in small
heaps and bake in a slow oven.
Take any quantity of Jordan almonds,
cut them up very small (but not blanch them); also citron, lemon, and
orange cut small Prepare some very light icing, with which mix the
almonds, &c., into a soft paste. Lay out on wafer paper and bake
in a slow oven.
110.
-- Almond Fruit Biscuits.
1 lb. of Valentia almonds, 1 lb. of
powdered sugar, 2 or 3 whites of egg. Beat up the almonds very fine
with white of one egg; then rub the sugar and almonds into a fine
paste with 1 or 2 whites of egg, divide it into two parts, work 2
ozs. of flour into one part and roll it out thin for the bottom, cut
it square and cover it with good raspberry jam; then roll out another
square the same size, and lay it on the top of the fruit, cover this
thinly with icing and cut it up into different shapes according to
fancy; lay them on wafer paper and bake in a slow oven.
Note. -- There
will be many cuttings from the above shapes which should not be
wasted. Put several bits together in little heaps on wafer paper, put
a little icing on top, a bit of green citron, and a small bit of
raspberry jam. A
little pink icing may also be added. Bake in a slow oven.
Take any desired quantity of whites
of eggs (half duck whites if you can procure them), whisk them until
so stiff that an egg will lie on the surface, then mix in with the
spatter some fine powdered sugar until they appear of a proper
stiffness, which may be known by laying out one oval with a knife and
spoon. If it retains the mark of the knife they are ready to bake; if
not, more sugar must be added. Lay out oval on dry paper and bake on
a piece of wood two inches thick: this is to prevent them having any
bottom. They must have a pretty bloom on them when baked. Take one
carefully off with a knife, take out the inside and fill it with any
kind of preserved fruit. Then take off another and do the same,
putting both sides together; and so on till they are all baked. If
good they will have the appearance of a small egg.
112.
Another Way. -- The
whites of 12 eggs and I quart of clarified sugar. Let one person
whisk up the eggs as before directed while the sugar is boiled to the
degree called "Blown;" *then grain the sugar, and mix the
whites of eggs and the sugar together. Lay out and bake as before
directed. *To boil sugar to the degree called "Blown,".
Refer 183.
Break the eggs into a round-bottom
pan, whisk them till they are hot, having your pan placed over hot
water; take them off and whisk them till they are cold, then put in
the sugar and whisk till hot, after which again whisk till they are
cold. When the eggs and sugar are perfectly light take out the whisk,
stir in the flour gently. From beginning to end the operation should
not take more than twenty minutes. Cover the tins or wires with wafer
paper, and lay out the biscuits any size required from a savoy bag.
Dust them over with sugar and bake in a hot oven.
The savoy bag should be of the
strongest fustian and so made as to come to a point, like a
jelly-bag, at the point of which must be fixed a small tin pipe two
inches long. Boil the bag two or three times to prevent the mixture
passing through.
For ingredients, take 8 eggs, 1 lb.
of sugar, and 1 lb. of flour, and see directions below under Fruit Biscuits.
115.
-- French Savoy Biscuits.
Take 8 eggs and 4 yolks, 1 lb. of
sugar, and 1 lb. of flour, and see directions below.
Take 8 eggs and 4 yolks, 1 lb. of
sugar, 1 lb. of flour, and a few caraway seeds, and see directions below.
117.
-- Lord Mayor's Biscuits.
Take 8 eggs, 1 lb. of sugar, 1 lb. of
flour, and a few caraway seeds, and see directions below.
For these the ingredients are 6 eggs
and 6 yolks, 1 lb. of sugar, and 1 lb. of flour.
To mix the above five recipes,
observe the directions given for Common Drop Biscuits. They must be
baked in a hot oven. The Savoy Biscuits must be laid out from a savoy
bag on "cap" paper one-half round and one-half long. The
French Savoys must be laid out oval, and when baked two are to be put
together. The drudges' Biscuits are to be laid out round, about the
size of a half-crown; and the Lord Mayor's are to be round, and of
double the size. The Fruit Biscuits are to be laid out about the size
of a shilling, and preserved fruit put between two of them. Have
ready some castor sugar, spread it on a piece of paper, making it
smooth on the surface; then lay each half-sheet of paper on which the
biscuits are placed on the sugar; let them remain a moment, take them
off, give them a shake and bake in a hot oven. Turn each half-sheet
on to a clean table, wash the bottom of the paper with clean water,
let them lie for a moment, and they will be found to come off easily.
Proceed in this way till all are off, and baked.
Note. --
Some prefer whisking up sponge mixtures cold. They keep better, but
are not so showy.
119.
-- Palais Royal Biscuits.
Make the mixture exactly the same way
as for French Savoys. Bake them in paper boxes about two inches long,
one inch and a-half wide, and an inch deep. Dust them lightly on the
top with sugar and bake in a moderate oven. The boxes must be made of
the best writing paper. They are very proper to mix with rout biscuits.
Take the weight of 8 eggs in sugar, 2
eggs in flour, and 6 eggs in rice-flour; or take 1 lb. of sugar, 4
ozs. of flour, 12 ozs. of rice-flour, and 8 eggs. Mix cold in the
same manner as for Savoy Biscuits. Bake in a moderate oven in sponge
frames nicely buttered.
121.
-- Scarborough Water Cakes.
8 eggs, 1 lb. of sugar, 1 lb. of
flour, and a little ground cinnamon. Mix the same way as for Savoy
Biscuits. Flavour with as much ground cinnamon as will make them
pleasant to the taste. When taken off the paper put two together.
Take 12 eggs, 1 lb. 2 ozs. of sugar,
15 ozs. of flour. Mix cold the same as for Savoy Biscuits, which is
the best method; or they may be mixed hot. The pans must be neatly
buttered with creamed butter, and a dust of sugar thrown over them.
Bake in a moderate oven, but not too hot. The bottoms should be a
neat brown.
123.
-- Almond Sponge Biscuits.
Make exactly the same way as Sponge
Biscuits, only have ready Jordan almonds blanched and each cut the
long way into 6 or 8 pieces. Put them neatly on the top of each
biscuit, dust sugar over them and bake as before.
8 eggs, 1 lb. of sugar, 1 gill of
water, 1 lb. 2 oz. of flour. A Naples Biscuit frame is about 8 ins.
long, 3 ins. broad, and 1 in. deep. In this the partitions are
upright, and must be papered neatly. Put the sugar and water into a
small pan, let it dissolve and boil; then whisk the eggs. Pour in the
sugar gently, and keep whisking until very light. When it is quite
cold scatter in the flour, and mix it until smooth, stirring it as
lightly as possible. Put it into the frames, well filled, and bake in
a good oven, but not too hot. Dust them with sugar before putting in
the oven.
VII. PASTRY, CUSTARDS, ETC.
125.
-- Butter for Puff Paste.
The butter must be perfectly sweet,
and before it is used worked on a marble slab to make it smooth. Salt
butter from cows fed on poor land makes the best puff paste, but it
must first be washed in two or three waters. For every kind of cakes
the butter cannot be too rich.
3 lbs. of butter and 3 lbs. of flour.
The butter must be tough: if salt, wash it in two waters the night
before using it. Take half of it and rub into the flour, and with
pure water make into a paste the same stiffness as the butter. Roll
it on a marble slab half an inch thick, spot it with small pieces of
butter, dust it with flour; then double it up again, spot it as
before, and roll it out again, spot it the third time, roll out again
twice, and put in a cool place for half an hour with a cloth over it,
when it will be fit for use.
NOTE. --
Common puff paste for large pies may be made this way by using 1 lb.
of butter and 2 lbs. of flour.
127.
Another Way. -- 2 lbs. 8
ozs. of butter, and 3 lbs. 8 ozs. of flour. Mix the flour with water
to the same stiffness as the butter, then roll out the paste, spot it
with the butter. Roll it out three times, and dust it with flour as
before. This paste is worse for lying, and should therefore be baked
as soon as possible.
By using lard of a good tough
quality, and mixing it as above, with the addition of a little salt,
a good puff paste can be made suitable for wholesale purposes.
1 lb. of butter, and 2 lbs. of flour.
Rub the butter and flour very finely together, then mix it, with
water, into a paste of the stiffness of the butter. This is a choice
paste for tarts made of fresh fruit.
6 ozs. of butter, 2 ozs. of sugar, 1
lb. of flour. Beat to a froth the whites of two eggs, rub the butter
and flour very finely together, make the paste of the proper
stiffness with whites of egg and a little water.
130.
-- Paste for a Baked Custard.
8 oz. of butter and 1 lb. of flour.
Boil the butter in a small teacupful of water, mix it into the flour,
make it smooth, and raise it to any shape desired.
131.
-- Paste for small Raised Pies.
12 ozs. of butter, 2 lbs. of flour,
and 1 gill of water. Mix the same way as for baked custards.
132.
-- To make a handsome Tartlet.
Take a large oval dish and sheet it
with the best puff paste; cut it round the sides to make leaves, and
fill it three-parts full with good preserved fruit. On the fruit put
some device in cut paste, such as a large star, a sprig of flowers,
or a tree.
133.
-- Nelson Cake or Eccles Cake.
Take 2 lbs. of puff paste, roll out
half of it, spread 1 1/2 lb. of clean currants and 1/2 lb. of raw
sugar upon it with a little spice, and dash a little water on the
sugar and currants to make them unite; then roll out the remainder of
the paste and lay it on the top. Ice it well with whites of eggs and
sugar. Bake on a square tin in a good oven.
Boil 1 pint of milk with a bit of
cinnamon and a little fresh lemon-peel, then mix in a pint of cream
and the yolks of 7 eggs well beaten. Sweeten to taste and let the
whole simmer until of a proper thickness. It must not be allowed to
boil. Stir it one way the whole time with a small whisk, until quite
smooth, then stir in a glass of brandy.
Beat up 3 eggs, add 1 gill of cream
or new milk and a little sugar. Put a dust of cinnamon on each before
putting in the oven.
VIII. FRUIT CAKES,
BRIDE CAKES, ETC.
136.
-- Directions for mixing Cakes made with Butter.
Take your Butter and work it on a
marble slab, then cream it in a warm earthenware pan, and be
particularly careful not to let the butter oil; add the sugar and
work it well with your hand, mixing in one or two eggs at a time, and
so on progressing until all the eggs are used. Beat it well up, and
as soon as you perceive the mixing rise in the pan put in the flour
and beat it well. Then add the spices, currants, and whatever else is
required for the mixing. You may then put it up into the tins you
intend for it. It will be necessary during the time of creaming it to
warm it two or three times, particularly in cold weather.
137.
Another Way. -- Proceed
with the butter and sugar as before. Have ready separated the whites
from the yolks of the eggs; mix in the yolks two or three at a time;
let another person whisk up the whites stiff. Then put them to the
other mixture and proceed as before directed.
138.
-- London Way of mixing Cakes.
Weigh down the flour and sugar on a
clean smooth table, make a hole in it, and bank it well up; in this
hole put your eggs; cream the butter in an earthenware pan; then add
to the flour and sugar the eggs and butter; mix all together and beat
up well with both hands. You may work it up this way as light as a
feather; then add the currants, spices, &c.
139.
Another Way. -- Take six
pieces of cane about 18 inches long, tie them fast together at one
end, but in order to make them open put in the middle, where you tie
them, one or two pieces half the length. This is called a mixing-rod.
Provide a tall pot, as upright as can be procured, which make hot;
work your butter on a marble slab, then put it in ú the pan
and work it well round with the rod until it is nicely creamed; put
in the sugar and incorporate both together; add one or two eggs at a
time, and so on progressively until they are all used up; work away
with the rod with all speed, and as soon as it is properly light
(which you may know by its rising in the pan) take it out and mix in
the flour, spices, currants, &c., with a spatter. This is
esteemed the very best way of mixing cakes.
1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. 2 ozs. of
sugar, 6 eggs, and 4 yolks; 1 lb. 4 ozs. of flour. Cut 4 ozs. of
green citron in long thin pieces and place them in two or three
layers as you put the cake up. It must be baked in a deep tin or rim
papered with fine paper. Neatly buttered and baked in a slow oven.
3 lbs. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 24
eggs, 5 1/4 lbs. of flour, 4 1/2 lbs. of currants, 1 lb. 8 ozs. of
lemon and orange peel, a little mace, a pint of warm milk, 1/4 oz. of
soda, about 1/2 oz. cream of tartar. Proceed as directed.
1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 8
eggs, 1 lb. 2 ozs. of flour, 1 lb. 8 ozs. of currants, 8 ozs. of
orange and lemon peel. Proceed as directed.
1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 8
eggs, 1 lb. of flour, caraway seeds. Some put 1 tablespoonful of
brandy and 2 ozs. of cut almonds.
144.
-- Two and Three Pound Cakes.
2 lbs. 4 ozs. of butter, 2 lbs. of
sugar, 16 eggs, 2 lbs. 6 ozs. of flour, 3 lbs. 8 ozs. of currants, 1
lb. 8 ozs. of orange, lemon, and citron; almonds and brandy if
required; 3/4 oz. of cream of tartar and carbonate of soda. Proceed
as directed.
2 lbs. 8 ozs. of butter, 2 lbs. of
sugar, 16 eggs, 2 lbs. 4 ozs. of flour, 4 ozs. of cut almonds,
caraway seeds, and a glass of brandy; 3/4 oz. of cream of tartar and
carbonate of soda. Proceed as directed.
146.--Four
and Six Pound Cakes.
2 lbs. 8 ozs. of butter, 2 lbs. of
sugar, 16 eggs, 3 lbs. 8 ozs. of flour, 6 lbs. of currants, 2 lbs. of
orange and lemon, citron and almonds. Proceed as directed.
The following mixtures are made in a
few first-class shops, and the recipes for the same are not generally
known. The prices quoted allow for almond-icing as well.
- Ingredients 10s.6d. 12s. 15s. 18s. F1. 1s. F1. 11s. F2. 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 00 2 8 3 12 5 0
- Orange and citron, mixed 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 10 0 12 1 2 1 8
- Almonds 0 1 1/2 0 2 0 2 0 3 0 3 0 4 0 6
- Mixed spice* 0 1/2 --- 0 3/4 --- 0 1 0 1 1/2 0 2
- Flour 0 11 0 13 1 1 1 4 1 6 2 1 2 12
- Eggs, number of 6 7 9 10 12 18 24
- \ Wine- Wine- Wine- Wine-
- Brandy or brandy and } glass- glass- glass- glass 1/4 pint 1/4 pint 1/2 pint
- Wine / ful. ful. ful. ful.
- * Nutmegs, mace, and cinnamon.
148.
-- Icing Sugar for Bride Cakes, &c.
To make this take 2 lbs. of finely
powdered icing sugar (first having an earthenware pan made warm), put
in six fresh whites of eggs, and immediately whisk them, and as
quickly as possible, until quite stiff; then add the sugar by
degrees, whisking all the time. As soon as it appears light cease
whisking, and beat it well with the spatter until you have put in all
the sugar. A little tartaric acid or lemon-juice may be added towards
the end of the mixing. To know when it is sufficiently beaten, take
up a little on the spatter and let it drop into the basin again. If
it keeps its shape it is ready; if it runs it is either beaten too
little or requires more sugar.
A good substitute for eggs is French
glue. Take a quarter of an ounce of it and fully one imperial pint of
boiling water. Pour the water on the glue, and stir in with a spoon
until all is dissolved. If convenient, make it two days before using.
The glue is used similar to eggs. Add to it a small pinch of tartaric
acid. This glue is mostly used for wholesale or cheap purposes.
149.
-- Almond Icing for Bride Cakes.
1 lb. Valencia almonds, 2 lbs. of
icing sugar, and about 3 whites of eggs and 2 yolks. Blanch and beat
the almonds. Fine with whites of eggs, then add the sugar and whites
and yolks, beat them well together and make them into a stiffish
paste. As soon as the cake is baked, take it out and take off the
hoop and the paper carefully from the sides, then put the almond
icing carefully on the top of the cake, and make it as smooth as you
can. Put into the oven, and let it remain until the almond icing is
firm enough and of the colour of a macaroon; let it stand two or
three hours, then ice it with sugar icing.
1 1/4 lb. of flour, 1 lb. 2 oz. of
butter, 1 lb. of moist sugar, 4 lbs. of currants, 1 1/2 lb. of mixed
peel, 2 nutmegs grated, 1/2 oz. ground cinnamon, 10 eggs, 1/2 lb.
blanched sweet almonds cut in halves, and a wineglassful of brandy.
Mix as before directed.
Same as wedding cake. In olden times
a bean and a pea were introduced into the cake to determine who
should be king and queen of the evening festivities.
1 3/4 lb. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar,
2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of patent flour, 24 eggs. Proceed as before
directed. This mixing makes eight cakes, selling at a shilling each.
Put two thin slices of citron on each. Bake in a cool oven. Note. --
Patent flour is made with 8 lbs. of flour, 4 ozs. cream of tartar, 2
ozs. carbonate of soda, and sifted three times.
153.
-- Plum Cake. (As made for best shops in Edinburgh.)
3 lbs. of butter, 3 lbs. of sugar, 4
1/2 lbs. of flour, 40 eggs, 8 or 10 lbs. of currants, 2 lbs, of peel,
a few drops of essence of lemon. Cream and finish as before directed.
1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 1
1/4 lb. of flour, 1 lb. of eggs, 2 1/2 lbs. of currants, washed and
picked, 1 1/2 lb. of orange peel. Bake in a small square-edged tin.
Proceed as before directed. When nicely in the tin have prepared some
blanched and chopped almonds, strew them rather thickly on the top,
and bake in a moderate oven.
155.
-- Rice Cake (Scotch Mixture).
2 lbs. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 2
1/4 lbs. of flour, 1/4 lb. of rice flour, 20 eggs, essence of lemon.
Proceed as before directed.
156.
-- Madeira Cake (Scotch Mixture).
1 1/4 lb. of butter, 1 3/4 lb. of
sugar, 2 1/4 lbs. of flour, 20 eggs, a small pinch of tartaric acid
and carbonate of soda. Proceed as before directed.
157.
-- Pond Cake or Dundee Cake.
1 lb. of butter, 1 1/4 lb. of sugar,
13 eggs, 1 3/4 lb. of flour, 2 lbs. of peel cut in small squares.
After it is creamed up and ready, entirely cover the top with small
comfits. Bake in moderate oven. Do not cream it so light as for other
cakes so as to keep the comfits from sinking in the cake.
1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 1
pint of whites of eggs, 1 3/4 lb. of flour, almond to flavour.
1 1/4 lb. of butter, 1 1/2 lb. of
sugar, 1 pint of yolks of eggs, 1 3/4 lb. of sultana raisins, 1/2 lb.
of lemon peel, 2 lbs. of flour, 1/4 lb. of patent or soda flour. Add
a little milk to make it as soft as the Silver mixture, paper a deep
square tin, and spread the gold mixture 2 inches thick, then spread
the silver mixture nicely over the top of the gold. Baking, about 2
1/4 hours.
160.
-- Plum Cake at 6d. per lb. (As sold by Grocers.)
8 lbs. of flour, 2 lbs. of butter, 3
lbs. of sugar, 4 lbs. of currants, 1/2 lb. of peel, 15 eggs, 2 ozs.
of carbonate of soda, 3 ozs. of cream of tartar, essence of lemon,
and fresh churned milk, to make into a nice dough. Have some square
one-pound tins nicely papered, and weigh in 1 lb. of the mixture.
This is an excellent mixture if well got up.
161.
Another Way. -- 1 lb. of lard, 1 1/4 lb. of sugar, 8 ozs. of
peel, 5 lbs. of currants, 6 lbs. of flour, a grated nutmeg, 1 oz.
carbonate of soda, 2 ozs. cream of tartar, 8 eggs, the rest milk.
162.
Another Way. -- 1/2 lb. of butter, 3/4 lb. of sugar, 4 eggs,
3 lbs. of currants, 4 lbs. of flour, 3/4 oz. of carbonate of soda,
1/2 oz. of tartaric acid. Dough with milk.
163.
-- Mystery, or Cheap Plum Cake at 3d. per lb.
8 lbs. of common flour, 3 lbs. of
brown sugar, 1 lb. of lard, 2 ozs. of peel, 3 lbs. of currants, 1 1/2
oz. of spice, 2 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 1 oz. of tartaric acid.
Dough with milk. Bake in a slow oven, wash with egg on top.
164.
-- Plum Cake at 4d. per lb.
4 lbs. of flour, 3 lbs. of
currants, 12 ozs. of lard, 14 ozs. of sugar, 1 1/2 oz. of cream of
tartar, 1 oz. of carbonate of soda, 1/4 oz. of spice. Dough with good
churned milk.
1/2 lb. of butter, 1/2 lb. of sugar,
1/2 lb. of flour, 6 eggs, 1/4 oz. of volatile salts in powder. Mix
same as pound cake. Bake in round flat tins about 1/4 of an inch
deep, or drop some of the paste on whity-brown paper and spread it
out into a round thin cake about 6 inches in diameter. This will make
12 cakes. Bake them in a moderate oven in tins. Take them off the
paper when baked, spread some raspberry or other jam on two of them
and put three together. Trim them round the edges with a knife, and
divide or cut them into 4, 6, or 8 parts according to the price at
which they are to be sold.
Take 7 lbs. of common butter or
butterine, 7 lbs. of castor sugar, 60 eggs, 12 lbs. of flour, 10 lbs.
of currants, 3 lbs. of chopped peel, 1 1/2 oz. of cream of tartar,
3/4 oz. of soda, about 2 pints of churned milk. Cream the butter and
sugar together, add the eggs, then mix all the other ingredients
together. Paper a square-edged pan, lay on your batter about three
inches thick, and bake in a sound oven. After the cake is baked, put
it aside in a cool room till next morning, when you may turn it out
of the tin, and then, after taking the paper nicely off, cut it into
suitable sizes.
Note. -- The
sides of the tin before being papered must be lined with wood upsets. This cake is sold at 6d. per pound.
3/4 lb. of butter, 3/4 lb. of
sugar, 1 lb. of eggs, 1/2 gill of brandy, lb. of flour, the grated
rind of two lemons. Cream the butter, sugar, and eggs, in the usual
way, stir in the lemon rind, brandy, and flour; put in small moulds
and bake in a moderate oven.
2 lbs. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 2
lbs. of eggs, 2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of patent flour, 3 lbs. of
sultana raisins. Cream this cake in the usual way, bake in small
round hoops, weighed out at 1 lb. each. Bake in moderate oven.
4 1/2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. 6 ozs. of
butter, 1 lb. 14 ozs. of castor sugar, 11 eggs, 1 1/4 oz. of
carbonate of soda, 1 3/4 oz. of cream of tartar, churned milk to
dough. Weigh the flour, add the tartar and soda, make a bay; have the
butter previously warmed, put it in the bay with the sugar, cream it
well with your hand, adding the eggs gradually, then mix all together
and make into a nice batter. Weigh at 1 lb. for sixpence.
This makes a number of cakes of
various kinds -- such as Cilron Cake, by adding a small quantity of
thinly chopped citron; Madeira Cake by dusting the top with castor
sugar, and placing two pieces of peel on the top; Plum Cake, by
adding a few currants and cut peel; Coconut Cake, by adding a little
cocoa-nut to the mixture, and dusting the top with cocoa-nut; and
Seed Cake, by adding a few seeds. It is a capital mixture when nicely
got up.
IX.
HANDY WHOLESALE RECIPES FOR SMALL MASTERS.
12 lbs. of flour, 6 ozs. of cream of
tartar, 3 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 12 ozs. of lard, 2 ozs. of salt.
Dough up with churned milk, mix the tartar and soda with the flour,
rub the lard in the flour, make a bay, add the salt, and make into a
nice dough with milk. Weigh off at 6 ozs. for a penny. Mould round,
pin out the breadth of a small saucer, wash the top with milk, bake
on the bottom of a good sound oven. Dock them with a docker.
171.
-- Currant or Milk Scones.
6 lbs. of flour, 6 ozs. of lard, 6
ozs. of sugar, 3 ozs. of cream of tartar, 1 1/2 oz. soda, 1 lb. of
currants, 1 oz. of salt; buttermilk to dough. Mix as above. Weigh off
at 11 ozs. for 2d., mould, pin out and cut in four; put on flat clean
tins; wash with egg on top. Bake in a sound oven.
172.
-- Sugar or White Spice Biscuits.
7 lbs. of good fine flour, 12 ozs. of
lard, 3 lbs. of moist sugar, 4 ozs. of ammonia, churned milk to
dough; mix as above, but do not work the mixture too much. Take about
4 lbs. of the dough, work it into a square or round shape, pin it out
a little thicker than a penny piece, cut out either in shapes or
farthing or halfpenny biscuits, but well dock the sheet before you
cut them.
Bake on greased tins; wash on top; a
few currants strewn on the shapes. Bake in a sharp oven.
173.
-- Halfpenny Scotch Cakes.
3 1/2 lbs. of flour, 12 ozs. of lard,
12 ozs. of sugar, 1/4 oz. vol, and a little milk, as much as will
dissolve the volatile salts and sugar. Mix as above, but well rub the
dough; make it nice and easy to work off. Pin out a sheet about 1/4
of an inch thick, cut out with a small round cutter; dock each one
well; pinch round the edges with the finger and thumb. Bake on clean
tins, but not greased, in a moderate oven.
174. -- Large
Square Penny Albert Cake.
Rub 6 ozs. of lard in 6 lbs. of
flour, then add 4 ozs. of cream of tartar and 2 ozs. of soda. Mix all
together and make a bay. Put in the bay 2 lbs. of sugar and 3 lbs. of
currants, and dough with churned milk, a little softer than for plum
cake mixture. Have a large-edged pan cleaned and greased, put the
mixture in the tin and spread it equally over the tin, putting your
hand occasionally in a little milk to smooth over the surface. This
mixture is best made up in a basin or large bowl and poured into the
tin. Bake in a moderate oven and cut when cold.
Rub 1 lb. of lard in 4 lbs. of flour,
put 4 lbs. of moist sugar on it and mix together; make a bay, put in
4 lbs. of syrup and about half a teaspoonful of essence of lemon.
Make all into dough, pin it out, cut with a small round cutter, about
the thickness of a penny. Bake on well-greased tins in a moderate
oven. You can curl them round the peel or have them plain.
Rub 6 ozs. of lard in 5 lbs. of
flour, make a bay, put in 2 1/2 lbs. of moist sugar, 2 ozs. of
ammonia; dough with milk; make into a dough, but do not work it too
much. Cut out the same size and thickness as for brandy snaps; wash
the top with milk; have some nonpareil sweets spread on the table,
throw the biscuits on them, put on slightly greased tins. Bake in
moderate oven.
177.
-- Common Halfpenny Queen Cake.
3 lbs. of flour, add 1 oz. of cream
of tartar, 1 oz. of soda; mix; rub in 12 ozs. of lard, make a bay,
put in 24 ozs. of castor sugar, essence of lemon; dough with churned
milk; dough rather soft. Have some fluted tins ready greased, take a
spoon and three-parts fill your tins. Bake in a moderate oven.
2 lbs. of flour, 4 ozs. of lard, 8
ozs. of sugar, 8 ozs. of currants, 1 oz. of soda, 1 oz. of cream of
tartar; dough with churned milk and mix as for queens. Have some
square sponge cake tins ready greased, take a spoon and three-parts
fill them; wash with egg on top, dust them with castor sugar and bake
in sound oven.
179.
-- Polkas or Halfpenny Sponges.
Put 2 1/2 lbs. of good flour on the
table, make a bay, put in 5 eggs, l 1/2 lb. of castor sugar, and 1
oz. voil; beat eggs, sugar, and ammonia with your hand for twelve or
fifteen minutes, add a little churned milk, take in your flour and
beat all well together with 12 drops of essence of lemon. Have your
tins greased, take a spoon, half fill it with the mixture; put on
tins about 2 inches apart; put about 6 or 8 currants on each and bake
in a hot oven.
THE SUGAR-BOILER'S ASSISTANT.
X. CONFECTIONS IN SUGAR-BOILING.
The clarifying and boiling of sugar
to the different degrees must be considered as the key to all sorts
of stove working, and I will give here the method used for clarifying
sugar. The pan used must be perfectly clean and bright. Whisk two
whites of eggs in one pint of water; break 30 lbs. of good lump sugar
into small pieces and put it into the pan; pour over it 6 quarts of
water, set it on a clear stove to melt, but be careful it does not
blubber and boil before it is melted; when you see it rise it is then
boiling, and must be stopped immediately by putting in 1 quart of
water; when it rises again add the same quantity of water, and so on
two or three times; this prevents the scum from boiling into the
sugar and makes it rise to the top. Draw the pan to one side of the
fire and take all the scum off; let it continue to simmer. Keep
adding a little water to make the remaining part of the scum rise. By
this time the scum will be very white and tough, which also take off
if the sugar appear clear. Dip in your finger, and if a drop hang
from it, it is of the first degree, called smooth, and may be put by
for use.
You may clarify a much smaller
quantity of sugar by carefully attending to these instructions.
Granulated sugar is considered the
best to use, as it is less liable to adulteration than any other
kind. Of moist sugars, Demerara is the best. The simplest way to test
sugar for its purity is to dissolve a little in a glass of clear
water. If the sugar be quite pure the water will only be slightly
thickened, but not in the least clouded, neither will there be any
sediment. In keeping sugar care should be taken to protect it from
dampness and vermin -- especially ants.
To boil Sugar to the
different degrees.
182.
To the degree called "Pearled." -- Cover your
preserving pan bottom two or three inches deep, boil it briskly over
a clear fire for a short time, then dip in your finger and put it to
your thumb, if on separating them a small string of sugar adheres to
each it is boiled to the degree called pearled.
183.
To the degree called "Blown." -- After you have
ascertained that the sugar is boiled to the degree called pearled put
in the skimmer and let it boil a few minutes, then shake it out of
the sugar and give it a blow. If sugar fly from the skimmer in small
bladders it is boiled to the degree called blown.
184.
To the degree called "Feathered." -- Continue to
boil the sugar from blown for a short time longer; take out the
skimmer and give it a jerk over the pan, then over your head, and if
sugar fly out like feathers it is boiled to the degree called feathered.
185.
To the "Ball" Degree. -- To know when the
"ball" has been acquired, first dip your finger into a
basin of cold water, then apply your finger to the syrup, taking up a
little on the tip and dipping it into the water again; if upon
rolling the sugar with the fingers and thumb you can make it into a
small ball, that is what is termed the "small ball ;" when
you can make a larger and harder ball, which you could not bite
without its sticking unpleasantly to the teeth, you may be satisfied
that is the "large ball."
186.
To the degree called "Crackled." -- Boil the sugar
from the degree called feathered a little longer; dip a stick or a
piece of pipe (or your finger, if you are used to boiling) into
water, then into the sugar and again into the water. If it crack with
the touch it is boiled to the degree called crackled.
187.
To the degree called "Caramelled." -- Boil the
sugar still further, dip a stick or your finger into water, then into
the sugar, and again into the water. If it snap like glass it is of
the highest degree, called caramelled, and must be taken off the fire
immediately, for fear of burning. This sugar is proper to caramel any
sort of fruit.
188.
-- To boil Sugar by the Thermometer.
All the foregoing tests are according
to the old style of boiling; but a boiling-glass can now be had which
enables us to boil to a better degree of accuracy. Thus, to boil to
the pearl is to boil to 220 degrees; the small thread 228 degrees;
the large thread 236 degrees; the blow 240 degrees; the feather 242
degrees; the small ball 244 degrees; the large ball 250 degrees; the
small crack 261 degrees; the hard crack 281 degrees; the caramel 360 degrees.
Put some sugar in a pan with water
and place it on the fire to boil; when it is at the feather add a
little lemon juice and continue boiling to the caramel; when done add
a few drops of essence of lemon. Pour it on a marble slab previously
oiled, cut into strips. When nearly cold take the strips in your
fingers and twist them, and when quite cold put them into tin boxes
and keep them closed down. The reason that barley sugar is so named
is that it was originally made with a decoction of barley.
These are made in the same manner as
the preceding. You pour the sugar while hot into impressions made in
dried icing sugar.
Boil 3 lbs. of loaf sugar, 1 pint of
water, and a teaspoonful of cream of tartar to the caramel; add a few
drops of essence of lemon, and pour it on an oiled marble slab or
stone; sprinkle on it a tablespoonful of powdered tartaric acid and
work it in. Oil a tin sheet and put the sugar on it in a warm place,
then cut off a small piece and roll it into a round pipe, cut this
into small pieces the size of drops with a pair of scissors and roll
them round under the hand; mix with fine powdered sugar, sift the
drops from it and put them in boxes, to be used as required.
Cut the half of a pineapple into
slices, drop them into a mortar and pound them; put the pulp into a
cloth and extract the juice; take as much sugar as will be required
and boil it to the crack. When the sugar is at the feather commence
to add the pine-apple juice; pour it on slowly, so that by the time
the syrup is at the crack it shall all be mixed in with the sugar.
Finish as for barley sugar drops.
Extract the essence of the poppies
(the wild flowers are the best) in hot water, boil some sugar in a
pan -- the same way as for barley sugar drops -- and add the
decoction of poppies just before the syrup is at the crack. No
essence of lemon should be used, and they need not be sugared when
put into boxes.
Make these after the same manner as
barley sugar drops, in boiling the sugar, and flavour with a few
drops of the essence of ginger just before the syrup is at the crack.
These are made the same way as barley
sugar drops and the poppy and ginger drops. Flavour a minute before
the boiling sugar is at the crack. To give the cayenne flavour add a
few drops of the essence of capsicum.
Boil some clarified sugar to the
ball, and flavour with essence of ginger, then rub some of the sugar
against the sides of the pan with a spatula until the sugar turns
white; pour it into tins which have been oiled and put into the
stove. The sugar should be coloured with some vegetable yellow whilst boiling.
This is made in the same manner as
ginger candy. Colour yellow with a little saffron, add a few drops of
essence of lemon. This is made by boiling sugar to the feather and
ball, and grained by rubbing against the pan.
The mode of making this candy is the
same as that for making ginger candy, only add essence of peppermint.
Made the same way as ginger candy.
Rose candy should be coloured with cochineal or carmine.
1 lb. of almonds, 2 lbs. of sugar.
Take 2 lbs. of clarified sugar and boil it to the "ball"
put 1 lb. of Jordan or Valencia almonds, blanched and dried, into the
pan with the sugar; stir them from the fire, and let them absorb as
much sugar as possible. If you want them well saturated with sugar
repeat this until the sweetening is completed. Flavour with
orange-flower water.
Select the best refilled sugar with a
good grain, pound it and pass through a coarse hair sieve; sift again
in a lawn sieve, to take out the finest part, as the sugar, when it
is too fine, makes the drops heavy and compact and destroys their
brilliancy and shining appearance. Now put the sugar into a pan and
moisten it with any aromatic spirit you intend to use, using a little
water to make it of such a consistence as to allow of its dropping
off the spoon without sticking to it. Rose water is the best; it
should be poured in slowly, stirring all the time with a wooden
spoon. Colour the sugar with prepared cochineal or any other colour,
ground fine and moistened with a little water; the tint should be
light and delicate. Then take a small pan, made with a lip on the
right side, so that when it is held in the left hand the drops may be
detached from the right. Put in the paste and place the pan in the
stove on a ring that just fits it. Take a small spatula and stir the
sugar until it dissolves and makes a slight noise, but do not let it
boil, but remove it from the fire when it is near the boiling point,
then stir it well with the small spatula until of such a consistence
that when dropped it will not spread too much, but retain a round
form. Should it, however, be too thin add a little of the coarse
powdered sugar, which should be reserved for the purpose, and make it
of the thickness required. Take a smooth tin or copper plate and let
the paste drop on it from the lip of the pan at regular intervals.
You hold the pan in the left hand and with a piece of straight wire
in the right hand you separate the drop of sugar from the lip of the
pan, letting it fall on the tin. In the course of an hour and a half
or two hours the drops may be removed with a thin knife. If no copper
plates are at hand a piece of stout cartridge paper will do. Damp the
back of the paper with a sponge when you wish to remove the drops.
These are made as in the preceding
case. Flavour with essence of rose and colour with cochineal.
Flavour with orange-flower water or a
little of the essence of neroli.
2 ozs. of chocolate, 2 lbs. of sugar.
The chocolate must be scraped to a powder and then made into a paste
with cold water, finishing as for cast sugar drops.
2 ozs. of coffee, 2 lbs. of sugar.
Make a decoction of coffee in the regular manner and add it to your
sugar to make the paste or syrup. Finish in the same way as for cast
sugar drops.
6 ozs. of barberries, 1 1/2 lb. of
sugar. Press the juice out of the barberries and mix it into the
pounded sugar. Should there not be sufficient juice add a little
clear water. Make no more paste than you can actually use, as the
second time it is heated it becomes greasy and difficult to drop.
Moisten the sugar, which should be
white and of the finest quality, with peppermint water, or flavour it
with the essence of peppermint and moisten it with a little clear
water. See that your utensils are very clean.
Take the pineapple and rub the rind
on a piece of rough sugar. The sugar thus impregnated you scrape off
for use directly. Pound the pine-apple, and pass the pulp or juice
through a fine hair sieve. Add the sugar just scraped off and as much
more as you think it requires to make it sweet. Make it into a paste
with clear water. Every precaution must be used, as it soon greases.
No more should be made than you actually want for immediate use.
2 pods of vanilla, 1 lb. of pounded
sugar. Use the pods of vanilla in preference to the essence; the
latter is apt to grease the paste. Cut the vanilla up very fine, put
it in a mortar, and pound it well along with a portion of your sugar.
When sufficiently smooth, sift it through a fine sieve. Finish as for
the rest.
Take as much ginger as you wish to
use, pound, and sift it through a fine lawn sieve; add it to as much
sugar as you desire to flavour, and mix it with clear water. Some use
the ginger sold at the shops already powdered; some, again, the
essence of ginger, colouring the paste with saffron.
Rub off the yellow rind of some
lemons on a piece of rough sugar; scrape it off, and mix it into your
paste. Add sufficient to your sugar to give it a good flavour, and
colour it a light yellow with saffron. Moisten with clear water, and
mix as the rest.
These are made the same as lemon drops.
Made the same as above, and flavoured
with the essence of jargonel pear.
214.
-- Lavender, Violet, Musk, and Millefleur Drops.
These are all made the same way as
the above, being flavoured with the essences that give them their names.
Put 1 pint of clarified sugar in a
round-bottomed pan on a clear fire, boil it to the degree called
blown, mix in as much prepared cochineal as will make it a good
colour, boil it again to the degree called blown, throw in the brown
burnt almonds free from small; take the pan off the fire and stir the
almonds well about in the sugar with the spatter until it is all upon
them, which is very easily done if you are careful. You may repeat
this two or three times, which will make the almonds very handsome.
216.
-- Philadelphia Caramels.
Take 10 lbs. of sugar, 2 quarts of
rich cream, 1 1/2 lb. of glucose, 1 lb. of fresh butter, 1
teaspoonful of cream of tartar, 1 lb. of cocoa paste, and 1/4 of a
lb. of white wax of paraffin. Boil these to the "crack,"
pour upon a greased marble slab, between iron bars, and let it remain
until cold, then cut it into small cubes and fold in wax-paper.
These are made of sugar boiled to the
hard crack, flavoured and tinted to suit your fancy; it is then
poured upon a greased marble slab. As soon as it becomes sufficiently
cold the edges are turned in and the batch is folded in a mass,
placed upon the candy hook and pulled; it is then run through a
machine the iron rollers of which are set very closely together, so
that the candy comes through as thin as a wafer; it is then cut into
strips to suit, or it may be wound around an oiled round stick and
then slipped off, making a curl. Two or more colours may be joined
together before it is run through the machine, thus making a parti-coloured ribbon.
Break up 1 lb. of loaf sugar into
small particles, let it dissolve in a pan with 1/2 pint of water and
2 spoonfuls of lemon-juice; skim and boil to the ball, add pieces of
lemon peel tied together with a string, boil until a sample is
brittle; take out the lemon peel, pour out the sugar on an oiled
slab, taking care to distribute it so that the whole mass cools at
the same time. It is pulled, manipulated, and cut in the ordinary
way. A small part of the sugar coloured red and boiled separately may
be used to variegate the sweets, and should be worked in just before cutting.
Oil a square or round tin with low
edges, split some almonds in halves and place them in rows over the
bottom with the split side downward until the surface is covered.
Boil some raw sugar to the crack, pour it over them so as to cover
the whole with a thin sheet of sugar.
Coconut cut in thin slices, currants,
and other similar candies are made in the same way, except that the
sugar is ground before it is poured over.
Put any quantity of picked gum dragon
into an upright earthen jar, cover it over with cold water and let it
stand two or three days. Have ready some of the very finest icing
sugar, take the gum into a coarse piece of canvas and let another
person assist in twisting it round until the whole has passed
through. Beat it well up in the mortar to make it tough and white,
then add sugar by degrees, still beating it with the pestle. When it
is stiff take it out and keep it in an earthen jar for use. When it
is worked into ornaments it will require a little starch-powder to
smooth and make it proper for use. If you want to colour any part of
it, use vegetable colouring.
Take 1 pint of clarified sugar and 1
teaspoonful of lemon juice, boil it in a small pan to the degree
called caramelled; the moment the sugar is ready take it off and put
the bottom of the pan in cold water. As soon as the water is warmed
take the pan out. This precaution will keep the sugar from
discolouring. As this sugar is to represent silver you must be
particularly careful not to boil it too high. Have ready a crocanth
mould neatly oiled with sweet oil, then take a teaspoon and dip the
shank of it into the sugar on one side of the pan, take up a little
sugar and throw the spoon backwards and forwards in the mould,
leaving as fine a thread as possible. Continue to do so until the
mould is quite full. You must observe that there be no blotches and
that the threads be as fine as hair; you may then take it out and
cover it over a custard or any other sweet, and may, if you please,
raise it by spinning light threads of sugar on the top.
Proceed with a gold web exactly the
same as with the silver web, only boil the sugar a moment longer.
Provide four or five round moulds,
the one larger than the other, oil them neatly, then boil your sugar
as for silver web, only let it remain on the fire one minute longer,
then take up sugar with the shank of the spoon and spin it as near
the side of the mould as possible, but let no blotches appear; do
this to the four moulds. As soon as cold take them out and fix one
above another with hot sugar, then spin long lengths of sugar round
until they form a complete pyramid. You may spin long threads of
sugar to represent a feather, and place them on the top, or you may
place a sprig of myrtle on the top and spin long lengths of sugar
round it. The way to do it is to take the shank of your spoon, dip it
into the cool sugar at the side of the pan, take hold of a bit of the
sugar with your finger and thumb and pull it out to any length and
fineness you please.
224.
-- To spin a Gold Sugar Crocanth.
Boil your sugar a minute longer than
for the silver web, using the same precaution as before. Have ready
your mould neatly oiled, then take a little sugar on the shank of
your spoon, spin it quite close to the side of your mould (be careful
you make no blotches), spin all round, and strengthen the sugar as
much as you can. There must be no holes or blotches, but an even
regular sugar, all parts as near alike as possible. When the sugar is
perfectly cold turn it out carefully, and set it over a custard or
any other sweet. You may use it plain or ornament it with gum paste,
as you think proper.
Provide a copper mould like a cup. It
must be made in three parts, and must be perfectly smooth within; oil
each neatly, and spin sugar in each, agreeable to the directions for
the crocanth. If two persons can spin at the same time it will be
much better. When the three moulds are perfectly covered with sugar,
and cold, take each out and put them together in a proper manner with
hot sugar. You may ornament the cup with gum paste, which will make
it very beautiful.
Note. -- In
boiling sugar to spin, great care must be taken to have a clear fire,
and only to boil a small quantity at a time in a small brass pan. If
you have two or three sugars to spin you must use two or three pans.
One person may be attending to the boiling while another is spinning.
A teaspoonful of lemon juice must be put to a pint of clarified
sugar. If the sugar is likely to boil over the top of the pan drop
one drop of sweet oil from your finger into the sugar, which will
stop it immediately.
Mould twenty or thirty bees in gum
paste, as near the colour and shape as possible, make a hole with a
pin on each side of the mouth and let them dry; make some of the
wings extend as if flying. Provide a large round crocanth mould as
near the shape of a bee-hive as possible, then boil the sugar as
formerly instructed. Spin the sugar hot close to the inside of the
mould. It must be regularly spun and very strong, the threads very
fine, and no blotches. When it is so, let it stand until quite cold,
then turn it out of the mould on to a large dish and ornament as under.
227.
-- To Ornament a Beehive.
Before you begin to boil the sugar
take as many borders out of your gum paste moulds as will go round
the bottom; also take out leaves for the top; run a husk round the
sides to represent the matting of the hive, lay your borders and
leaves on a marble slab, with a cloth over them to keep them moist.
You may also twist a length of gum
paste like a wreath and make it into a large ring; this must be
dried; then fix on the ornaments with a little hot sugar and set the
ring upright on the top. You may then spin long lengths of sugar very
fine on to a tin plate. Take the bees and fix them with hot sugar on
the top and sides of the hive; break the lengths of sugar in short
pieces and fix them in the holes made in the bees. You may also form
three entrances into the hive with the gum paste husk.
228.
-- To prepare Sugar for Colouring.
Take good loaf sugar, get it ground
well, put it through a hair sieve; what remains in the hair sieve put
into a fine wire sieve and sift it, and the sugar which comes through
the wire sieve will be rough sugar proper for colouring.
Divide the sugar into as many parts
as you intend to colour, put each into a sheet of paper, then prepare
your colours. Take a round-bottomed pan and put it on a warm stove,
pour in your lot of sugar, stir it about with a dry whisk until the
sugar is warm, add the colour, stir it well with the whisk to make
the sugar all of that colour, then stir it about till the sugar is
nearly dry, when you may spread it about on the sheet of paper. You
may proceed in this manner with all the colours. The first colour
used should be yellow, and the next green, which may be coloured in
the yellow pan and with the same whisk. You must then wash both, and
colour red, and after that orange. When the sugar is cold, sift it to
take out any coupled, then bottle it separately. It will be found to
be a useful article to ornament rout biscuits, creams, &c.
Take a fig of the best indigo, dip
one side in warm water and rub it on a marble slab until you gain the
strength you want; or if you wish for a quantity, put a fig into a
small cup, drop a tablespoonful of water upon it, and let it stand
half an hour; then pour off the water at the top, and you will have a
fine smooth colour.
Take carmine, No. 24 or 40, 1 dr.,
liquor potassae 2 1/2 drs., water 2 ozs., glycerine sufficient to
make 4 ozs. Rub the carmine to a paste with liquor potassae and add
the water and glycerine. This is a splendid red, and works well with
liquor acids.
Take some strong saffron colour and a
little of the fine melted blue; mix them well together, which will
make a green colour. If you want a pale green, use more yellow; if a
dark green, use more blue.
233.
Another Way. -- Take a quantity of spinach, pick the leaves
from the stalks, put them very tight down in a small pan, add a small
quantity of water, cover them closely up, and set the pan on a warm
stove for two hours; then turn the leaves into a coarse canvas, and
let two persons twist it round until all the liquor is squeezed out;
set it on a clear fire in a small pan, and let it boil one minute.
When cold, bottle and cork it tight.
Note. -- The
vegetable colouring bought at shops which manufacture it specially
for confectioners is the safest, cheapest, and best.
Take one tablespoonful of cochineal
colour and the same quantity of the saffron liquor; mix them together
and you will have an orange colour. If it be too red, add a little
more yellow; if it be too yellow, add a little more red.
Beat 1 oz. of cochineal fine in a
mortar, to which put 1 1/2 pint of soft water and 1/2 oz. of cream of
tartar; simmer them in a pan for half an hour over a slow fire. Take
it off, and throw in 1/2 oz. of roach alum to strike the colour. You
may ascertain the strength by dipping in a piece of writing paper. If
not sufficiently strong, simmer it again for a short time. When
nearly cold, strain it through a strong piece of canvas, and before
you bottle it add 2 ozs. of double refined sugar
Put the best saffron down tightly in
a small jar, pour a little boiling water over it, cover it closely
up, and set it in a warm place for half an hour, turning it two or
three times in the water; then strain and bottle it for use.
XII. LOZENGES.
Lozenges are made of loaf sugar
finely ground, gum arabic dissolved in water, also gum dragon. They
are mixed together into a paste, cut round or oval with cutters, and
dried. To make the best sort of lozenges, 1 lb. of gum arabic should
be dissolved in 1 pint of water; but the proportion of gum and water
in general use is 2 1/2 lbs. of gum arabic in 1 quart and 1/2 pint of
water, and 1 oz. of gum dragon in 1/2 pint of water.
Take some finely powdered loaf sugar,
put it on a marble slab, make a bay in the centre, pour in some
dissolved gum, and mix into a paste, flavour with the essence of
peppermint, roll the paste on the marble slab until it is about an
eighth of an inch thick. Use starch-powder to dust it with; this
keeps it from sticking. Dust the surface with a little starch-powder
and sugar, and rub it over with the palm of your hand. Cut out the
lozenges and place them on wooden trays, and place them in the stove
to dry. All lozenges are finished in the same way.
Make the paste the same way as the
preceding, and use essence of roses to flavour with; colour the paste
with cochineal.
1 oz. of powdered ginger, 1 lb. of
powdered sugar. Mix to a paste with dissolved gum; colour with yellow.
240.
-- Transparent Mint Lozenges.
These are made with the coarser
grains of powdered loaf sugar. Pass the sugar through a hair sieve,
then sift it through a fine sieve to take away the powder. Flavour
with peppermint. Finish as the others.
Mix as the others; flavour with
cinnamon in powder, adding a few drops of essential oil. Colour with
coffee colour.
1 oz. of cloves powdered and 2 1/2
lbs. of sugar. Mix, and finish as for the others.
1/4 oz. of oil of nutmeg, 2
lbs. of sugar. Mix as instructions for the others.
Mix as for others; flavour with
English oil of lavender, and colour with a little cochineal and blue mixed.
Use essence of vanilla or the stick
pounded with sugar and sifted through a fine hair sieve.
Take either of the pastes for
lozenges and cut into small fancy devices or ornaments.
The genuine recipe for making ice
creams will be found below. The first operation is the thorough
scalding of the cream, sugar, and eggs: this gives it greater body
and richness.
Put into a perfectly bright and clean
copper basin 2 lbs. of sugar, 4 eggs, 1 large fine bean of vanilla
split and cut into small pieces, stir all well together with a large
wire whisk, then add 4 quarts of rich cream, place it upon the fire
and stir well and constantly until it is about to boil; then
immediately remove it from the fire and strain it through a hair
sieve into an earthen tureen or crock; let it stand till cool, pour
it into your freezing.can already imbedded in broken ice and
rocksalt, cover and turn the crank slowly and steadily until it can
be turned no longer, open the can and remove the dasher, scrape the
hardened cream from the sides with a long-handled spatula, and beat
and work the cream until smooth. Close the can, draw off the water,
and repack with fresh ice and salt and let it rest for an hour or two
to harden and ripen.
Ice cream is often made from fresh
unscalded cream beaten vigorously during the entire freezing process,
this causes it to swell and increase in bulk from a fourth to a
third, but what is gained in quantity is lost in quality, as it
becomes very light and snowy in texture, having no body: it is simply
a frozen froth.
Ice cream should be firm, smooth, and
satiny, yet melting on the tongue like the best quality of gilt-edged butter.
In flavouring ice creams with fruit
juices or the pulp thereof, the latter must never be cooked or
scalded with the cream under any circumstances; they must be added,
mixed, and beaten into the cream after it is frozen.
The process given above for vanilla
ice cream is the same for all cream ices.
248.
-- Bisque or Biscuit Glace.
Make a rich and highly flavoured
vanilla ice cream and add for each quart 1/4 of a lb. of almond
macaroons dried crisp and reduced to a powder in a stone mortar.
After the cream is frozen, add and work into it the macaroon powder,
and finish as above directed for vanilla ice cream.
249.
-- Crushed Strawberry Ice Cream.
As for bisque, make a rich vanilla
ice cream, and when it is well frozen add to it 1 pint of
strawberries to each quart of cream. The berries must be full ripe
and be crushed to a pulp with some fine sugar before adding and
working them into the cream. Finish as for vanilla.
This article is not an ice cream
proper, but a species of frozen custard made of milk, eggs, sugar,
gelatine, and flavouring. Take 2 ozs. of gelatine, dissolve in 1/2
pint of milk or water, then to 4 quarts of milk and 8 eggs slightly
beaten add 1 1/2 lb. of sugar and the thin yellow rind of 2 lemons,
and a pinch of salt; put the ingredients into a clean, bright basin,
place on a moderate fire, and stir constantly till it begins to
thicken, then remove quickly, and pour it into an earthen pan and
continue to stir it till nearly cold, then add and stir in the
dissolved gelatine; pour all into your freezer and freeze as for
other ices. When frozen it may be put in small boxes about three
inches long by two inches wide, or it may be wrapped in wax paper and
kept ready for sale in an ice cave. The office of the gelatine is to
solidify the compound and assist its "keeping" qualifies.
Take grated white meat of 3 fine
cocoanuts and the milk they have contained, to which add 3 quarts of
filtered water; place on the fire and boil for ten minutes, then pour
it into an earthen or stoneware crock, cover, and let it infuse till
nearly cold, then strain and press off the liquid with a fine sieve;
to this liquid add 1 1/4 lb. of pulverised sugar and the whites of 3
eggs; mix all thoroughly well together and pour it into the freezer
already imbedded in ice and salt. Freeze and finish as other ices.
The preserving of fruits has always
been considered a principal branch of confectionery, and one which
requires no small degree of attention and diligence. As you are
instructed in the boiling of sugars in its several degrees, named in
each recipe, should it be boiled lower the fruit will lose its
colour, turn windy, and spoil; if it is boiled higher it will rock
and cannot be got out of the jars. Another important point is to
preserve such fruit only as is quite fresh picked, the flavour, which
is a very essential consideration, being lost if the fruit be stale.
Cleanliness in this branch, as in every other, must not be neglected.
Preserving pans, &c., must resemble a looking-glass as much as
possible. Fruits well preserved will keep in almost any place. It is
better, however, to keep them neither in too dry nor in too damp a
place. The jars must be well protected from air by covering each with
writing-paper dipped in brandy, covered and tied over with wet bladder.
Note. -- A wood
skimmer must be made of ash or elm about 4 inches long, 3 inches
broad, and 1 inch thick. There is a handle fixed on one side, which
take hold of and lay the wood gently on the fruit where the scum is,
then take it off and scrape off the scum, and so on until all is
taken off.
Procure the largest Carolina or
Hanoverian strawberries, pack two layers with care in a flat-bottomed
preserving pan, then pour over them 1 pint of currant juice, cover
them with smooth clarified sugar, and over it a sheet of paper, set
them on a warm part of the stove until the syrup is new-milk warm,
then take them off; next morning take them out one at a time with an
egg-spoon and lay them on a fine splinter sieve set over a pan to
drain; add to the syrup a little clarified sugar and boil it to the
degree called "pearled," put in the fruit with care and
simmer them round; as soon as the syrup is off the degree called
pearled, take them from the stove, skim, and put them with great care
into a flat pudding pot, cover them up for two days, then lay them on
a splinter sieve to drain, and add to the syrup 1 or 2 pints of
clarified sugar as occasion may require, with the proportion of red
currant juice, boil it to the degree called pearled, and put in your
fruit with great care and simmer them very gently round the sides of
the pan; as soon as the syrup is off the degree called pearled skim
them and put them into jars, filling them within half an inch of the
top. When cold cover them with writing-paper dipped in brandy and
bladder them over.
Take any quantity of scarlet
strawberries, pass them through a fine splinter sieve, add to them 1
or 2 pints of red currant juice, according to the quantity of
strawberries, put the same weight of sifted loaf sugar as fruit, boil
them over a bright fire, keep stirring all the time with a spatter,
and with it make a figure of eight in the pan to prevent the jam
taking hold of the bottom; when it has boiled ten minutes take it off
and take a little jam out with a scraper, which drop upon a plate; if
it retains the mark of the scraper it is of a proper consistency and
ready to put into jars, but should it run thin on the plate it must
be boiled again until of the substance above named. It is necessary
here to observe that all sorts of red fruit should be kept as short a
time as possible on the fire, and for that reason let your fires be
perfectly bright before you use them.
Take 4 quarts of clear raspberry
juice, add to it 8 pounds of sifted lump sugar, set it on a clear
fire in your preserving pan, stir it with the spatter to keep it from
burning; let it rise, then take it from the fire, skim it, set it on
the fire again, and let it rise three or four times, skimming it each
time. If, on taking out the skimmer, small flakes hang from it, it is
of a proper consistency and may be put into jars. When cold cover it
with writing-paper dipped in brandy, and bladder them over.
Pick black currants from the stalks
as well and in as short a 'time as you can, then put them into strong
earthen jars or stew pots, cover them well over and set them in a
slow oven for one night; next morning put them into the jelly-bag,
and as soon as drained, which will be in three or four hours, measure
the juice. To each pint of juice take 1 lb. 4 ozs. of sifted loaf
sugar, boil and skim it as before. You may if you think proper
clarify the sugar, but this is a much easier way.
Pick red currants until you have 7
lbs., then force the whole of them through a splinter sieve, to which
add 7 lbs. of sifted lump sugar; boil this very well over a brisk
fire for twenty minutes, stirring it all the time with the spatter.
This is very useful for tartlets, cheaper than rasps, and a much
better colour. Put it into jars, cover them with paper dipped in
brandy and bladder them over.
Take codlin apples, cut them very
thin across, fill your preserving pan nearly full, cover them with
soft water and then with a sheet of paper, set them on a slow fire,
let them simmer slowly for a considerable time to extract the jelly
from the apple. They must not on any account be stirred about in the
pan. When the virtue appears to be quite extracted from them pour
them into a jelly-bag. Cut more apples as before, about half the
quantity, put them into the pan, and pour over them the extract from
the first apples, simmer them very slowly as before. When the essence
is all extracted put them into a jelly-bag. This jelly is used in the
putting up of all preserved fruits.
Take 7 lbs. of clean, picked, dry
gooseberries, put them into your preserving pan with 1 pint of water
and 7 lbs. of sifted loaf sugar. Boil over a clear fire from twenty
minutes to half an hour; when they are boiled to the consistency
required take them off, put them into jars and secure them from the
air as the others.
Take 12 Seville and 12 China oranges,
pare the outer skin off as thin as you can, lay it in soft water and
freshen it every two hours to take out the bitterness, then pull off
the white skin from the pared oranges and throw it away; cut them
across, squeeze the juice from them, and set them on the fire in the
preserving pan with plenty of soft water, boil them until so soft as
to pulp through a hair sieve. Then boil the outer skin equally soft.
If it will not go through, beat it well in a mortar and then put it
through; add to it the other pulp and the juice. Weigh it, and to
each pound allow 1 lb. 2 ozs. of sifted loaf sugar. Boil this well
together, stirring it all the time, until it will retain the mark of
the scraper, when it will be ready to put into jars, which must be
secured from air as before.
260.
-- General Directions for Making Chocolate.
Provide yourself with an iron pestle
and mortar, also a stone slab of a very fine grain about two feet
square, and a rolling-pin of hard stone or iron. The stone must have
an opening beneath in which to place a pot of burning charcoal to
heat it. Warm the mortar and pestle by placing them on a stove, or
charcoal may be used, until they are so hot that you can scarcely
bear your hand against them. Wipe the mortar out clean, and put any
convenient quantity of prepared nuts in it, which pound until they
are reduced to an oily paste into which the pestle will sink with its
own weight. Add fine powdered sugar to the chocolate paste. After it
has been well pounded, the sugar must be in proportion of 3 lbs. to 4
lbs. of prepared cocoa. Continue to pound it until completely mixed;
then put it in a pan and place it in the stove to keep warm. Take a
portion of it and roll or grind it well on the stone slab with the
roller, both being previously heated like the mortar until it is
reduced to a smooth impalpable paste, which will melt in the mouth
like butter when this is accomplished. Put it in another pan and keep
it warm until the whole is similarly disposed of; then place it again
on the stove, which must not be quite so warm as previously. Work it
over again, and divide it into pieces of two, four, eight, or sixteen
ounces each, which you put in tin mould. Give it a shake, and the
chocolate will become flat. When cold, it will easily turn out.
261.
-- Chocolate Harlequin Pistachios.
In making harlequin pistachios, you
warm some of the sweet chocolate by pounding it in a hot mortar.
After it has been prepared in this manner, take some of it and wrap
it round a blanched pistachio nut; roll it in the hand to give it the
form of an olive, and throw it into nonpareils of mixed colours, so
that it may be variously coloured, a la harlequin. Proceed with the
remaining pistachio nuts after the same fashion, dropping them into
the nonpareils so that the comfits will adhere to the pistachios.
Fold them in coloured or fancy papers, with mottoes. The ends are
generally fringed.
262.
-- Chocolate Drops with Nonpareils.
Prepare some warm chocolate as
in the preceding recipe. When the chocolate has been well pounded and
is a smooth impalpable paste, make it into balls the size of a small
marble by rolling in the hand. Place them on square sheets of paper
about one inch apart; having filled the sheet, take it by the corners
and lift it up and down, letting it touch the table each time: this
will flatten them. Completely cover their surfaces with white
nonpareils, gently shaking off the surplus ones. After the drops are
cold, they can be very easily removed from the paper. The drops
should be about the size of a sixpence.
It is usual now amongst confectioners
to use the English unsweetened chocolate, as it saves much time and
trouble, and is equally good. To form it into shapes you must have
two kinds of moulds, made either of thick tin or copper tinned
inside; the one sort is impressed with a device or figure, and with a
narrow edge; the other is flat or nearly so, and the same size as the
previous mould, with a shallow device in the centre. You put a piece
of prepared chocolate into the first mould, and then cover it with
the flat one; upon pressing it down the chocolate receives the form
of both devices. After it is cold it can be easily taken out. It
should have a shining appearance.
THE END
Measures below are approximate
only:
UK - Metric
- 1 pound = 450 grams
- 1 quart = 1140 mls
- 1 pint = 570 mls
- 1 gill = 90 mls
- 1 ounce = 18 mls
- 1 drachm = 3.5 mls
Notice:
This electronic book is supplied for information
purposes only. Although I have made every effort to ensure accuracy there will
no doubt be some errors, therefore the use of any of the information contained
herein is at the sole discretion of the user.
You will note that this book was written with the
wholesaler in mind and as a learning aid to the trades of the time. The
quantities given in most recipes reflect this.
There is a section at the bottom of the page which
gives approximate conversion to some of the measures used within the text.
The whole of the book is placed as one page and will
take 2-3 minutes to receive. My reason for this is to enable users to easily
save the file for use offline.
For corrections or comments please forward to my link below.
- I am currently working on "A Technical Treatise on Soaps and Candles -1881" which should be online mid to late February.
TO
THE BOOK
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- BREAD AND BISCUIT BAKER'S
- AND
- SUGAR-BOILER'S ASSISTANT
- Including a large variety of Modern Recipes
- FOR
- BREAD -- TEA CAKES -- HARD AND FANCY BISCUITS -- BUNS -- GINGERBREADS --
- SHORTBREADS -- PASTRY -- CUSTARDS -- FRUIT CAKES -- SMALL GOODS FOR
- SMALL MASTERS -- CONFECTIONS IN SUGAR -- LOZENGES -- ICE CREAMS -- PRESERVING FRUIT -- CHOCOLATE, ETC. ETC.
- WITH REMARKS ON
- THE ART OF BREAD -- MAKING
- AND
- CHEMISTRY AS APPLIED TO BREAD -- MAKING
- BY
- ROBERT WELLS
- PRACTICAL BAKER! CONFECTIONERY, AND PASTRYCOOK, SCARBOROUGH
Second Edition, with Additional Recipes.
LONDON
CROSBY LOCKWOOD AND SON
7, STATIONERS' HALL COURT, LUDGATE HILL
1890
[All rights reserved.]
Electronic Edition: Raymond
A. Weston For EMAIL.
PREFACE.
In submitting the following pages for
public approval, the Author hopes that the work may prove acceptable
and useful to the Baking Trade as a Book of Instruction for Learners,
and for daily reference in the Shop and Bakehouse; and having
exercised great care in its compilation, he believes that in all its
details it will be found a trustworthy guide.
From his own experience in the
Baker's business, he is satisfied that a book of this kind, embodying
in a handy form the accumulated results of the work of practical men,
is really wanted; and as in the choice of Recipes he has been guided
by an intimate acquaintance with the requirements of the trade, and
as every recipe here given has been tested by actual and successful
use, he trusts that the labour which he has bestowed upon the
preparation of the work may be rewarded by its wide acceptance by his
brethren in the trade.
The work being divided into sections,
as shown in the Contents, and a full Index having been added,
reference can readily be made, as occasion may arise, either to a
class of goods, or to a particular recipe.
Any suggestions for the improvement
of the work, which the experience of others may lead them to propose,
will, if communicated to the Author, be gratefully esteemed and
carefully dealt with in future editions.
SCARBOROUGH,
October, I888.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE
SECOND EDITION.
It is very gratifying to both Author
and Publishers that this little book has been so favourably received
by the Baking Trade and the public that a second edition is required
within a few months of the first issue of the work. The opportunity
has been taken to insert some additional recipes for the whole-meal
and other breads which of late have been so frequently recommended as
substitutes for the white bread in established use, together with
some remarks on the subject by Professors Jago and Graham; and a few
corrections in the text (the necessity for which escaped notice when
the work was first in the press) have also been made.
August, 1889.
CONTENTS.
BREAD AND BISCUIT
BAKING, ETC.
Slow Process in the Art of
Bread-making Need of Technical Training Chemistry as applied to Bread-making.
Liebig on the Process of Bread-making
Professors Jago and Graham on Brown Bread
II. --
GENERAL REMARKS ON BAKING
Baking and its several Branches
Essentials of good Bread-making German Yeast and Parisian Barm Recipe
for American Patent Yeast. Judging between good and bad Flour Liebig
on the Action of Alum in Bread Professor Vaughan on Adulteration with
Alum Importance of good Butter to the Pastrycook.
III. --
BREAD, TEA CAKES, BUNS, ETC.
- 1. To make Home-made Bread
- 2. Bread-malting by the Old Method
- 3. Modern Way of making Bread
- 4. Scotch Style of making Bread
- 5. Home-made Whole Meal Bread
- 6. Whole Meal Bread for Master Bakers
- 7. Unfermented or Diet Bread
- 8. Rye Bread
- 9. Coarse Bread
- 10. Germ Flour Bread
- 11. Tea Cakes
- 12. Queen's Bread
- 13. Sally Luns, Yorkshire, or Tea Cakes
- 14. Muffins
- 15. Another Way
- 16. Crumpets
- 17. Oatmeal Cake
- 18. Bath Buns
- 19. Another Way
- 20. Hot Cross Buns
- 21. Chelsea Buns
- 22. Balmoral Cakes
- 23. Balloon or Prussian Cakes
- 24. Saffron Buns
- 25. Cinnamon Buns
- 26. Jubilee Buns
- 27. German Buns
- 28. Common German Buns (for wholesale purposes)
- 29. London Buns
- 30. Penny Queen Cakes
- 31. Patent Flour
- 32. Penny Rice Cakes
- 33. Coconut Cakes
- 34. Albert Cakes
IV. -- GINGERBREAD,
PARKINGS, SHORTBREAD, ETC.
- 35. Queen's Gingerbread
- 36. German Gingerbread
- 37. Spiced Gingerbread
- 38. Scarborough Gingerbread (for wholesale purposes)
- 39. Ginger Cakes
- 40. Prepared Treacle
- 41. Prepared Treacle for Thick Gingerbread
- 42. Laughing or Fun Nuts
- 43. Grantham or White Gingerbread
- 44. Spice Nuts
- 45. Another Way
- 46. Another Way
- 47. Light Gingerbread
- 48. Italian Jumbles, or Brandy Snaps
- 49. Halfpenny Gingerbread Squares
- 50. Hunting Nuts
- 51. Parkings
- 52. Another Way
- 53. Parking Cake
- 54. Scotch Shortbread
- 55. English Shortbread
- 56. French Shortbread
- 57. Machine-made Biscuits
- 58. Ship Biscuits
- 59. Captains' Biscuits
- 60. Thick Captains
- 61. Abernethy Biscuits (Dr. Abernethy's original recipe)
- 62. Abernethys as made in London
- 63. Usual Way of making Abernethy Biscuits
- 64. Wine Biscuits
- 65. Soda Biscuits
- 66. Boston Lemon Crackers
- 67. Pic-Nics
- 68. Common Pic-Nics
- 69. Luncheon Biscuits
- 70. Digestive Biscuits
- 71. Another Way
- 72. Small Arrowroot Biscuits
- 73. Coffee Biscuits
- 74. Victoria Biscuits
- 75. Shell Biscuits
- 76. York Biscuits
- 77. Machine Biscuits
- 78. Bath Oliver Biscuits
- 79. Edinburgh Biscuits
- 80. Nursery Biscuits
- 81. Soda Biscuits
VI. -- FANCY BISCUITS,
ALMONDS, Etc.
- 82. Digestive Biscuit
- 83. Kent Biscuits
- 84. Imperial or Lemon Biscuits
- 85. Venice Biscuits
- 86. Shrewsbury Biscuits
- 87. Another Way
- 88. Another Way.
- 89. Peruvian Biscuits
- 90. Currant Fruit Biscuits
- 91. Snowdrop Biscuits
- 92. Rice Biscuits
- 93. Genoa and Toulouse Biscuits, Exhibition Nuts and Marseillaise Biscuits
- 94. Walnut Biscuits
- 95. Queen's Drops
- 96. Cracknel Biscuits
- 97. Premium Drops
- 98. German Wafers
- 99. Crimp, or Honeycomb Biscuits
- 100. Hermit Biscuits
- 101. Italian Macaroons
- I02. Common Macaroons
- 103. French Macaroons
- 104. Ratafias
- 105. Princess Biscuits
- 106. Rusks
- 107. Rock Almonds (White)
- 108. Rock Almonds (Pink)
- 109. Rock Almonds (Brown}
- 110. Almond Fruit Biscuits
- 111. Meringues
- 112. Another Way
- 113. Common Drop Biscuits
- 114. Savoy Biscuits.
- 115. French Savoy Biscuits
- 116. Judges' Biscuits
- 117. Lord Mayor's Biscuits
- 118. Fruit Biscuits
- 119. Palais Royal Biscuits
- 120. Rice Biscuits
- 121. Scarborough Water Cakes
- 122. Sponge Biscuits
- 123. Almond Sponge Biscuits.
- 124. Naples Biscuits
VII. --
PASTRY, CUSTARDS, ETC.
- 125. Butter for Puff Paste
- 126. Puff Paste
- 127. Another Way
- 128. Crisp Tart Paste
- 129. Sweet Tart Paste
- 130. Paste for a Baked Custard
- 131. Paste for small Raised Pies
- 132. To make a handsome Tartlet
- 133. Nelson Cake or Eccles Cake
- 134. To make a Custard
- 135. Common Custard
VIII.
-- FRUIT CAKES, BRIDE CAKES, ETC.
- 136. Directions for mixing Cakes made with Butter
- 137. Another Way
- 138. London Way of mixing Cakes
- 139. Another Way of mixing Cakes
- 140. Citron Cake
- 141. Common Fruit Cake
- 142. Pound Cakes
- 143. Seed Cakes
- 144. Two and Three Pound Cakes
- 145. Another Seed Cake
- 146. Four and Six Pound Cakes
- 147. Bride Cakes
- 148. Icing Sugar for Bride Cakes, &c
- 149. Almond Icing for Bride Cakes
- 150. Wedding Cake
- 151. Rich Twelfth Cake
- 152. Madeira Cakes
- 153. Plum Cake (as made for the best shops in Edinburgh)
- 154. Genoa Cake
- 155. Rice Cake (Scotch Mixture)
- 156. Madeira Cake (Scotch Mixture)
- 157. Pond Cake or Dundee Cake
- 158. Silver Cake
- 159. Gold Cake
- 160. Plum Cake at 6d. per lb. (as sold by Grocers}
- 161. Another Way
- 162. Another Way
- 163. Mystery, or Cheap Plum Cake at 3d per lb
- 164. Plum Cake at 4d per lb
- 165. Lafayette Cakes
- 166. American Genoa Cake
- 167. Lemon Cake
- 168. Bristol Cake
- 169. Jubilee Cakes
IX. --
HANDY WHOLESALE RECIPES FOR SMALL MASTERS.
- 170. Soda Cakes or Scones
- 171. Currant or Milk Scones
- 172. Sugar or White Spice Biscuits
- 173. Halfpenny Scotch Cakes
- 174. Large Square Penny Albert Cake
- 175. Brandy Snaps
- 176. Nonpareil Biscuits
- 177. Common Halfpenny Queen Cake
- 178. Halfpenny Lunch Cake
- 179. Polkas or Halfpenny Sponges
SUGAR-BOILING, ETC.
X. --
CONFECTIONS IN SUGAR-BOlLING.
- 180. Clarifying Sugar
- 181. Testing Sugar
- 182. To boil Sugar to the degree called "Pearled"
- 183. To boil Sugar to the degree called "Blown"
- 184. To boil Sugar to the degree called "Feathered"
- 185. To boil Sugar to the "Ball" Degree
- 186. To boil Sugar to the degree called "Crackled"
- 187. To boil Sugar to the degree called "Caramelled"
- 188. To boil Sugar by the Thermometer
- 189. Barley Sugar
- 190. Barley Sugar Drops.
- 191. Acid Drops
- 192. Pineapple Drops
- 193. Poppy Drops
- 194. Ginger Drops
- 195. Cayenne Drops
- 196. Ginger Candy
- 197. Lemon Candy
- 198. Peppermint Candy
- 199. Rose Candy
- 200. Burnt Almonds
- 201. Cast Sugar Drops
- 202. Rose Drops
- 203. Orange-flower Drops
- 204. Chocolate Drops
- 205. Coffee Drops
- 206. Barberry Drops
- 207. Peppermint Drops
- 208. Pineapple Drops
- 209. Vanilla Drops
- 210. Ginger Drops
- 211. Lemon Drops
- 212. Orange Drops
- 213. Pearl Drops
- 214. Lavender, Violet, Musk, and Millefleur Drops
- 215. Pink Burnt Almonds.
- 216. Philadelphia Caramels
- 217. Boston Chips
- 218. Engagement Favours
- 219. Almond Hardbake
- 220. To make Gum Paste
- 221. To spin a Silver Web
- 222. To spin a Gold Web.
- 223. A Spun Sugar Pyramid
- 224. To spin a Gold Sugar Crocanth
- 225. To spin a Gold Cup.
- 226. A Spun Sugar Beehive
- 227. To ornament a Beehive
- 228. To prepare Sugar for Colouring
- 229. To colour Sugar
- 230. Blue Colouring
- 231. Carmine Colouring
- 232. Green Colouring
- 233. Another Way
- 234. Orange Colouring
- 235. Red Colouring
- 236. Yellow Colouring
- 237. Peppermint Lozenges
- 238. Rose Lozenges
- 239. Ginger Lozenges
- 240. Transparent Mint Lozenges
- 241. Cinnamon Lozenges
- 242. Clove Lozenges
- 243. Nutmeg Lozenges
- 244. Lavender Lozenges
- 245. Vanilla Lozenges
- 246. Brilliants
- 247. Vanilla Ice Cream
- 248. Bisque or Biscuit Glace
- 249. Crushed Strawberry Ice Cream
- 250. Hokey Pokey
- 251 Coconut Ice
- 252. Large Strawberries
- 253. Strawberry Jam
- 254. Raspberry Jelly
- 255. Black Currant Jelly
- 256. Red Currant Jam
- 257. Apple Jelly
- 258. Gooseberry Jam
- 259. Orange Marmalade
- 260. General Directions for Making Chocolate
- 261. Chocolate Harlequin Pistachios
- 262. Chocolate Drops with Nonpareils
- 263. Chocolate in Moulds
THE
BREAD AND BISCUIT BAKER'S ASSISTANT.
When we reflect upon the present
conditions under which the bread-making industry is carried on in
most of the large cities and towns of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
and remember the importance of that industry to mankind, we cannot
but be impressed by the little progress that has been made in the art
of bread-making. Whilst other industries have been marked by
important improvements, we find bread being made in much the same
manner as it was five hundred years ago. The mystery is how -- by
accident, it would seem -- We get such well-made bread as we do.
There are very few even now who have the slightest conception of what
yeast really is, and fewer still who know how or why it makes bread
light. But it will surprise me if the trade does not undergo, in the
course of the next ten years, a complete and beneficial change.
Master bakers and confectioners are
everywhere complaining of the incompetency of their workmen; and it
cannot be denied that there is some ground for the complaint. Proper
training in the baking and confectionery trade is of great
importance. A trained servant gives satisfaction to his employer, and
receives a responsive good feeling in return.
Let us see what is meant by
"training." In its broadest and best sense, it is knowing
what to do, and when and how to do it.
Take the first condition -- What to
do. This may be considered on two grounds, generally known as the
practical and the theoretical, though the latter is sometimes
confounded with the scientific, and people are led to sneer at
science. Much has been said lately in our trade journals about
introducing scientific chemistry to the journeyman baker in
connection with his daily work of making bread. But how many
journeyman bakers could we find that even understand the meaning of
the word chemistry, without expecting them to understand mysteries to
which years of study have been devoted by such men as Liebig, Graham,
Dumas, Darwin, Pasteur, and Thorns of Alyth?
CHEMISTRY AS APPLIED
TO BREAD-MAKING.
It is not my intention to depreciate
the great good that would be derived from scientific chemistry if
properly applied to bread-making. But who is to study and apply it?
Surely not a man who earns from 20s. to 30s. per week, and works
twelve, fourteen, and sixteen hours a day in an overheated
atmosphere. What hours of rest he has should be used to recuperate
his lost vitality. Not till scientific chemistry is taught in our
Board schools and made one of the elements of a scholar's ordinary
education, can we hope to see it used successfully with bakers in
making bread.
Chemistry, I believe, is destined to
play as important a part in the annals of the baking trade as did the
substitution of machinery for hand labour. But at the present day how
many bakers know that the decomposition of sugar produces
fermentation; that fermentation destroys sugar and produces alcohol;
that maltose assists fermentation; that starch, however obtained, has
always the same characteristics, though there are different kinds
from different sources; that dextrine is soluble in water and
insoluble in alcohol; that protoplasm, the basis of all life,
consists of proteine, compounds, mineral salts, nitrogen, &c. ?
And do not the meaning and use of terms familiar in scientific
chemistry -- such as diastase, cereslin, gluten, and others -- only
perplex the ordinary journeyman baker, and make him think that the
less he has to do with science, the more easily he will get his life
"rubbed through." It is impossible for working bakers to
become acquainted with these things while in the bakehouse; and while
there are in many towns such valuable institutions as free libraries,
mechanics' institutes, &c., they are not available to the
ordinary baker, as his hours are so exceptional. The baker's hours of
labour, indeed, are shorter in many places than they used to be, and
he is no longer called "the white slave." Still, the spirit
of competition is so strong that a baker has to work much harder
proportionally than other working men, and his mind is in no
condition, in the little spare time he has, to study the problems of
science; and nobody can expect the baker to know, as it were by
intuition, the whys and the wherefores of chemistry. However, what he
has learnt in the practice of his art, and what the common custom of
the trade has handed down to him, he may use to more or less
advantage, according as he has more or less personal skill. In the
case of fermentation, which may be described as the very backbone of
bread-making, a baker will find plenty to study and to think about,
from his first "setting the sponge" until his bread is out
of the oven, without perplexing himself over problems about which he
can understand little or nothing.
With time and money at his disposal,
however, the study of chemistry opens up a wide field to the studious
baker, and would no doubt reward him for his pains, and at the same
time prove a great gain to his trade; and I believe there are not a
few earnest workers labouring at the present time to afford that
knowledge and help to the journeyman baker which will eventually lead
to an easier way of earning his daily bread.
The process of fermentation, which
has for its object either the manufacture of bread, or of an
alcoholic product in a more or less concentrated form, is very
similar in action during its earlier stages. It commences with the
growth and multiplication of the fermenting germs contained in the
minute organisms floating in the air, the inorganic constituents of
the water, and the protoplasm (essence of life) of the yeast; and all
the changes brought about are accompanied by heat. Fermentation is
caused by the decomposition of the starch and gluten of a solution of
either potatoes, flour, or malted barley, which decomposition is
accompanied by an evolution of gas. There is also a peculiar
vibration given to the various bodies in contact, which agitates the
whole. This agitation is increased by the bursting of the
starch-cells and the formation therefrom of maltose, and also by the
changing of the maltose sugar into carbonic acid gas. Substances in a
state of decomposition are capable of bringing about a change in the
chemical composition of bodies with which they are in contact. Most
of the vegetable substances used in fermentation have a constituent
part -- sugar, starch, or some other substance -- which is easily
converted into a fermentable sugar by the action of yeast, or of
diluted mineral acids, or by a constituent of malted barley, called
diastase. The sugar produced by these means is resolved into carbonic
acid gas and alcohol by vinous fermentation. It will be seen,
therefore, that fermentation is started by the saccharine element in
the ferment, which is termed maltose; the process is then kept up by
the gluten, which, becoming decomposed, aids the sugar and starch in
the work of providing food for the yeast as soon as the latter is
brought in contact with it. The fermentation then takes place very
rapidly, and carbonic acid gas is generated and given off in
proportion to the amount of the products contained in the ferment, or
sponge, and also to the strength and freshness of the yeast:
especially is this so with gluten, which is the great agent of
fermentation, when in a state of decomposition and when in contact
with yeast.
PROCESS OF BREAD-MAKING.
It will be useful to give here some
remarks by the great scientist, Liebig, on the best process of making
bread: --
"Many chemists are of opinion
that flour by the fermentation in the dough loses somewhat of its
nutritious constituents, from a decomposition of the gluten; and it
has been proposed to render the dough porous without fermentation by
means of substances which when brought into contact yield carbonic
acid. But on a closer investigation of the process this view appears
to have little foundation.
"When flour is made into dough
with water, and allowed to stand at a gentle warmth, a change takes
place in the gluten of the dough, similar to that which occurs after
the steeping of barley in the commencement of germination in the
seeds in the preparation of malt; and in consequence of this change
the starch (the greater part of it in malting; in dough only a small
percentage)is converted into sugar, a small portion of the gluten
passes into the soluble state, in which it acquires the properties of
albumen, but by this change it loses nothing whatever of its
digestibility or of its nutritive value.
"We cannot bring flour and water
together without the formation of sugar from the starch; and it is
this sugar and not the gluten of which a part enters into
fermentation, and is resolved into alcohol and carbonic acid.
"We know that malt is not
inferior in nutritive power to barley from which it is derived,
although the gluten contained in it has undergone a much more
profound alteration than that of flour in the dough, and experience
has taught us that in distilleries where spirits are made from
potatoes, the plastic constituents of the potatoes, and of the malt
which is added after having gone through the entire course of the
processes of the formation and the fermentation of the sugar, have
lost little or nothing of their nutritive value. It is certain
therefore, that in the making of bread there is no loss of gluten.
"Only a small part of the starch
of the flour is consumed in the production of sugar, and the
fermentative process is not only the simplest and best but also the
cheapest of all the methods which have been recommended for rendering
bread porous. Besides, chemical preparations ought never, as a rule,
to be recommended by chemists for culinary purposes, since they
hardly ever are found pure in ordinary commerce. For example, the
commercial crude muriatic acid which it is recommended to add to the
dough along with bicarbonate of soda, is always most impure, and
often contains arsenic, so that the chemist never uses it without a
tedious process of purification for his purposes, which are of far
less importance than making bread light and porous.
"To make bread cheaper it has
been proposed to add to dough potato starch or dextrine, rice, the
pressed pulp of turnips, pressed raw potatoes, or boiled potatoes;
but all these additions only diminish the nutritive value of bread.
Potato starch, dextrine, or the pressed pulp of turnips, and
beet-root, when added to flour, yield a mixture the nutritive value
of which is equal to the entire potato, or lower still, but no one
can consider the change of grain or flour into a food of equal value
with potatoes or rice an improvement. The true problem is to render
the potatoes or rice similar or equal to wheat in their effects, and
not vice versa It is better under all circumstances to boil the
potatoes and eat them as such, than to add potatoes or potato starch
to flour before it is made into bread, which should be strictly
prohibited by police regulation on account of the cheating to which
it would inevitably give rise."
BROWN BREAD.
With regard to the nutritive
qualities of brown bread, Professor Jago (who I think one of our
highest authorities) says that whole meal, and flour from which the
bran and germ have not been removed, do not keep well. These bodies
contain oil and nitrogenous principles which readily decompose,
producing rancidity and mustiness in flavour. Not only do these
changes occur in the flour, but they also proceed apace in the dough.
The diastastic bodies of the bran and germ attack the starch, and
more or less convert it into dextrine and maltose; they further
attack the gluten, and that remarkably elastic body which confers on
wheaten flour, alone of all the cereals, the power of forming a
light, spongy, well-risen loaf. The gluten, under the action of the
bran and germ, loses its elasticity, and becomes fragile and
incapable of retaining the gas produced during fermentation; the
result is heavy, sodden, indigestible bread.
Evidence of this is found in the fact
that while whole-meal loaves are so excessively baked as to produce a
crust two or three times the ordinary thickness, the interior is
still in a damp and sodden condition. This is the effect of bran in whole-meal.
"Not only, then, on the ground
of nutritive value may the use of a pure white loaf be urged, but
such bread is more healthily made, and will be sweet and free from
acidity when whole-meal and dark breads are sour and unwholesome. It
has also been pointed out that the nutritive constituents of the bran
are so locked within it that they escape unaltered from the human body."
Such, in brief, is Professor Jago's
opinion of whole-meal, and bread made from it. My own opinion is that
Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest is very forcibly
illustrated in the milling of cereals, and the adoption of food most
proper for the human system. We have had brown bread and white bread
before the public from time immemorial, and what is the result ? Why,
for every sack of wheat-meal bread which is baked we have a thousand
sacks of fine or white bread. And what of our hospitals and our army
and navy, with medical men at the head of them, watching the results
of this food or that food, and its effects on the human body? I admit
that brown bread does suit some constitutions; but to the majority of
people it is nauseous, frequently causing flatulency. I will just
quote another good authority -- Professor Charles Graham.
In his lecture upon ''The Chemistry
of Bread-Making," delivered before the Society of Arts in
December, 1879, he said: "As regards the importance of the
constituents of bran, I say that the analyst, and the physician who
makes use of the analyst as his supporter, in bringing before us the
importance of brown bread as compared with white, and who assert that
in rejecting the bran we are guilty of a serious waste of
flesh-forming and bone-forming material, should not take a mere
chemical analysis as all-sufficient to establish their point. A table
showing, from an analyst's point of view, the comparative merits of
various substances for feeding purposes, shows hay to be of high
value as a food, and even oat straw -- as, indeed, every farmer knows
from experience. Still more valuable for their heat giving, and
especially for their flesh-forming, materials, are linseed-cake, rape-cake,
and decorticated cotton-cake. Now those who hold, from mere chemical
analysis, that bran is of such high value as a food material that its
omission from flour would meet with grave censure, should, from a
similar analytical standpoint, urge us to eat hay, oat-straw, linseed
and cotton cakes. Doubtless these substances are of high value as
food for cattle, because the herbivorous oxen can digest and utilise
them with ease; not so with man, who would starve in a field where a
cow or a sheep would fatten. As with hay or linseed cake, so with
bran; I hold that the best mode of digesting such food substances is
first of all by the aid of our hoofed friends, to convert them into
milk or cream, or bacon, beef, or mutton."
Now these are the scientific opinions
of two of our very highest authorities. But of late I have been
making brown bread out of a blend of cereals made and milled by an
enterprising firm of millers in the North of England, and I must
really say that it meets a long-felt want, as it produces a brown
loaf which is free from that nauseous taste of which complaint is so
often made with brown bread, and has a good nutty flavour of its own.
In conclusion, let me say that we
have reason for great hope for the future of the Bread and
Confectionery trade. Many earnest minds are devoting both time and
money to the development of this important industry, and their
efforts cannot fail to result in bettering the knowledge and
lightening the labour of the practical baker.
II. GENERAL REMARKS ON BAKING.
Baking as a business or profession
has never been confined to the making of bread alone -- that is to
say, bread in everyday use. A baker we take to mean a person who
bakes and prepares any farinaceous substance intended for human food.
Therefore baking not only includes loaf-bread baking, biscuit baking,
fancy-bread baking, but also pastry-making and confectionery. It is
common for all these branches to be practised by the same person, and
it is therefore fitting that they should all be treated of in a work
of this kind. This we intend doing under separate heads.
ESSENTIALS OF GOOD BREAD-MAKING.
Two of the most essential things in
bread-baking, in order to produce a full-flavoured, showy, and sweet
loaf, are good yeast and good flour. A good oven is also necessary.
An oven which is either too hot or too cold will spoil what would
otherwise be a good batch of bread: so great care should be used in
order to have the oven of the proper heat. Pan bread, or bread baked
in tins, need a greater heat than batch bread, as pan-bread dough is
of a lighter nature than batch-bread dough, and consequently requires
more heat to keep it up. I do not intend, however, going into the
merits of different ovens, as I am not competent to do so. There are
so many different kinds, and each baker, as a rule, seems to fancy
what he has been most used to. For heating purposes, cinders have
taken the place of coals and wood, and (I think) to the advantage of
both master and journeyman. Cinders are cheaper for the master and
cleaner for the workman.
GERMAN YEAST AND
PARISIAN BARM.
Yeasts, or barms, are of many
varieties, but I purpose here to deal with only two kinds -- that
commonly known as German yeast, which is mostly used in England, and
Parisian barm, the kind most in use in Scotland.
A great point in working German yeast
is to know when it is in proper condition, as it is very liable to go
bad in very warm weather, or if kept in a very warm place. Care
should be taken to keep it in a place as near a temperature of
56° to 60° Fahr. as possible. Should there be any suspicion
that the yeast is not up to the mark, a simple and sure test is to
get a clean cup or tumbler, half fill it with warm water of a
temperature of 100°, put an ounce of loaf sugar in the water,
and when dissolved add one ounce of yeast. The yeast will, of course,
sink to the bottom, but if it is sound and in good condition it will
rise to the top in two minutes. Should it take much longer than that,
the less you have to do with it the better.
Parisian barm makes a nice showy
loaf, but for flavour I prefer German yeast. To make Parisian barm 1
gallon of water is put into a pan at, say, 140° Fahr.; weigh 2
lbs. of crushed malt, put it into the water at the above temperature,
cover it up for about three hours; one hour before you are going to
make your barm, that is two hours since you put your malt to steep,
put 3 gallons of water into a large pan, put it on the fire; when it
boils, add 2 oz. of good fresh hops, well boil for twenty minutes;
after which well strain the malt through a hair sieve. Put it into
the barm tub and add as much flour as can be nicely stirred in with
the barm-stick. Then put the boiling hop-water through a sieve on top
of the malt water and flour and well stir it. It should be properly
scalded. Some put the hops in a small linen bag made for the purpose
and put it in the boiling water, squeezing it against the side of the
pot before taking it out. Supposing it to be five o'clock in the
afternoon, it may be put by with a couple of sacks over it till five
o'clock next morning. Then "set the barn away" (as they say
in Scotland), by adding to the above liquid half a gallon of the barn
previously made.
After the old barn is added to the
new, in a few hours a scum gathers on the top. This scum will either
start at the side of the tub and work gradually to the other side, or
I have seen it start in the middle and work itself slowly to the
sides of the tub. When ready it should have a nice clear bell top. It
takes from ten to twelve hours to work before it is ready.
By following this method one may
always have good barn. Cleanliness is very essential for barn, and
care should be taken that neither grease nor churned milk shall get
near it. We need scarcely say that experience is required in this as
in other things.
AMERICAN PATENT YEAST.
I may add the following recipe for
American patent yeast :-Take half a pound of hops and two pailfuls of
water; mix and boil them till the liquid is reduced one half; strain
the decoction into a tub, and when luke-warm add half a peck of malt.
In the meantime, put the strained-off hops again into two pailfuls of
water, and boil as before till they are reduced one half; strain the
liquid while hot into a tub. (The heat will not injuriously affect
malt previously mixed with tepid water.) When the liquid has cooled
down to about blood heat, strain off the malt and add to the liquor
two quarts of patent yeast set apart from the previous making by the
above process. Five gallons of good yeast may thus be made which will
be ready for use the day after it is made. It takes about eight
hours' time to manufacture, but gives very little trouble to the baker.
GOOD OR BAD FLOUR.
Experience is also necessary to judge
of flour; but any one in the habit of using flour may form a pretty
accurate idea whether it is good or bad. If fine and white, it may be
considered good so far as colour is concerned; but if it be brown, it
shows that it was either made from inferior wheat, or has been
coarsely dressed -- that is, that it contains particles of bran.
However, brown flour may be of a good sound quality, and fine white
flour may not.
To judge of flour, take a portion in
your hand and press it firmly between the thumb and forefinger, at
the same time rubbing it gently for the purpose of making a level
surface upon the flour; or take a watch with a smooth back and press
it firmly on the flour. By this means its colour may be ascertained
by observing the pressed or smooth surface. If the flour feels loose
and lively in the hand, it is of good quality; if it feels dead or
damp, or, in other words, clammy, it is decidedly bad. Flour ought to
be a week or two old before being used.
ALUM IN BREAD.
A common custom to improve flour was
to add a small quantity of alum to a sack of flour -- a custom which,
it may be hoped, is entirely a thing of the past. According to
Liebig, the action of alum in the process of bread-making is to form
certain insoluble combinations which render digestion difficult, and
detract largely from the value of bread as food. Professor Vaughan,
of the University of Michigan, says: "The use of alum is an
adulteration which is injurious to health. It unites with the
phosphates in the bread, rendering them insoluble, and preventing
their digestion and absorption. In this way, alum, when present,
diminishes the nutritive value of bread. While some gain may perhaps
temporarily accrue to the manufacturer through the covert
perpetration of this fraud, still no good to any one can result therefrom."
BUTTER FOR PASTRY AND CAKES.
Butter, which so largely enters into
the pastry cook's business, is another important point for
consideration. It should be perfectly sweet, and before it is used
made smooth on a marble slab. Salt butter made from cows fed on poor
pasture is the best for puff paste, and is the most proper for
ornamental work; it should be washed in water two or three times
before being used. On the other hand, for every kind of cake the
butter cannot be too rich.
In the course of this work I likewise
intend to touch on the icing of bride and other cakes.
RECIPES.
III. BREAD, TEA CAKES,
BUNS, ETC.
I. --
To make Home-made Bread.
Put 1 stone of fine flour into your
mixing pan; make a hole in the middle of the flour, and press the
sides of the hole to prevent the liquid running through; dissolve 2
1/2 ozs. of yeast in 1 gill of water, and put it in the hole made in
the flour; mix a little flour in the liquid to make a thin batter,
cover your pan over and let it rise to a nice cauliflower top; when
ready, dissolve 2 1/2 ozs. of salt in 1 gill of water, put this into
your pan, and then take sufficient water (or water and milk) to make
all into a nice dough; let it rise a little in the pan, then weigh
off into your tins, and prove and bake. The heat of the water should
be between 80° and 90° Fahr.
2. --
Bread-making by the Old Method.
To make a sack of flour into bread
the baker takes the flour and empties it into the kneading trough; it
is then carefully passed through a wire sieve, which makes it lie
lighter and reduces any lumps that may have formed in it. Next he
dissolves 2 oz. of alum (called in the trade "stuff" or
"rocky ") in a little water placed over the fire. This is
poured into the seasoning tub with a pailful of warm water, but not
too hot. When this mixture has cooled to a temperature of about 84
degrees, from 3 to 4 pints of yeast are put into it, and the whole
having been strained through the seasoning sieve, it is emptied into
a hole made in the mass of flour and mixed up with a portion of it to
the consistency of thick batter. Dry flour is then sprinkled over the
top. This is called the quarter-sponge, and the operation is known as
"setting." The sponge must then be covered up with sacks,
if the weather be cold, to keep it warm. It is then left for three or
four hours, when it gradually swells and breaks through the dry flour
laid upon its surface. Another pail of water impregnated with alum
and salt is now added, and well stirred in, and the mass sprinkled
with flour and covered up as before. This is called setting the
half-sponge. The whole is then well kneaded with about two more
pailfuls of water for about an hour. It is then cut into pieces with
a knife, and to prevent spreading it is pinned, or kept at one end of
the trough by means of a sprint board, in which state it is left to
"prove," as the bakers call it, for about four hours. When
this process is over the dough is again well kneaded for about half
an hour. It is then removed from the trough to the table and weighed
into the quantities suitable for each loaf. The operation of
moulding, chaffing, and rolling up can be learnt only by practice.
3. --
Modern Way of making Bread.
The modern way of making bread is as
follows: Put 1 sack, or 20 stone, of flour into the trough, and, to
take it all up, sponge 12 gallons of water of the required
temperature, and from 10 to 16 ozs. of yeast, according to the
strength. Then dissolve 2 lbs. of salt in the water and mix all
together. In the morning, or when taken up again, add 6 gallons of
water and 1 1/2 lb. of salt. If a quick or "flying" sponge
is required to be ready in an hour and a half, empty the sack of
flour into the trough. Make a sprint, add 12 gallons of water of the
required heat and 2 lbs. of yeast, and as much flour as you can stir
in with the hand. Let it rise for one hour and a half; add 6 gallons
more water (at the temperature the sponge is set, which should be
about 100 degrees Fahr.), and 3 1/2 lbs. of salt. Make all into a
nice-sized dough; let it stand three-quarters of an hour, then scale off.
4. --
Scotch Style of making Bread.
The bread-making industry has made
great strides in Scotland. In Glasgow alone there are two firms which
each bake over two thousand bags of flour a week -- namely, J. and B.
Stevenson and Bilsland Brothers -- while five other firms each bake
from five hundred to one thousand bags a week in respect to the
output, Scotland is a long way in advance of either England or
Ireland. I can well remember the time when oatmeal cakes and scones
were the staple food in Scotland; but such food is now notable by its
absence. This brings to mind a story I once heard of an Englishman
and a Scotchman who were arguing on the merits of their respective
countries. The Englishman said, "Man Sandy, you are all fed on
oatmeal! Why, in England we only feed our horses on oats."
Sandy's reply was, "I don't na but what you say, man, is a very
true, but where wull ye get sic horses and where wull ye get sic men ?"
As I have said before, Parisian harm
is the kind most used in Scotland; in fact, nearly all the Scotch
advertisements require "men used to Parisian barm.' However, I
have noticed lately that German yeast is steadily making its way in
the North. The Scotch used generally to make their bread with what
they called potato ferment. Now it is mostly quarter or full sponges.
To make 1 sack of flour into bread with a quarter sponge take 1
gallon of water of the required temperature, add 1/2 a gallon of
Parisian barm, and sufficient flour to make it into a good stiff
dough. This is generally set between one and two o'clock, and is
ready to take about half-past four. It should be dropped when ready
an inch in the quarter boat or barrel. Empty it into the trough, add
10 gallons of water, dissolve 2 lbs. of salt, and mix all into a
well-beaten sponge. Add 6 gallons of water of the required
temperature and 1 1/4 lb. of salt in the morning, or when you take
the sponge, and make all into a nice dough. The softer you can work
the sponge the clearer and showier will be the loaf.
To make 1 sack of flour with a full
sponge, take 1 to 1 1/2 gallons of barm, about 10 gallons of water of
the proper temperature with 2 lbs. of salt dissolved in it; make all
into a nice-sized sponge. When ready add 6 gallons of water of proper
temperature, and 1 1/4 lb. of salt, and make it into dough.
Care should always be taken to keep
the barm clear of grease and churned milk, especially if the milk is sour.
There are a great many substitutes
for wheat-flour bread, some of which I will enumerate; but I do not
think it needful to give the recipes for them, as the recipes and
formulae I have given are evidently those most popular in the
English, Scotch, and Irish bake houses. Among the many substitutes
for wheat bread are the following: bread corn, rice bread, potato
bread; bread made of roots, ragwort bread, turnip bread, apple bread,
meslin bread, salep bread, Debreczen bread, oat and barley bread. The
Norwegians, we are informed, make bread of barley and oatmeal baked
between two stones; this bread is said to improve by age, and may be
kept for as long as thirty or forty years. At their great festivals
the Norwegians use the oldest bread, and it is not unusual at the
baptism of infants to have bread made at the time of the baptism of
their grandfathers.
5. --
Home-made Whole Meal Bread.
Take 1 stone of wheat meal
(granulated is best); put your flour in the basin or mixing bowl, and
make a hole in the centre of the meal: dissolve 2 ozs. of yeast in a
gill and a half of water, about 90° Fahr.; pour the yeast and
water into the hole, and mix in as much of the meal as will make a
soft batter; cover it up, and when it is ready (which you will know
by its having a nice cauliflower top), add 2 1/2 ozs. of salt, and
sufficient water, at a temperature of say 80° Fahr., and mix all
lightly into a nice mellow dough; put it past, with a cover over it,
till you see it commence to rise; then divide it into the sizes
required and place in tins to prove; bake in a moderate oven.
Wheat meals, and brown or second
flours, do not require so much working, either in the sponge or with
the hands, in making it into dough, as do the flours of a finer quality.
(For Master Bakers, as generally used
in the Trade.) When setting your ordinary sponges at night for fine
bread, dissolve 2 1/2 ozs. of yeast and 2 1/2 ozs. of salt in 1 1/2
gallons of water, about 4° to 6° Fahr., under whatever heat
at which you may be setting your fine sponges (according to the
nature of the meal you are using); take as much whole meal flour as
will make this quantity of water into a weak sponge, and in the
morning, when it is ready, give it half a gallon of water off same
heat as your fine sponges, with 5 ozs. of salt, and make all lightly
into a dough so that there is no "scrape" about it, and
work off in the same way as your ordinary bread.
7. --
Unfermented, or Diet Bread.
Take 8 lbs. of granulated wheat meal
(or meal made with a mixture of barley meal and wheat meal properly
blended), 4 ozs. of cream of tartar, and 2 ozs. of carbonate of soda;
mix the tartar and soda amongst the flour and sift all through a
sieve; make a bay, and add 2 ozs. of crushed salt and 4 ozs. of
castor sugar, putting the above in the bay and pouring in a little
churned milk to dissolve the salt and sugar; then add as much churned
milk as will take the 8 lbs. of meal in, and make into a nice-sized
dough; weigh off, and bake in oval tins. They should be put
immediately into the oven.
I consider this the very best mode of
making wheat meals into bread; bread thus made eats well, and keeps
moist longer than fermented meals.
Eye bread used to be in greater
favour with the public than it now is, but I consider that is owing
to the sodden, heavy way in which it is generally made; for if rye
flour is properly blended with fine flour, instead of the barley meal
generally used, it produces a very nice-flavoured loaf.
Set a sponge at night with fine flour
-- say, 1 gallon of water, 1 1/2 ozs. of yeast, and l 1/2 ozs. of
salt; let your sponge be about the same consistency as for muffin
batter; in the morning add 1 quart of water and 3 ozs. of salt, and
make your dough up with rye meal; let your sponge be set of the same
heat as for wheat meal bread.
I have adopted this plan, and find it
gives general satisfaction. In baking wheat meals, or other meals of
the same nature, your oven should be 30° or 40° by the
pyrometer under the heat used for fine bread.
Coarse flour (or
"overheads," as it is generally called in the south of
Scotland) is the cheapest grade of flour made, and if properly
manufactured it will vie with any class of flour in the market for a
fine, sweet, nutty flavour; but of course it is dark in colour, and I
have seen four of this grade very strong and carry an exceedingly
large quantity of water.
In a test I had some time ago, I
produced 110 - 41b. loaves, weighed in dough at 4 lbs. 6 ozs., out of
20 stone of this flour; but I may say that the flour was
stone-dressed, and milled in the old style. This same class of flour
was in general use in Scotland twenty years ago, and was generally
made into coarse or second bread, and coarse "two pennies."
Many a poor family -- ay, and rich families too -- have thriven and
had their hearts made glad on the produce of this grade of flour.
To make Coarse Bread. --
Take, say 1 gallon of water, at the same temperature as for wheat
meal bread; dissolve 1 1/4 ozs. of yeast, and the same quantity of
salt, in the water; make into an ordinary-sized sponge, and when
ready in the morning add half a gallon of water and about 4 ozs. of
salt; then make all into a dough, and work off as other doughs.
This flour can be sponged the same
way as fine flour for a quick or flying sponge, only care should be
used in not setting the sponge too warm, as I find that it ferments
and works more quickly than the finer grades of flour.
Germ flour is amongst one of the
newest kinds of flour placed before the public as a speciality. It is
in appearance something like granulated wheat meal, and the vendors
of it claim to have found a new process of removing the germ from the
flour, and subjecting it to a certain process before it is again
mixed with the flour. I am having germ bread made almost daily. Our
mode of making it is as follows: -
Dissolve 1 1/2 ozs. of yeast in half
a gallon of water, say 90° Fahr., and mix with this about 7 lbs.
of germ flour; it should be ready in about an hour and a half; weigh
off and prove; use no salt, as we think there is a certain amount of
salt (or some substitute for salt) ground amongst the flour. For this
class of bread it makes a very nice-eating loaf.
To be able to make a good tea-cake is
considered a great point in the baking trade. The following not only
makes good tea-cakes, but also capital Scotch cookies.
Take 1/2 a gallon of water at, say,
94° Fahr. add 1 lb. of moist sugar, 5 ozs. of German yeast;
dissolve all together, add, say, 1 1/2 lb. of flour and mix. When
well risen, add 1 lb. of lard and butter, 2 ozs. of salt, a few
currants to taste; mix all together into tea-cake dough. Let it
remain in a warm place for about half an hour, then weigh off at 8 or
9 ozs. for 2d.; prove, and bake.
This can be made with the same dough,
but omitting the currants, and making the dough tighter than for tea-cakes;
add 1 egg to each pound of dough. Weigh at 3 ounces for a penny, and
make into different shapes, such as half-moons, cart-wheels, twists, &c.
13.
-- Sally Luns, Yorkshire, or Tea Cakes.
Take 1 quart of milk, 1/4 lb.
of moist sugar, and 2 ozs. of German yeast. Ferment this with a
little flour, and when ready, add 1/2 lb. of butter (some add also 4
eggs to this quantity) and make into dough as for tea-cakes; butter
some rings or hoops, and place them on buttered tins, weigh or divide
into 5 or 6 ozs. for two pence; mould them round, put them in the
hoops, and, when half proved, make a hole in each with a piece of
stick. Do not overprove them, or they will eat poor and dry. When
baked, which will be in about ten or fifteen minutes, wash over the
top with egg and milk.
Sift through the sieve 4 lbs. of good
Hungarian flour; take as much water and milk as will make the above
into a nice-sized batter, having previously dissolved 2 ozs. of
yeast, 1 oz. of sugar, and 3/4 oz. of salt in the liquid; then beat
this well with your hand for at least ten minutes; after it has half
risen in your pan beat again for other ten minutes; then let it stand
till ready, which you will know by the batter starting to drop. Have
one of your roll-boards well dusted with sifted flour, and with your
hand lay out the muffins in rows. The above mixture should produce 24
muffins. Then, with another roll-board slightly dusted with rice
flour, take the muffins and with your fingers draw the outsides into
the centre, forming a round cake; draw them into your hand and brush
off any flour that may be adhering to them; place them on the board
dusted with rice, and so on till all are finished; then put them in
the prover to prove, which does not take long. The heat of the liquid
for muffins (or crumpets) should range from 90° to 100°
Fahr., according to the temperature of the bakehouse.
One great point to guard against in
fermenting cakes or bread, is to see that your sponge or dough does
not get chilled. By the time your muffins are ready, have the stove
or hot plate properly heated, then row them gently on to the hot
plate so as not to knock the proof out of them; when they are a nice
brown turn them gently on the other side and bake a nice delicate brown.
15.
Another Way. -- Some
persons now make muffins after the same formula as for teacakes,
namely, moulding one in each hand and pinning out the size required,
then proving and baking. I have tried that way more than once, but I
cannot get the muffins to appear anything like what my experience
teaches me a muffin should be. Practice and judgment are required to
make one proficient in muffin making.
There has recently been introduced to
the trade a hot plate heated with gas, which will go a long way in
helping the muffin-maker. It is both cleaner, handier, and you can
bake with it to a more certain degree of heat.
Crumpets are generally made by
muffin-makers, the most modern formula being the following: -- Take 4
lbs. of good English flour, 2. ozs. of good yeast, and 2 ozs. of
salt. The flour and salt may be sifted together. Take 1 quart of
milk, and 1 1/2 quarts of water, at about 100° Fahr.; dissolve
your yeast in the water, then mix in your flour and salt; make all
into a thin liquid paste, giving it a thoroughly good mixing; let it
stand for one hour, when you may again give it a thoroughly good
beat; let it stand for another hour, when it will be ready to bake
off. In the meantime thoroughly clean your stove or hot plate before
it gets hot, and give it a rub over with a greasy cloth; then have
your rings of the size required (they should be half an inch in
depth); slightly grease them, and see that they are greased for each
round of the hot plate; have a cup in one hand and a saucer in the
other to prevent the batter dropping; pour half a cup of the batter
into the rings and spread them with a palette knife to a level
surface, putting what comes off (if any) back into your pan. Then,
when the bottom part is of a nice golden colour, turn them over with
your palette knife, turning the ring at the same time, and bake off a
nice colour. Remove them from the stove or hot plate, and lay them on
clean boards for a couple of minutes, when with a gentle tap your
rings will come clear; and so on till finished. Nothing but careful
practice, and particular attention to the whys and wherefores of both
hot plates and batter," will make a good muffin or crumpet-maker.
Take 7 lbs. of medium oatmeal, 1 1/2
oz. salt, 1 1/2 oz. Carbonate of soda, 1 1/2 oz. cream of tartar, 1
1/2 lb. of flour, 1 1/2 lb. of lard.
Rub the lard in the oatmeal and
flour, having previously mixed all the other ingredients in the
oatmeal; make a bay, add sufficient cold water to make all into a
good working dough, weigh off at 8 ozs., mould up, pin out the size
you think most suitable, cut into four, and place on clean dry tins.
Bake in a sharp oven.
1 lb. of flour, 8 ozs. of butter, 8
ozs. of sugar, 4 eggs, a little warm milk, 1 oz. of Parisian yeast,
some citron peel cut small, and half a nutmeg grated. This will make
fourteen two penny buns.
Rub the butter in with the flour,
make a bay and break in the eggs, add the yeast with sufficient milk
to make the whole into a dough of moderate consistency, and put in a
warm place to prove. When it has risen enough mix in the peel, a
little essence of lemon, and the sugar, which should be in small
pieces about the size of peas. Divide into pieces for buns, prove and
bake in gentle heat. They may be washed with egg and dusted with
sugar before proving.
19.
Another Way. -- 4 lbs. of
flour, 1 lb. of butter, 6 ozs. of sugar, 4 ozs. of yeast, 4 eggs, and
sufficient milk to make all into a dough; add essence of lemon.
Warm the milk, add the sugar and
yeast with sufficient flour to make a ferment; when ready, add
butter, eggs, and remainder of flour, with currants or peel to taste.
Weigh or divide into 3 ozs. each, mould them up round egg on top
rolled in castor sugar; slightly prove, bake in moderate oven.
Take 1 quart of milk or water, 3 ozs.
of yeast, 12 ozs. of moist sugar, 12 ozs. of butter, 1 oz. of salt,
with sufficient flour to make a nice mellow dough.
Proceed the same as for tea-cakes,
adding spice, currants, and peel to taste; weigh 4 ozs. for a penny,
make a cross in the middle of the bun, wash over with egg, and prove.
Spice, however, is very seldom used, as it tends to darken the buns,
and thus giving them a poor appearance. An ingenious apparatus has
been invented called a Patent Bun Divider, which greatly facilitates
the making of these buns, and cannot fail to be of great service
where large quantities of buns or cakes are required to be divided.
All that is needed is to weigh 8 lbs. of dough, place it in the pan,
and at one stroke of a lever thirty buns or cakes are divided ready
to mould.
Take plain bun dough (or if for
common buns, bread dough), roll it out in a sheet, break some firm
butter in small pieces and place over it, roll it out as you would
paste; after you have given it two or three turns, moisten the
surface of the dough, and strew over it some moist sugar; roll up the
sheet into a roll, and cut it in slices; or cut the dough in strips
of the required size and turn them round; place on buttered tins
having edges, half-an-inch from each. Prove them well, and bake in a
moderate oven. They may be dusted with loaf sugar either before or
after they are baked. The quantity of ingredients used must be
regulated by the required richness of the buns. 1/2 lb. of butter,
1/2 lb. of sugar, with 4 lb. of dough, will make a good bun. When bun
dough is used, half the quantity of sugar will be sufficient; some
omit it altogether.
3 1/2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of butter,
1 lb. of sugar, 5 eggs, nearly 1 quart of milk, a few caraway seeds,
with 1 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda and tartaric acid, mixed in
proportion of 1 oz. of soda to 3/4 oz. of acid.
Mix the soda and acid well with the
flour, then rub in the butter and sugar; make a bay with the flour,
add the seeds, beat up the eggs with the milk, and make all into a
dough. Put into buttered pans according to the size; dust with castor
sugar, and bake in a moderate oven.
23.
-- Balloon or Prussian Cakes.
Take currant bun dough and make it
into a round flat cake of any required size, and place it on a
buttered tin. When it is about half proved, divide it with a long,
flat piece of wood having a thin graduated edge, into eight equal
parts, and place it again to prove. When it is proved enough, brush
over the top lightly with the white of an egg well whisked, dust it
with fine powdered sugar and sprinkle it with water, just sufficient
to moisten the sugar. Bake it in a rather cool oven to prevent the
icing getting too much coloured.
Take the same mixture as for
teacakes, add 1 oz. of caraway seeds, and colour it with saffron.
Mould them round, and put them on the tins so as not to touch. When
they are near proof, wash the tops with egg and milk, and dust them
with castor sugar. Put them in the oven to finish proving, and bake
them in a moderately hot oven.
Made same way as saffron buns, but
leaving out the caraway seeds and saffron, and using instead
sufficient ground cinnamon to flavour them.
2 lbs. of flour, 3/4 lb. of butter,
3/4 lb. of sugar, 4 eggs, 1/2 oz. of voil.
Rub the butter in with the flour,
make a bay and add the sugar, pound the salt in a little milk and
pour it in, break the eggs, and mix all together into a dough. Make
six buns out of 1 lb. of dough, mould them round, wash the top with
eggs, put some currants on the top, and dust with sugar.
4 lbs. of flour, 2 ozs. of tartar, 1
oz. of carbonate of soda, 12 ozs. of butter, 1 1/2 lbs. of sugar, 4
eggs, 10 drops of essence of lemon, with milk.
Mix tartar and carbonate of soda with
the flour, make a sprint or bay, put butter and sugar in bay, cream;
add eggs, then milk, make all into a dough, and size them off on
buttered tins one inch apart. Wash over with egg, and put a little
sugar on top, and bake in a moderate oven.
28.
-- Common German Buns (for wholesale purposes).
4 lbs. of flour, 2 ozs. of tartar, 1
oz. of carbonate of soda, lb. of lard, 1 1/2 lb. of moist sugar, a
little turmeric and churned milk; then proceed as for best German
buns. Bake in a sharp oven.
Take 1 pint of milk warmed in a
basin, add 2 ozs. of yeast, 8 ozs. of moist sugar, and make a dough
with sufficient flour.
When the sponge is ready add 12 ozs.
of butter, a pinch of salt, and have ready 4 ozs. of chopped peel.
Mix all in the dough with 2 eggs and lemon, and prove. When about
half proved wash over with yolk of egg. Put sugar on top when full proved.
1 1/2 lb. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar,
15 eggs, 2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of patent flour. Cream butter and
sugar in a basin, add eggs, then flour, and as much milk as will make
a nice batter. Bake
in fluted pans.
Take 4 ozs. of tartar, and 2 ozs. of
carbonate of soda, and 8 lbs. of flour, and sift through a sieve
three times.
4 lbs. of flour, 2 1/2 lbs. of castor
sugar, 1 1/4 lb. of butter, 10 eggs, 1 oz. of tartar, 3/4 oz. of
carbonate of soda, 1/2 lb. of ground rice, milk to dough. Cream
butter and sugar together, add eggs; when well creamed, add flour,
rice, and milk. Bake in small round hoops papered round the side.
These are made in the same way, with
the same mixture, but leaving out the rice and adding the same
quantity of Coconut Dust Coconut on the top of each.
Cream 12 oz. of butter with 1 lb. of
sugar, add 13 eggs; mix 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda and 1/4 oz. of
acid with 2 lbs. of flour; weigh 8 ozs. of currants. Mix all together
with milk, and bake in a small edged pan. Cut into squares when cold.
IV. GINGERBREAD,
PARKINGS, SHORT-BREAD, ETC.
Take 2 lbs. of honey, 1 1/2 lb. of
best moist sugar, and 3 lbs. of flour, 1/2 lb. of sweet almonds
blanched, and 1/2 lb. of preserved orange peel cut into thin fillets,
the yellow rinds of two lemons grated off, 1 oz. of cinnamon, 1/2 oz.
of cloves, mace, and cardamoms mixed and powdered.
Put the honey in a pan over the fire
with a wineglassful of water, and make it quite hot; mix the other
ingredients and the flour together, make a bay, pour in the honey,
and mix all well together. Let it stand tilt next day, make it into
cakes, and bake it. Rub a little clarified sugar until it will blow
in bubbles through a skimmer, and with a paste-brush rub over the
gingerbread when baked.
Same as Queen's Gingerbread, but dust
tins with flour instead of grease.
Take 3 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of
butter, 1 lb. of moist sugar,
4 ozs. of candied lemon or orange
peel cut small, 1 oz. of powdered ginger, 2 ozs. of powdered
allspice, 1/2 oz. of powdered cinnamon, 1 oz. of caraway seeds, and 3
lbs. of treacle.
Rub the butter into the flour, then
add the other ingredients, and mix in the dough with the treacle.
Make it into nuts or cakes, and bake in a cool oven.
38.
-- Scarborough Gingerbread (for wholesale purposes).
Take 180 lb. of treacle, 4 lbs. of
lard, 4 lbs. 10 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 2 lbs. 11 ozs. of caraway
seeds, 2 lbs. 11 ozs. of ginger, and 1/2 a gallon of water to
dissolve the soda. Mix all together with a sufficient quantity of flour.
This should turn out about 390 lbs.
of very good gingerbread. Wash with glue and water which has been boiled.
The taste for gingerbread is very
widespread, large quantities of the best quality being exported to
India. Holland is regarded as carrying off the palm for making good
gingerbread. Shakespeare makes mention of it in Love's Labour's Lost,
where he says, "An I had but one penny in the world thou
should'st have it to buy gingerbread."
2 1/4 lbs. of flour, 1/2 lb. of
butter, 1 lb. moist sugar, 2 ozs. of ginger. Rub the butter in with
the flour and make the whole into a paste with prepared treacle. Make
them into round flat cakes, wash the top with milk, lay a slice of
peel on each, and bake in a cool oven.
Take 4 lbs. of treacle, 1 oz. of
alum, 2 ozs. of pearlash, and mix.
41.
-- Prepared Treacle for Thick Gingerbread,
Take 7 lbs. of treacle, 3 ozs. of
potash, 1 oz. volatile salt, and ozs. of alum. The colour of the
gingerbread when baked will be according to the quality of the
treacle used. Golden syrup makes the lightest coloured and best.
1 lb. of gingerbread dough, 3 ozs. of
butter, 3 ozs. of sugar, 1 oz. of cayenne pepper. Mix all together,
pin out in a sheet, one-eighth of an inch thick. Cut them out the
size of a penny. They are very hot.
43.
-- Grantham or White Gingerbread.
4 lbs. of flour, 2 1/2 lbs. of loaf
sugar, 4 ozs. of butter, 1 oz.' of volatile salt, 1 pint of milk, 1/2
oz. of ginger, 1/4 oz. of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace, 1/2 oz.
caraway seeds.
3 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of butter, 1
lb. of moist sugar, 4 ozs. of candied peel cut small, 1 oz. ginger, 2
ozs. allspice, 1/4 oz. of cinnamon, 1 oz. caraway seeds, 3 lbs.
prepared treacle. Mix same as other doughs.
45.
Another Way. -- Take 3
lbs. of flour, 2 lbs. of sugar, 2 lbs. of treacle, 2 ozs. of ginger,
1/4 oz. of carbonate of soda, 2 drs. of tartaric acid. Mix the day
before baking.
46.
Another Way. -- 7 lbs. of
flour, 5 lbs. of syrup, 2 3/4 lbs. of moist sugar, 1 lb. of lard, 4
ozs. ginger, 1/2 oz. of tartaric acid, 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda,
1/2 oz. of cinnamon, 1/2 oz. of mace. Mix and work same as other
doughs. This is a capital mixture.
Dr. Colquhoun gives a recipe for
preparing a light gingerbread as follows: Take 1 lb. of flour, I oz.
of carbonate of magnesia, and 1/8 oz. of tartaric acid. Mix the flour
and magnesia thoroughly, then dissolve and add the acid; take the
usual quantity of butter, treacle, and spice; melt the butter and
pour it with the treacle and acid into the flour and magnesia. The
whole must then be made into a dough by kneading, and set aside for a
period varying from half an hour to an hour; it will then be ready
for the oven, and should not on any account be kept longer than two
or three hours before being baked. When taken from the oven it will
prove a light, pleasant, and spongy bread, having no injurious
ingredients in it. That made with potash, says Dr. Colquhoun, gives
the bread a disagreeable alkaline flavour, unless disguised with some
aromatic ingredient, and is likely to prove injurious to delicate persons.
48.
-- Italian Jumbles, or Brandy Snaps.
6 lbs. of flour, 7 lbs. of good rich
sugar, 1 1/4 lb. of butter or lard, 2 ozs. of ginger or mixed spice,
6 lbs. of raw syrup. Make the whole into a moderately stiff paste or
dough, roll out into sheets fully an eighth of an inch thick, cut
them with a plain round cutter of 3 inches diameter, put them on tins
well greased, and bake in a moderate oven. When baked cut them from
the tin and lay them on the peel-shaft till they are hard. If they
should get too cold to turn, put them in the oven to warm. Brandy
snaps are the same as above, without being turned.
Note. --
For cakes, spice nuts, or biscuits of a small size, that require
washing on top, use a piece of linen the size of the tin, dip it in
water, squeeze it, and spread it on top of the snaps or biscuits and
gently press your hand over it. This
will prevent them from running together on the tins.
49.
-- Halfpenny Gingerbread Squares.
8 lbs. of flour, 4 lbs. of treacle, 3
ozs. of pearlash, 3 ozs. of alum, and 1 oz. of carbonate of soda.
Make a bay, put in the treacle, add the soda, dissolve the pearlash
in 1 gill of cold water and pour it on the treacle; put another gill
of water in a small pan, add the alum, and let it boil till it is
dissolved; then pour it on the other ingredients. Mix all together,
put into two tins about 24 inches by 18 inches with an edge 1 inch
high. Cut out of each tin 2s. 3 1/2d. worth. This mixture is for
wholesale purposes, and pays well.
Note. --
Nearly all mixtures made in this way are best made the day before.
7 lbs. of flour, 3 1/2 lbs. of
treacle, 1 lb. of sugar, 1 lb. of butter, 3 ozs. of pearlash, 3 ozs.
of alum, half a teaspoonful of essence of lemon, 1 lb. of lemon peel
cut small. Mix as above; roll out the dough in strips, and with the
fingers break off pieces the size of a small marble, lay on the tins
in rows and bake in a moderate oven on tins slightly buttered.
3 1/2 lbs. of oatmeal, 1 lb. of
flour, 1 lb. of butter, 8 ozs. of moist sugar, 1/2 oz. of baking
powder, with sufficient syrup to make all into a moderately stiff
dough; weigh off at 4 ozs. for a penny, mould up round, and place on
tins 2 1/2 inches apart. Bake in a cool oven.
52.
Another Way. -- 6 lbs. of
snap dough, 12 ozs. of moist sugar, 10 ozs. of butter, 1 3/4 lb. of
oatmeal, 1 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda, 1 oz. of caraway seeds, 1
oz. of seasoning. Proceed
as above.
3lbs. of oatmeal, 1 lb. of flour, 4
lbs. of treacle, 1 lb. of good butter, 2 teaspoonfuls of carbonate of
soda, 1 gill of beer. Mixed up as above. Baked in an edged pan 3
inches high, in a cool oven.
Take 1 lb. of butter, 2 lbs. of
flour, 8 ozs. of powdered sugar. Mix the sugar in the butter, then
take in all the flour and thoroughly mix and rub all together till of
a nice mellow colour and easy to work; weigh off the size required,
and shape into square or round pieces; dock them on the top, notch
them round the sides, put on clean dry tins, and bake in a moderate oven.
1 lb. of flour, 1/2 lb. of sugar, 1/2
lb. butter, 2 eggs. Mix as for Scotch Shortbread, ornament the tops
with designs of neatly-cut lemon peel and caraway comfits.
2 lbs. of flour, 3/4 lb. of butter,
3/4 lb. of sugar, 4 eggs, 1/2 oz. of ammonia. Rub the butter in the
flour, make a bay, put in the eggs, sugar, and ammonia; beat them
well with your hand, then draw in the flour and butter; make all into
a dough, weigh at 12 ozs., chaff them up round, pin out a good
breadth, mark them off into eight, place a piece of peel on each, and
bake in good oven. Cut the marked pieces with a sharp knife after
they are baked.
In making the dough for hard biscuits
it should be kept in a loose crumbly state until the whole is of an
equal consistency, then work, rub, or press it together with your
hands until the whole is collected or formed into a mass. If the
old-fashioned biscuit brake is replaced by a biscuit machine so much
the better for the baker and the goods he turns out. If so, then all
that is necessary will be to properly adjust the rollers whether, for
braking (that is making the dough) or rolling out for the cutter. If
an amateur tries to make biscuits he will always experience some
difficulty in moulding them if they are hand-made. When this is so it
would be better to cut them out with a cutter.
These were evidently the first
biscuits, from which have sprung all the varieties of hard biscuits
which we at present possess. They are of the same character as those
which were first made by man in his progress towards civilisation,
and were baked or roasted on hot embers. Before this, men knew of no
other use for their meal than to make it into a kind of porridge.
Biscuits prepared in a simple fashion were for centuries the food of
the Roman soldiers. The name is derived from the Latin bis, twice,
and the French cuit = coctus, meaning twice baked or cooked.
Ship biscuits are composed of flour
and water only; but some think a small proportion of yeast makes a
great improvement in them. The method adopted is to make a small weak
sponge as for bread previous to making the dough; the necessary
quantity of water is then added. The flour used for the commoner sort
of these biscuits is known as middlings or fine sharps; and those
made from the finer or best are called captains or cabin biscuits. A
sack of flour loses, by drying and baking, 28 lbs.
7 lbs. of fine flour, 6 ozs. of
butter, 1 quart of water or milk. Rub the butter in with the flour
until it is crumbled into very small pieces, make a bay in the centre
of the flour, pour in the water or milk, make it into a dough, and
break it when made into dough, chaff or mould up the required size, 4
or 5 ozs. each, pin out with a rolling pin about 5 inches in
diameter, dock them and lay them with their faces together. When they
are ready bake them in a moderately quick oven, of a nice brown
colour. These are seldom made with hand, as the machinery in use
outstrips hand-made biscuits of this class in speed and gives a
better appearance and quality.
7 1/2 lbs. of flour, 1/2 lb. of
butter, 1 quart of water or milk. Mix as directed. When ready weigh
out at 2 ozs. each, mould or chaff, roll out, dock quite through and
bake in a hot oven. Ail biscuits of this class require thorough
drying in the drying room.
6l.
-- Abernethy Biscuits. (Dr. Abernethy's Original Recipe.)
1 quart of milk, 6 eggs, 8 ozs. of
sugar, 1/2 oz. of caraway seeds, with flour sufficient to make the
whole of the required consistency. They are generally weighed off at
2 ozs. each, moulded up, pinned and docked, and baked in a moderate oven.
Note. --
The heat of an oven is not required so strong for biscuits containing
sugar, as it causes them to take more colour in less time.
62.
-- Abernethys as made in London.
7 lbs. of flour, 8 ozs. of sugar, 8
ozs. of butter, 4 eggs, 1 1/2 pint of milk, 2 tablespoonfuls of
orange-flower water, 1/2 oz. of caraway seeds.
63.
-- Usual Way of making Abernethy Biscuits.
Take 8 lbs. of flour, 1 1/2 lb. of
butter and lard, 12 ozs. of sugar, 1/2 oz. of caraway seeds; some use
about 1/2 oz. of powdered volatile salts. Proceed to make into dough
as before. Well break the dough and finish with either hand or machine.
Take 8 lbs. of flour, rub in 2 lbs.
of good butter. Make a bay, add about 1 quart of water, take in your
flour and butter and well shake up, and note the more your mixture is
shaken up and worked the better biscuits you will have. Also note in
shaking up these biscuits, when they are mixed let your two thumbs
meet, giving the mixture a shake up in the air till you have all the
dry flour worked in and the mixture is nice and moist. Bake in a
smart oven on wires.
14 lbs. of flour, 1 1/4 lb. of
butter, 1/2 oz. of carbonate of soda, 3 drachms of muriatic acid, 2
quarts of water. Mix as the last, adding the acid mixed with
half-a-pint of the water after the dough is shaken up, then finish
with the machine.
26 lbs. of flour, 2 1/4 lbs. of
butter, 5 lbs. of sugar, 2 ozs. of ammonia, 1/2 oz. of essence of
lemon, 3 quarts of water. This should be made into small round
biscuits rather larger than pic-nics. Bake them in a sound oven.
30 lbs. of flour, 4 lbs. of butter, 4
lbs. of castor sugar, 3 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 2 ozs. of muriatic
acid, 4 quarts of milk.
28 lbs. Of flour, 2 lbs. of lard, 2
lbs. of sugar, 2 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 2 ozs. of hydrochloric
acid. Mix as above and finish the dough in the usual way. Bake in a
moderately brisk oven.
56 lbs. of flour, 3 1/2 lbs. of lard,
3 1/2 lbs. of butter, 1 1/4 lb. of castor sugar, 4 quarts of milk, 4
quarts of water, 2 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 1 1/2 oz. of
hydrochloric acid. Mix as before described. Let the dough be of a
good stiffness and broken very clear. The cutters may be either round
or oval. They require about 20 minutes' baking. As soon as they are
drawing put them in the stove for about two hours.
Take equal parts of fine flour and
wheat-meal flour and mix them together to 5 quarts of milk and water.
Use 2 1/2 lbs. of butter and 2 ozs. of German yeast. Rub the butter
in the flour, make a bay, pour in your liquor and yeast. Mix the
whole into a dough, break it a little, and put it in a warm place to
prove. After it is light enough, break it quite smooth and clear,
roll it out in a sheet one-eighth of an inch in thickness and cut out
your biscuits. As soon as the biscuits are cut out bake in a hot oven.
71.
Another way. -- 5 lbs. of
granulated wheat meal, 1 lb. of butter, 1/4 lb. of sugar, 1/4 lb. of
ground arrowroot, 4 eggs, 1 quart of milk, 1/4 oz. of carbonate of
soda. These are mixed up in the usual way, pinned out and cut with a
small round cutter, docked and baked in a moderate oven.
72.
-- Small Arrowroot Biscuits.
5 1/2 lbs. of flour, 8 ozs. of
butter, 6 ozs. of sugar, 6 ozs. of arrowroot, 3 eggs, 1 pint of
liquor. Prepare as the last. Make 16 biscuits from 1 lb. of dough.
Mould and pin into round cakes 3 inches in diameter, dock them with
an arrowroot docker, and bake them in a sound oven.
4 lbs. of flour, 4 ozs. of butter, 4
ozs. of castor sugar 5 large eggs, with enough water to fill a pint.
Make a bay; after the butter is rubbed in with the flour, add the
sugar and beat up the eggs and water together; pour into your bay,
make the whole into a dough, break it clear and make it quite thin.
When you finish it roll it out the tenth of an inch in thickness, cut
with your coffee biscuit cutter and bake them in a brisk oven. If the
oven should not be hot enough to raise them round the edges twist up
a handful of shavings rather hard and place them round the edges of
the biscuits when baking.
3 1/2 lbs. of flour, 2 ozs. butter, 2
ozs. of sugar, 1 pint of eggs. Make a bay, rub the butter in the
flour before you make a bay, add the sugar, pour in the eggs, beat
them well up with your hands, make the whole into a dough, break well
that it may be clear, roll into thin sheets, cut with an oval cutter
the same as used for Brightons, put them on clean tins, and bake in a
hot oven the same as Coffee Biscuits.
5 lbs. of flour, 12 ozs. of castor
sugar, 12 ozs. of butter, 1 pint of milk. Make all into a good dough,
roll into sheets half-an-inch thick, cut with an oval-pointed cutter
in shape thus - 0, place them on a crimp board and with a knife or
scraper curl them up, put on clean dry tins. Bake in moderate heat.
5 1/4 lbs. of flour, 12 ozs. of
butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 1 pint of milk. Mix as before into a dough,
roll out the dough 1/4 of an inch thick, cut them into long strips,
and cut them diamond shape or square, dock them either on the table
or crimping-board as your fancy dictates. Bake them in a rather warm oven.
10 lbs. of flour, 2 1/4 lbs. of
butter, 10 ozs. of castor sugar, 1 quart of water. Mix up the same as
the others, roll out a sheet 1/2 inch in thickness, cut them out in
various forms, dock them, and bake on clean dry tins in a moderate oven.
1 quart of milk, 1 lb. of butter, 2
ozs. of German yeast, 6 1/2 lbs. of flour. Make the milk warm, add
the sugar, yeast and a handful of flour to form a ferment, let it
ferment for an hour and a half. Rub the butter into the remaining
flour and make all into a nice smooth dough; let it stand about two
hours, then roll it out thin; cut the biscuits out with a cutter
about three inches in diameter, dock them well, place on clean tins
sprinkled with water, wash over with milk when you have them all off,
put them in a steam press or drawers for half an hour, and bake in a
cool oven.
4 lbs. of flour, 12 ozs. of butter, 6
ozs of sugar, 1 pint of milk. Mix up in the usual way, break smooth,
and make 12 biscuits out of a pound of dough; roll thin, dock them,
and bake in a brisk oven. Sold at a halfpenny each.
Take 1 quart of milk, 5 ozs. sugar, 3
ozs. yeast, 1/4 lb. of flour. Mix all together into a ferment and let
it drop, add 1/4 lb. arrowroot, 5 ozs. butter, and as much flour as
will make a good dough. Put it away till you think it is ripe enough
to work off, which you will know by its appearing light and spongy.
When it has reached this stage take 4 lbs. of the dough and roll it
out 1/2 inch thick, cut out with a plain round cutter an inch and a
half in diameter, put them on tins a quarter of an inch apart, prove
them in steam press, and when ready bake in a sound oven. Put them in
a drying stove or some warm place to thoroughly dry them, to make
them light and easily digestible.
12 1/2 lbs. of flour, I oz. of salt,
6 ozs. of lard, 1 oz. of acid, 1 1/2 oz. of soda, 2 quarts of water.
Mix as for Machine Biscuits, break the dough smooth and clear, let it
lay for about half an hour, then roll out in large sheets nearly the
thickness of three penny pieces, cut out with an oval spring cutter
five inches in length and three inches in breadth. The dough must be
well made and of a good stiffness. When cut out lay them on top of
each other in sixes on carrying boards. Have the oven of a good sound
heat and well cleaned out, have a running peel that will hold six
biscuits, and run them on the sole of the oven.
VI. FANCY BISCUITS,
ALMONDS, ETC.
5 lbs. of wheat meal, 1 lb. of
butter, 4 ozs. of sugar, 4 eggs, 1/4 oz. of carbonate of soda in 1
quart of water. Rub the butter in the wheat meal, make a bay, add the
sugar, eggs, and soda; mix well together, add the water, and take in
the wheat meal. After making it into dough, take about 2 lbs., roll
it out into a sheet the thickness of a penny; take it on the pin
again, and roll it on to a piece of cloth spread on the table; cut
them out with a small oval cutter, put on tins well cleaned but not
greased, and bake in a cool oven.
4 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of butter, 1
1/2 lb. of sugar, 10 eggs, and 3 drs. of volatile salt. Rub butter in
with flour; or make a bay, put in the butter, partly cream it, add
eggs and sugar, and voil after well mixing all together; take in the
flour and make it into a dough. Roll out a sheet the thickness of two
penny pieces, cut out with a small fluted cutter, lay them in rows,
take a brush and egg-wash top, lay them on lump sugar previously
broken into pieces the size of split peas, and bake on tins slightly
buttered, in a moderate oven.
84.
-- Imperial or Lemon Biscuits.
Take 1 1/4 lb. of flour, 1 1/4 lb. of
sugar, 4 eggs, 4 ozs. of butter, and a pinch of volatile salt. Rub
butter in the flour, then take the sugar and mix it with the flour
and butter; make a bay; put in your eggs and voil, and mix all
lightly but well together. Take a piece, roll it out same as for
hunting nuts, in strips, place on slightly buttered tins t inch
apart, and bake on double tins, unless the oven is very cold.
Note.. --
In making fancy biscuits the tins must be as clean as it is possible
to get them. I have seen a whole batch of biscuits spoiled through
"only a little bit of dirt," as the boy said when taken to
task for his carelessness.
5 lbs. of flour, 1 1/2 lb. of butter,
2 1/2 lbs. of sugar, 11 eggs, 1 lb. of mixed peel and 1 oz. of
volatile salt. Proceed to make the dough in the same way as for
Imperial or Lemon Biscuits, roll out in a sheet, and cut out with a
small oval fluted cutter; egg them on the top, and throw them on
large crystallised sugar. Bake on slightly buttered tins in a
moderate oven.
2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of sugar, 1
lb. of butter, 4 eggs, pinch of powdered cinnamon, and a little milk.
87.
Another Way. -- 14 ozs. of
flour, 10 ozs. of sugar, 10 ozs. of butter, 2 small eggs, half a
nutmeg grated, a little cinnamon and mace, and a pinch of voil.
88.
Another Way. -- 1 1/2 lb.
of flour, 1/2 lb. of butter, 1/2 lb. of sugar, 1 egg, with sufficient
milk to make dough. Some add about 1/4 oz. of volatile salt. Rub the
butter in with the flour, make a bay, add the sugar, eggs, milk, and
spice; make the whole into a dough, roll it out on an even board to
the thickness of an eighth of an inch, cut out with a plain round
cutter two and a half inches in diameter, place them on clean tins,
not buttered, bake in a cool oven. When the biscuits are a little
coloured on the edges they are done.
4 ozs. of flour, 1 lb. of rice-flour,
1/2 lb. of arrowroot, 1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 6 eggs, 1/2
oz. of voil. Make into a dough same as for other biscuits, roll into
strips the thickness of your finger, cut them the size of small
marbles, and bake on slightly greased tins in a moderate oven.
90.
-- Currant Fruit Biscuits.
3 lbs. of flour, 12 ozs. of
arrowroot, 14 ozs. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 10 eggs, 20 ozs. of
currants, 1/2 oz. of voil. Proceed to make dough as before; roll out
in a sheet the thickness of two penny pieces. Cut with a plain round
cutter, and bake in a moderate oven.
1 lb. of arrowroot, 1 lb. of flour,
the whites of 10 eggs, 1/2 lb. of butter, a lb. of sugar, 1/4 oz. of
voil. Rub the butter in the flour, add the arrowroot, make a bay, add
all the other ingredients, mix into a dough. Proceed the same as for
Peruvian biscuits, and bake in a very cool oven.
1 1/4 lb. flour, 3/4 lb. rice-flour,
1/2 lb. butter, 1 lb. sugar, 2 eggs, 1/4 oz. of voil. Make into dough
with a little milk, roll out in sheets same size as for Currant
Fruit, place on dry tins, and dust the tops with ground rice.
93.
-- Genoa and Toulouse Biscuits, Exhibition Nuts and Marseillaise Biscuits.
6 lbs. flour, 14 ozs. butter, 4 lbs.
sugar, 10 eggs, 1/4 oz. voil. Make a nice stiff dough with the rest milk.
Genoas are made by rolling out the
dough in strips and cutting off in pieces the length of the little
finger. Wash them on top with white of egg and throw on lump sugar
the size of split peas.
Marseillaise Biscuits are made from
the same dough, rolled out in strips, but cut the size of small
marbles. Put about twenty or thirty of them into a sieve, and roll
them about to make them round. These are baked on dry tins.
Toulouse Biscuits and Exhibition Nuts
have currants added to them. For Toulouse biscuits, roll out the
dough in strips, cut the same length as Genoas, and wash the top with
yolk of egg. Place on slightly greased tins 1/2 inch apart.
For Exhibition Nuts cut the dough the
size of small marbles, lay in the tin with the cut side down, and
press gently with heel of the hand.
2 lbs. flour, 1/2 lb. brown sugar,
1/2 lb. castor sugar, 1/2 lb. butter, and yolk of one egg. Simmer the
sugar and a little milk over a slow fire, rub the butter into the
flour; after the sugar has become cold put it into the bay and make
into a stiffish dough. Put the dough into blocks, and give them the
impression of half a walnut, after which cut off the surplus dough
with a sharp knife, knock out the biscuits, and bake on slightly
buttered tins until a nice brown. After they are baked dip in white
of egg, and put two together so as to form a walnut.
8 ozs. butter, 8 ozs. sugar, 4 eggs,
10 ozs. flour, 6 ozs. currants. Some add a little voil, but if well
creamed there is no use for voil. Cream the butter and sugar
together, add the eggs, then flour and currants; have ready a linen
bag with a small tin funnel at the end of it; have a small cork in
the funnel so as to keep the mixture from dropping out, drop them on
paper about the breadth of a shilling, put them on tins, and bake in
a sound oven.
3 1/2 lbs. flour, 3 ozs. butter, 6
ozs. castor sugar, 13 eggs, 2 drs. voil. Rub the butter in the flour,
make a bay, put in the sugar in powder with the eggs and voil, make
the whole into a dough of moderate consistence; break it well and let
it be quite clear and smooth; roll out a quarter of an inch thick,
cut out with an oval cutter, or one in the form of an oak-leaf, dock
them in the centre, lay them on a tray in rows, cover them with a
damp cloth. Have a copper on the fire boiling, throw them into the
water one at a time face upwards, and after they have risen to the
top be careful to turn each biscuit face uppermost. Let them remain
this way for two or three minutes for the edges to turn up. When
ready take a skimmer and throw them into a pail of cold water. When
they have been in the water for about an hour put them in a sieve to
strain, and bake on buttered tins in a moderate oven. When baked they
should be placed in the drying stove for a few hours.
1 lb. butter, 1 lb. sugar, 9 eggs, 1
lb. rice-flour, 1/4 oz. voil, 1 lb. flour, 4 drops essence of lemon.
Proceed the same as for Queen's Drops. The batter, however, will be
found a good deal stiffer. This makes a nice drop when well got up.
8 ozs. sugar, 8 ozs. eggs, 4 ozs.
flour, 1 oz. butter. Put the flour in a small basin, rub in the
butter and add eggs and sugar; have the tins well greased, and drop
the batter on them with a spoon in pieces a little larger than a
penny. Bake in a cool oven. When baked form into the shape of a cone,
dip each edge in white of egg, and then each end in coloured sugar.
They make a nice show for a window.
99.
-- Crimp, or Honeycomb Biscuits.
4 lbs. flour, 2 lbs. sugar, 1 lb.
butter, 9 eggs, 1/2 oz. voil. Rub the butter in with the flour, make
a bay, add the sugar, eggs and voil. Roll out a sheet a nice
thickness. Cut out with a small round plain cutter, but before doing
so run over the surface of the dough with a crimp-pin. Bake in a
moderate oven.
2 lbs. flour, 4 oz. butter, 12 ozs.
sugar, 1/4 oz. caraway seeds, 5 or 6 eggs, 1/4 oz. voil. Make up the
dough as usual for biscuits, cut them out the size of spice nuts with
spice-nut cutter, egg them on top; have some loaf sugar, and almonds
with the skins on cut the size of split peas, place the biscuits on
the sugar and almonds, gently press them down before putting them on
slightly buttered tins, and bake in a moderate oven.
1 lb. of Valentia almonds, 2 lbs. of
powdered sugar, 7 or 8 whites of eggs. Beat the almonds with whites
of eggs, but not so fine as for common macaroons; lay out stiff on
wafer-paper; have almonds cut in slices, one into six pieces, lay
them on the sides and top of each macaroon; ice them well from the
icing-bag, and bake in a slow oven.
1 lb. Valentia almonds, 1 1/2 lb.
sugar, about 8 whites of eggs. Beat the almonds very fine with the
white of an egg in a mortar, and then add the sugar and two or three
whites of eggs; beat well together. Take out the pestle, add two more
whites, and work them well with a spatter until the whole of the
whites, are incorporated. Lay out one on wafer-paper and bake it in a
slow oven. If it appears smooth and light the mixture is ready, but
if not add one more white of egg, as it is hardly possible to
ascertain the exact number of whites to use. If ready lay out on
wafer-paper, ice them with sugar on top, and bake in a moderate oven.
1 lb. of Valentia almonds, 1 lb. of
sugar, 5 or 6 whites of eggs. Proceed as before, but instead of
beating the almonds with whites of eggs use rose or orange-flower
water, and when beaten very fine put in the whites of eggs and sugar,
beating them well with the spatter. Lay out one oval on wafer-paper
and bake it. If it runs into its shape the mixture is ready; if too
stiff, add one more white of egg; lay out on wafer-paper, dust sugar
on top, and bake them in a good oven.
8 ozs. of bitter almonds, 8 ozs. of
sweet almonds, 2 1/2 lbs. of sugar, and about eight whites of eggs.
Blanch and beat the almonds with white of egg as fine as possible,
and be careful when beating them you do not oil them. When beaten
fine, mix {n the sugar and beat both well together; then add more
whites of eggs, work them well with the spatter, adding more whites
of eggs as you proceed. Then lay one or two on dry paper half the
size of a macaroon, and bake them in a slow oven. If they are of
proper stiffness lay them out; if too stiff, add more whites of eggs
to them. Should they be good they will come off the paper when cold;
if not, the paper must be laid on a damp table, when they will come
off easily.
These are exactly the same as common
macaroons, but must be laid out on wafer paper half the size, and a
dried cherry put on the top for effect. Use a square of citron on
some, and a square of angelica on others. Dust them on top with
sugar, and bake them in a slow oven.
1 quart of sponge, 4 ozs. sugar, 2
eggs, 2 ozs. of butter. Mix all the ingredients together, make it up
the size of bun dough with best flour, let it lie for two hours, make
into long rolls and batch them on tins, greasing between each roll.
Bake in moderate oven for thirty-five minutes. After they are baked
let them lie for one day. Rasp top and bottom off, cut into neat
slices, and bake again in a moderate oven until thoroughly crisp and
dry, and of a nice brown colour. Put them in a basket, and leave them
all night in a warm place. This will make them much crisper. Some add
a pinch of ground alum.
Blanch and cut the long way any
quantity of almonds. Make some icing pretty stiff, put the almonds
into it and let them take up all the icing. Citron, lemon, and orange
cut small may also be added. Lay out on wafer paper in small heaps
and bake in a very slow oven.
Make any desired quantity of icing,
colour it with lake finely ground, mix in as many cut almonds,
citron, and lemon as it will take; lay out on wafer paper in small
heaps and bake in a slow oven.
Take any quantity of Jordan almonds,
cut them up very small (but not blanch them); also citron, lemon, and
orange cut small Prepare some very light icing, with which mix the
almonds, &c., into a soft paste. Lay out on wafer paper and bake
in a slow oven.
110.
-- Almond Fruit Biscuits.
1 lb. of Valentia almonds, 1 lb. of
powdered sugar, 2 or 3 whites of egg. Beat up the almonds very fine
with white of one egg; then rub the sugar and almonds into a fine
paste with 1 or 2 whites of egg, divide it into two parts, work 2
ozs. of flour into one part and roll it out thin for the bottom, cut
it square and cover it with good raspberry jam; then roll out another
square the same size, and lay it on the top of the fruit, cover this
thinly with icing and cut it up into different shapes according to
fancy; lay them on wafer paper and bake in a slow oven.
Note. -- There
will be many cuttings from the above shapes which should not be
wasted. Put several bits together in little heaps on wafer paper, put
a little icing on top, a bit of green citron, and a small bit of
raspberry jam. A
little pink icing may also be added. Bake in a slow oven.
Take any desired quantity of whites
of eggs (half duck whites if you can procure them), whisk them until
so stiff that an egg will lie on the surface, then mix in with the
spatter some fine powdered sugar until they appear of a proper
stiffness, which may be known by laying out one oval with a knife and
spoon. If it retains the mark of the knife they are ready to bake; if
not, more sugar must be added. Lay out oval on dry paper and bake on
a piece of wood two inches thick: this is to prevent them having any
bottom. They must have a pretty bloom on them when baked. Take one
carefully off with a knife, take out the inside and fill it with any
kind of preserved fruit. Then take off another and do the same,
putting both sides together; and so on till they are all baked. If
good they will have the appearance of a small egg.
112.
Another Way. -- The
whites of 12 eggs and I quart of clarified sugar. Let one person
whisk up the eggs as before directed while the sugar is boiled to the
degree called "Blown;" *then grain the sugar, and mix the
whites of eggs and the sugar together. Lay out and bake as before
directed. *To boil sugar to the degree called "Blown,".
Refer 183.
Break the eggs into a round-bottom
pan, whisk them till they are hot, having your pan placed over hot
water; take them off and whisk them till they are cold, then put in
the sugar and whisk till hot, after which again whisk till they are
cold. When the eggs and sugar are perfectly light take out the whisk,
stir in the flour gently. From beginning to end the operation should
not take more than twenty minutes. Cover the tins or wires with wafer
paper, and lay out the biscuits any size required from a savoy bag.
Dust them over with sugar and bake in a hot oven.
The savoy bag should be of the
strongest fustian and so made as to come to a point, like a
jelly-bag, at the point of which must be fixed a small tin pipe two
inches long. Boil the bag two or three times to prevent the mixture
passing through.
For ingredients, take 8 eggs, 1 lb.
of sugar, and 1 lb. of flour, and see directions below under Fruit Biscuits.
115.
-- French Savoy Biscuits.
Take 8 eggs and 4 yolks, 1 lb. of
sugar, and 1 lb. of flour, and see directions below.
Take 8 eggs and 4 yolks, 1 lb. of
sugar, 1 lb. of flour, and a few caraway seeds, and see directions below.
117.
-- Lord Mayor's Biscuits.
Take 8 eggs, 1 lb. of sugar, 1 lb. of
flour, and a few caraway seeds, and see directions below.
For these the ingredients are 6 eggs
and 6 yolks, 1 lb. of sugar, and 1 lb. of flour.
To mix the above five recipes,
observe the directions given for Common Drop Biscuits. They must be
baked in a hot oven. The Savoy Biscuits must be laid out from a savoy
bag on "cap" paper one-half round and one-half long. The
French Savoys must be laid out oval, and when baked two are to be put
together. The drudges' Biscuits are to be laid out round, about the
size of a half-crown; and the Lord Mayor's are to be round, and of
double the size. The Fruit Biscuits are to be laid out about the size
of a shilling, and preserved fruit put between two of them. Have
ready some castor sugar, spread it on a piece of paper, making it
smooth on the surface; then lay each half-sheet of paper on which the
biscuits are placed on the sugar; let them remain a moment, take them
off, give them a shake and bake in a hot oven. Turn each half-sheet
on to a clean table, wash the bottom of the paper with clean water,
let them lie for a moment, and they will be found to come off easily.
Proceed in this way till all are off, and baked.
Note. --
Some prefer whisking up sponge mixtures cold. They keep better, but
are not so showy.
119.
-- Palais Royal Biscuits.
Make the mixture exactly the same way
as for French Savoys. Bake them in paper boxes about two inches long,
one inch and a-half wide, and an inch deep. Dust them lightly on the
top with sugar and bake in a moderate oven. The boxes must be made of
the best writing paper. They are very proper to mix with rout biscuits.
Take the weight of 8 eggs in sugar, 2
eggs in flour, and 6 eggs in rice-flour; or take 1 lb. of sugar, 4
ozs. of flour, 12 ozs. of rice-flour, and 8 eggs. Mix cold in the
same manner as for Savoy Biscuits. Bake in a moderate oven in sponge
frames nicely buttered.
121.
-- Scarborough Water Cakes.
8 eggs, 1 lb. of sugar, 1 lb. of
flour, and a little ground cinnamon. Mix the same way as for Savoy
Biscuits. Flavour with as much ground cinnamon as will make them
pleasant to the taste. When taken off the paper put two together.
Take 12 eggs, 1 lb. 2 ozs. of sugar,
15 ozs. of flour. Mix cold the same as for Savoy Biscuits, which is
the best method; or they may be mixed hot. The pans must be neatly
buttered with creamed butter, and a dust of sugar thrown over them.
Bake in a moderate oven, but not too hot. The bottoms should be a
neat brown.
123.
-- Almond Sponge Biscuits.
Make exactly the same way as Sponge
Biscuits, only have ready Jordan almonds blanched and each cut the
long way into 6 or 8 pieces. Put them neatly on the top of each
biscuit, dust sugar over them and bake as before.
8 eggs, 1 lb. of sugar, 1 gill of
water, 1 lb. 2 oz. of flour. A Naples Biscuit frame is about 8 ins.
long, 3 ins. broad, and 1 in. deep. In this the partitions are
upright, and must be papered neatly. Put the sugar and water into a
small pan, let it dissolve and boil; then whisk the eggs. Pour in the
sugar gently, and keep whisking until very light. When it is quite
cold scatter in the flour, and mix it until smooth, stirring it as
lightly as possible. Put it into the frames, well filled, and bake in
a good oven, but not too hot. Dust them with sugar before putting in
the oven.
VII. PASTRY, CUSTARDS, ETC.
125.
-- Butter for Puff Paste.
The butter must be perfectly sweet,
and before it is used worked on a marble slab to make it smooth. Salt
butter from cows fed on poor land makes the best puff paste, but it
must first be washed in two or three waters. For every kind of cakes
the butter cannot be too rich.
3 lbs. of butter and 3 lbs. of flour.
The butter must be tough: if salt, wash it in two waters the night
before using it. Take half of it and rub into the flour, and with
pure water make into a paste the same stiffness as the butter. Roll
it on a marble slab half an inch thick, spot it with small pieces of
butter, dust it with flour; then double it up again, spot it as
before, and roll it out again, spot it the third time, roll out again
twice, and put in a cool place for half an hour with a cloth over it,
when it will be fit for use.
NOTE. --
Common puff paste for large pies may be made this way by using 1 lb.
of butter and 2 lbs. of flour.
127.
Another Way. -- 2 lbs. 8
ozs. of butter, and 3 lbs. 8 ozs. of flour. Mix the flour with water
to the same stiffness as the butter, then roll out the paste, spot it
with the butter. Roll it out three times, and dust it with flour as
before. This paste is worse for lying, and should therefore be baked
as soon as possible.
By using lard of a good tough
quality, and mixing it as above, with the addition of a little salt,
a good puff paste can be made suitable for wholesale purposes.
1 lb. of butter, and 2 lbs. of flour.
Rub the butter and flour very finely together, then mix it, with
water, into a paste of the stiffness of the butter. This is a choice
paste for tarts made of fresh fruit.
6 ozs. of butter, 2 ozs. of sugar, 1
lb. of flour. Beat to a froth the whites of two eggs, rub the butter
and flour very finely together, make the paste of the proper
stiffness with whites of egg and a little water.
130.
-- Paste for a Baked Custard.
8 oz. of butter and 1 lb. of flour.
Boil the butter in a small teacupful of water, mix it into the flour,
make it smooth, and raise it to any shape desired.
131.
-- Paste for small Raised Pies.
12 ozs. of butter, 2 lbs. of flour,
and 1 gill of water. Mix the same way as for baked custards.
132.
-- To make a handsome Tartlet.
Take a large oval dish and sheet it
with the best puff paste; cut it round the sides to make leaves, and
fill it three-parts full with good preserved fruit. On the fruit put
some device in cut paste, such as a large star, a sprig of flowers,
or a tree.
133.
-- Nelson Cake or Eccles Cake.
Take 2 lbs. of puff paste, roll out
half of it, spread 1 1/2 lb. of clean currants and 1/2 lb. of raw
sugar upon it with a little spice, and dash a little water on the
sugar and currants to make them unite; then roll out the remainder of
the paste and lay it on the top. Ice it well with whites of eggs and
sugar. Bake on a square tin in a good oven.
Boil 1 pint of milk with a bit of
cinnamon and a little fresh lemon-peel, then mix in a pint of cream
and the yolks of 7 eggs well beaten. Sweeten to taste and let the
whole simmer until of a proper thickness. It must not be allowed to
boil. Stir it one way the whole time with a small whisk, until quite
smooth, then stir in a glass of brandy.
Beat up 3 eggs, add 1 gill of cream
or new milk and a little sugar. Put a dust of cinnamon on each before
putting in the oven.
VIII. FRUIT CAKES,
BRIDE CAKES, ETC.
136.
-- Directions for mixing Cakes made with Butter.
Take your Butter and work it on a
marble slab, then cream it in a warm earthenware pan, and be
particularly careful not to let the butter oil; add the sugar and
work it well with your hand, mixing in one or two eggs at a time, and
so on progressing until all the eggs are used. Beat it well up, and
as soon as you perceive the mixing rise in the pan put in the flour
and beat it well. Then add the spices, currants, and whatever else is
required for the mixing. You may then put it up into the tins you
intend for it. It will be necessary during the time of creaming it to
warm it two or three times, particularly in cold weather.
137.
Another Way. -- Proceed
with the butter and sugar as before. Have ready separated the whites
from the yolks of the eggs; mix in the yolks two or three at a time;
let another person whisk up the whites stiff. Then put them to the
other mixture and proceed as before directed.
138.
-- London Way of mixing Cakes.
Weigh down the flour and sugar on a
clean smooth table, make a hole in it, and bank it well up; in this
hole put your eggs; cream the butter in an earthenware pan; then add
to the flour and sugar the eggs and butter; mix all together and beat
up well with both hands. You may work it up this way as light as a
feather; then add the currants, spices, &c.
139.
Another Way. -- Take six
pieces of cane about 18 inches long, tie them fast together at one
end, but in order to make them open put in the middle, where you tie
them, one or two pieces half the length. This is called a mixing-rod.
Provide a tall pot, as upright as can be procured, which make hot;
work your butter on a marble slab, then put it in ú the pan
and work it well round with the rod until it is nicely creamed; put
in the sugar and incorporate both together; add one or two eggs at a
time, and so on progressively until they are all used up; work away
with the rod with all speed, and as soon as it is properly light
(which you may know by its rising in the pan) take it out and mix in
the flour, spices, currants, &c., with a spatter. This is
esteemed the very best way of mixing cakes.
1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. 2 ozs. of
sugar, 6 eggs, and 4 yolks; 1 lb. 4 ozs. of flour. Cut 4 ozs. of
green citron in long thin pieces and place them in two or three
layers as you put the cake up. It must be baked in a deep tin or rim
papered with fine paper. Neatly buttered and baked in a slow oven.
3 lbs. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 24
eggs, 5 1/4 lbs. of flour, 4 1/2 lbs. of currants, 1 lb. 8 ozs. of
lemon and orange peel, a little mace, a pint of warm milk, 1/4 oz. of
soda, about 1/2 oz. cream of tartar. Proceed as directed.
1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 8
eggs, 1 lb. 2 ozs. of flour, 1 lb. 8 ozs. of currants, 8 ozs. of
orange and lemon peel. Proceed as directed.
1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 8
eggs, 1 lb. of flour, caraway seeds. Some put 1 tablespoonful of
brandy and 2 ozs. of cut almonds.
144.
-- Two and Three Pound Cakes.
2 lbs. 4 ozs. of butter, 2 lbs. of
sugar, 16 eggs, 2 lbs. 6 ozs. of flour, 3 lbs. 8 ozs. of currants, 1
lb. 8 ozs. of orange, lemon, and citron; almonds and brandy if
required; 3/4 oz. of cream of tartar and carbonate of soda. Proceed
as directed.
2 lbs. 8 ozs. of butter, 2 lbs. of
sugar, 16 eggs, 2 lbs. 4 ozs. of flour, 4 ozs. of cut almonds,
caraway seeds, and a glass of brandy; 3/4 oz. of cream of tartar and
carbonate of soda. Proceed as directed.
146.--Four
and Six Pound Cakes.
2 lbs. 8 ozs. of butter, 2 lbs. of
sugar, 16 eggs, 3 lbs. 8 ozs. of flour, 6 lbs. of currants, 2 lbs. of
orange and lemon, citron and almonds. Proceed as directed.
The following mixtures are made in a
few first-class shops, and the recipes for the same are not generally
known. The prices quoted allow for almond-icing as well.
- Ingredients 10s.6d. 12s. 15s. 18s. F1. 1s. F1. 11s. F2. 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 00 2 8 3 12 5 0
- Orange and citron, mixed 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 10 0 12 1 2 1 8
- Almonds 0 1 1/2 0 2 0 2 0 3 0 3 0 4 0 6
- Mixed spice* 0 1/2 --- 0 3/4 --- 0 1 0 1 1/2 0 2
- Flour 0 11 0 13 1 1 1 4 1 6 2 1 2 12
- Eggs, number of 6 7 9 10 12 18 24
- \ Wine- Wine- Wine- Wine-
- Brandy or brandy and } glass- glass- glass- glass 1/4 pint 1/4 pint 1/2 pint
- Wine / ful. ful. ful. ful.
- * Nutmegs, mace, and cinnamon.
148.
-- Icing Sugar for Bride Cakes, &c.
To make this take 2 lbs. of finely
powdered icing sugar (first having an earthenware pan made warm), put
in six fresh whites of eggs, and immediately whisk them, and as
quickly as possible, until quite stiff; then add the sugar by
degrees, whisking all the time. As soon as it appears light cease
whisking, and beat it well with the spatter until you have put in all
the sugar. A little tartaric acid or lemon-juice may be added towards
the end of the mixing. To know when it is sufficiently beaten, take
up a little on the spatter and let it drop into the basin again. If
it keeps its shape it is ready; if it runs it is either beaten too
little or requires more sugar.
A good substitute for eggs is French
glue. Take a quarter of an ounce of it and fully one imperial pint of
boiling water. Pour the water on the glue, and stir in with a spoon
until all is dissolved. If convenient, make it two days before using.
The glue is used similar to eggs. Add to it a small pinch of tartaric
acid. This glue is mostly used for wholesale or cheap purposes.
149.
-- Almond Icing for Bride Cakes.
1 lb. Valencia almonds, 2 lbs. of
icing sugar, and about 3 whites of eggs and 2 yolks. Blanch and beat
the almonds. Fine with whites of eggs, then add the sugar and whites
and yolks, beat them well together and make them into a stiffish
paste. As soon as the cake is baked, take it out and take off the
hoop and the paper carefully from the sides, then put the almond
icing carefully on the top of the cake, and make it as smooth as you
can. Put into the oven, and let it remain until the almond icing is
firm enough and of the colour of a macaroon; let it stand two or
three hours, then ice it with sugar icing.
1 1/4 lb. of flour, 1 lb. 2 oz. of
butter, 1 lb. of moist sugar, 4 lbs. of currants, 1 1/2 lb. of mixed
peel, 2 nutmegs grated, 1/2 oz. ground cinnamon, 10 eggs, 1/2 lb.
blanched sweet almonds cut in halves, and a wineglassful of brandy.
Mix as before directed.
Same as wedding cake. In olden times
a bean and a pea were introduced into the cake to determine who
should be king and queen of the evening festivities.
1 3/4 lb. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar,
2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of patent flour, 24 eggs. Proceed as before
directed. This mixing makes eight cakes, selling at a shilling each.
Put two thin slices of citron on each. Bake in a cool oven. Note. --
Patent flour is made with 8 lbs. of flour, 4 ozs. cream of tartar, 2
ozs. carbonate of soda, and sifted three times.
153.
-- Plum Cake. (As made for best shops in Edinburgh.)
3 lbs. of butter, 3 lbs. of sugar, 4
1/2 lbs. of flour, 40 eggs, 8 or 10 lbs. of currants, 2 lbs, of peel,
a few drops of essence of lemon. Cream and finish as before directed.
1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 1
1/4 lb. of flour, 1 lb. of eggs, 2 1/2 lbs. of currants, washed and
picked, 1 1/2 lb. of orange peel. Bake in a small square-edged tin.
Proceed as before directed. When nicely in the tin have prepared some
blanched and chopped almonds, strew them rather thickly on the top,
and bake in a moderate oven.
155.
-- Rice Cake (Scotch Mixture).
2 lbs. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 2
1/4 lbs. of flour, 1/4 lb. of rice flour, 20 eggs, essence of lemon.
Proceed as before directed.
156.
-- Madeira Cake (Scotch Mixture).
1 1/4 lb. of butter, 1 3/4 lb. of
sugar, 2 1/4 lbs. of flour, 20 eggs, a small pinch of tartaric acid
and carbonate of soda. Proceed as before directed.
157.
-- Pond Cake or Dundee Cake.
1 lb. of butter, 1 1/4 lb. of sugar,
13 eggs, 1 3/4 lb. of flour, 2 lbs. of peel cut in small squares.
After it is creamed up and ready, entirely cover the top with small
comfits. Bake in moderate oven. Do not cream it so light as for other
cakes so as to keep the comfits from sinking in the cake.
1 lb. of butter, 1 lb. of sugar, 1
pint of whites of eggs, 1 3/4 lb. of flour, almond to flavour.
1 1/4 lb. of butter, 1 1/2 lb. of
sugar, 1 pint of yolks of eggs, 1 3/4 lb. of sultana raisins, 1/2 lb.
of lemon peel, 2 lbs. of flour, 1/4 lb. of patent or soda flour. Add
a little milk to make it as soft as the Silver mixture, paper a deep
square tin, and spread the gold mixture 2 inches thick, then spread
the silver mixture nicely over the top of the gold. Baking, about 2
1/4 hours.
160.
-- Plum Cake at 6d. per lb. (As sold by Grocers.)
8 lbs. of flour, 2 lbs. of butter, 3
lbs. of sugar, 4 lbs. of currants, 1/2 lb. of peel, 15 eggs, 2 ozs.
of carbonate of soda, 3 ozs. of cream of tartar, essence of lemon,
and fresh churned milk, to make into a nice dough. Have some square
one-pound tins nicely papered, and weigh in 1 lb. of the mixture.
This is an excellent mixture if well got up.
161.
Another Way. -- 1 lb. of lard, 1 1/4 lb. of sugar, 8 ozs. of
peel, 5 lbs. of currants, 6 lbs. of flour, a grated nutmeg, 1 oz.
carbonate of soda, 2 ozs. cream of tartar, 8 eggs, the rest milk.
162.
Another Way. -- 1/2 lb. of butter, 3/4 lb. of sugar, 4 eggs,
3 lbs. of currants, 4 lbs. of flour, 3/4 oz. of carbonate of soda,
1/2 oz. of tartaric acid. Dough with milk.
163.
-- Mystery, or Cheap Plum Cake at 3d. per lb.
8 lbs. of common flour, 3 lbs. of
brown sugar, 1 lb. of lard, 2 ozs. of peel, 3 lbs. of currants, 1 1/2
oz. of spice, 2 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 1 oz. of tartaric acid.
Dough with milk. Bake in a slow oven, wash with egg on top.
164.
-- Plum Cake at 4d. per lb.
4 lbs. of flour, 3 lbs. of
currants, 12 ozs. of lard, 14 ozs. of sugar, 1 1/2 oz. of cream of
tartar, 1 oz. of carbonate of soda, 1/4 oz. of spice. Dough with good
churned milk.
1/2 lb. of butter, 1/2 lb. of sugar,
1/2 lb. of flour, 6 eggs, 1/4 oz. of volatile salts in powder. Mix
same as pound cake. Bake in round flat tins about 1/4 of an inch
deep, or drop some of the paste on whity-brown paper and spread it
out into a round thin cake about 6 inches in diameter. This will make
12 cakes. Bake them in a moderate oven in tins. Take them off the
paper when baked, spread some raspberry or other jam on two of them
and put three together. Trim them round the edges with a knife, and
divide or cut them into 4, 6, or 8 parts according to the price at
which they are to be sold.
Take 7 lbs. of common butter or
butterine, 7 lbs. of castor sugar, 60 eggs, 12 lbs. of flour, 10 lbs.
of currants, 3 lbs. of chopped peel, 1 1/2 oz. of cream of tartar,
3/4 oz. of soda, about 2 pints of churned milk. Cream the butter and
sugar together, add the eggs, then mix all the other ingredients
together. Paper a square-edged pan, lay on your batter about three
inches thick, and bake in a sound oven. After the cake is baked, put
it aside in a cool room till next morning, when you may turn it out
of the tin, and then, after taking the paper nicely off, cut it into
suitable sizes.
Note. -- The
sides of the tin before being papered must be lined with wood upsets. This cake is sold at 6d. per pound.
3/4 lb. of butter, 3/4 lb. of
sugar, 1 lb. of eggs, 1/2 gill of brandy, lb. of flour, the grated
rind of two lemons. Cream the butter, sugar, and eggs, in the usual
way, stir in the lemon rind, brandy, and flour; put in small moulds
and bake in a moderate oven.
2 lbs. of butter, 2 lbs. of sugar, 2
lbs. of eggs, 2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of patent flour, 3 lbs. of
sultana raisins. Cream this cake in the usual way, bake in small
round hoops, weighed out at 1 lb. each. Bake in moderate oven.
4 1/2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. 6 ozs. of
butter, 1 lb. 14 ozs. of castor sugar, 11 eggs, 1 1/4 oz. of
carbonate of soda, 1 3/4 oz. of cream of tartar, churned milk to
dough. Weigh the flour, add the tartar and soda, make a bay; have the
butter previously warmed, put it in the bay with the sugar, cream it
well with your hand, adding the eggs gradually, then mix all together
and make into a nice batter. Weigh at 1 lb. for sixpence.
This makes a number of cakes of
various kinds -- such as Cilron Cake, by adding a small quantity of
thinly chopped citron; Madeira Cake by dusting the top with castor
sugar, and placing two pieces of peel on the top; Plum Cake, by
adding a few currants and cut peel; Coconut Cake, by adding a little
cocoa-nut to the mixture, and dusting the top with cocoa-nut; and
Seed Cake, by adding a few seeds. It is a capital mixture when nicely
got up.
IX.
HANDY WHOLESALE RECIPES FOR SMALL MASTERS.
12 lbs. of flour, 6 ozs. of cream of
tartar, 3 ozs. of carbonate of soda, 12 ozs. of lard, 2 ozs. of salt.
Dough up with churned milk, mix the tartar and soda with the flour,
rub the lard in the flour, make a bay, add the salt, and make into a
nice dough with milk. Weigh off at 6 ozs. for a penny. Mould round,
pin out the breadth of a small saucer, wash the top with milk, bake
on the bottom of a good sound oven. Dock them with a docker.
171.
-- Currant or Milk Scones.
6 lbs. of flour, 6 ozs. of lard, 6
ozs. of sugar, 3 ozs. of cream of tartar, 1 1/2 oz. soda, 1 lb. of
currants, 1 oz. of salt; buttermilk to dough. Mix as above. Weigh off
at 11 ozs. for 2d., mould, pin out and cut in four; put on flat clean
tins; wash with egg on top. Bake in a sound oven.
172.
-- Sugar or White Spice Biscuits.
7 lbs. of good fine flour, 12 ozs. of
lard, 3 lbs. of moist sugar, 4 ozs. of ammonia, churned milk to
dough; mix as above, but do not work the mixture too much. Take about
4 lbs. of the dough, work it into a square or round shape, pin it out
a little thicker than a penny piece, cut out either in shapes or
farthing or halfpenny biscuits, but well dock the sheet before you
cut them.
Bake on greased tins; wash on top; a
few currants strewn on the shapes. Bake in a sharp oven.
173.
-- Halfpenny Scotch Cakes.
3 1/2 lbs. of flour, 12 ozs. of lard,
12 ozs. of sugar, 1/4 oz. vol, and a little milk, as much as will
dissolve the volatile salts and sugar. Mix as above, but well rub the
dough; make it nice and easy to work off. Pin out a sheet about 1/4
of an inch thick, cut out with a small round cutter; dock each one
well; pinch round the edges with the finger and thumb. Bake on clean
tins, but not greased, in a moderate oven.
174. -- Large
Square Penny Albert Cake.
Rub 6 ozs. of lard in 6 lbs. of
flour, then add 4 ozs. of cream of tartar and 2 ozs. of soda. Mix all
together and make a bay. Put in the bay 2 lbs. of sugar and 3 lbs. of
currants, and dough with churned milk, a little softer than for plum
cake mixture. Have a large-edged pan cleaned and greased, put the
mixture in the tin and spread it equally over the tin, putting your
hand occasionally in a little milk to smooth over the surface. This
mixture is best made up in a basin or large bowl and poured into the
tin. Bake in a moderate oven and cut when cold.
Rub 1 lb. of lard in 4 lbs. of flour,
put 4 lbs. of moist sugar on it and mix together; make a bay, put in
4 lbs. of syrup and about half a teaspoonful of essence of lemon.
Make all into dough, pin it out, cut with a small round cutter, about
the thickness of a penny. Bake on well-greased tins in a moderate
oven. You can curl them round the peel or have them plain.
Rub 6 ozs. of lard in 5 lbs. of
flour, make a bay, put in 2 1/2 lbs. of moist sugar, 2 ozs. of
ammonia; dough with milk; make into a dough, but do not work it too
much. Cut out the same size and thickness as for brandy snaps; wash
the top with milk; have some nonpareil sweets spread on the table,
throw the biscuits on them, put on slightly greased tins. Bake in
moderate oven.
177.
-- Common Halfpenny Queen Cake.
3 lbs. of flour, add 1 oz. of cream
of tartar, 1 oz. of soda; mix; rub in 12 ozs. of lard, make a bay,
put in 24 ozs. of castor sugar, essence of lemon; dough with churned
milk; dough rather soft. Have some fluted tins ready greased, take a
spoon and three-parts fill your tins. Bake in a moderate oven.
2 lbs. of flour, 4 ozs. of lard, 8
ozs. of sugar, 8 ozs. of currants, 1 oz. of soda, 1 oz. of cream of
tartar; dough with churned milk and mix as for queens. Have some
square sponge cake tins ready greased, take a spoon and three-parts
fill them; wash with egg on top, dust them with castor sugar and bake
in sound oven.
179.
-- Polkas or Halfpenny Sponges.
Put 2 1/2 lbs. of good flour on the
table, make a bay, put in 5 eggs, l 1/2 lb. of castor sugar, and 1
oz. voil; beat eggs, sugar, and ammonia with your hand for twelve or
fifteen minutes, add a little churned milk, take in your flour and
beat all well together with 12 drops of essence of lemon. Have your
tins greased, take a spoon, half fill it with the mixture; put on
tins about 2 inches apart; put about 6 or 8 currants on each and bake
in a hot oven.
THE SUGAR-BOILER'S ASSISTANT.
X. CONFECTIONS IN SUGAR-BOILING.
The clarifying and boiling of sugar
to the different degrees must be considered as the key to all sorts
of stove working, and I will give here the method used for clarifying
sugar. The pan used must be perfectly clean and bright. Whisk two
whites of eggs in one pint of water; break 30 lbs. of good lump sugar
into small pieces and put it into the pan; pour over it 6 quarts of
water, set it on a clear stove to melt, but be careful it does not
blubber and boil before it is melted; when you see it rise it is then
boiling, and must be stopped immediately by putting in 1 quart of
water; when it rises again add the same quantity of water, and so on
two or three times; this prevents the scum from boiling into the
sugar and makes it rise to the top. Draw the pan to one side of the
fire and take all the scum off; let it continue to simmer. Keep
adding a little water to make the remaining part of the scum rise. By
this time the scum will be very white and tough, which also take off
if the sugar appear clear. Dip in your finger, and if a drop hang
from it, it is of the first degree, called smooth, and may be put by
for use.
You may clarify a much smaller
quantity of sugar by carefully attending to these instructions.
Granulated sugar is considered the
best to use, as it is less liable to adulteration than any other
kind. Of moist sugars, Demerara is the best. The simplest way to test
sugar for its purity is to dissolve a little in a glass of clear
water. If the sugar be quite pure the water will only be slightly
thickened, but not in the least clouded, neither will there be any
sediment. In keeping sugar care should be taken to protect it from
dampness and vermin -- especially ants.
To boil Sugar to the
different degrees.
182.
To the degree called "Pearled." -- Cover your
preserving pan bottom two or three inches deep, boil it briskly over
a clear fire for a short time, then dip in your finger and put it to
your thumb, if on separating them a small string of sugar adheres to
each it is boiled to the degree called pearled.
183.
To the degree called "Blown." -- After you have
ascertained that the sugar is boiled to the degree called pearled put
in the skimmer and let it boil a few minutes, then shake it out of
the sugar and give it a blow. If sugar fly from the skimmer in small
bladders it is boiled to the degree called blown.
184.
To the degree called "Feathered." -- Continue to
boil the sugar from blown for a short time longer; take out the
skimmer and give it a jerk over the pan, then over your head, and if
sugar fly out like feathers it is boiled to the degree called feathered.
185.
To the "Ball" Degree. -- To know when the
"ball" has been acquired, first dip your finger into a
basin of cold water, then apply your finger to the syrup, taking up a
little on the tip and dipping it into the water again; if upon
rolling the sugar with the fingers and thumb you can make it into a
small ball, that is what is termed the "small ball ;" when
you can make a larger and harder ball, which you could not bite
without its sticking unpleasantly to the teeth, you may be satisfied
that is the "large ball."
186.
To the degree called "Crackled." -- Boil the sugar
from the degree called feathered a little longer; dip a stick or a
piece of pipe (or your finger, if you are used to boiling) into
water, then into the sugar and again into the water. If it crack with
the touch it is boiled to the degree called crackled.
187.
To the degree called "Caramelled." -- Boil the
sugar still further, dip a stick or your finger into water, then into
the sugar, and again into the water. If it snap like glass it is of
the highest degree, called caramelled, and must be taken off the fire
immediately, for fear of burning. This sugar is proper to caramel any
sort of fruit.
188.
-- To boil Sugar by the Thermometer.
All the foregoing tests are according
to the old style of boiling; but a boiling-glass can now be had which
enables us to boil to a better degree of accuracy. Thus, to boil to
the pearl is to boil to 220 degrees; the small thread 228 degrees;
the large thread 236 degrees; the blow 240 degrees; the feather 242
degrees; the small ball 244 degrees; the large ball 250 degrees; the
small crack 261 degrees; the hard crack 281 degrees; the caramel 360 degrees.
Put some sugar in a pan with water
and place it on the fire to boil; when it is at the feather add a
little lemon juice and continue boiling to the caramel; when done add
a few drops of essence of lemon. Pour it on a marble slab previously
oiled, cut into strips. When nearly cold take the strips in your
fingers and twist them, and when quite cold put them into tin boxes
and keep them closed down. The reason that barley sugar is so named
is that it was originally made with a decoction of barley.
These are made in the same manner as
the preceding. You pour the sugar while hot into impressions made in
dried icing sugar.
Boil 3 lbs. of loaf sugar, 1 pint of
water, and a teaspoonful of cream of tartar to the caramel; add a few
drops of essence of lemon, and pour it on an oiled marble slab or
stone; sprinkle on it a tablespoonful of powdered tartaric acid and
work it in. Oil a tin sheet and put the sugar on it in a warm place,
then cut off a small piece and roll it into a round pipe, cut this
into small pieces the size of drops with a pair of scissors and roll
them round under the hand; mix with fine powdered sugar, sift the
drops from it and put them in boxes, to be used as required.
Cut the half of a pineapple into
slices, drop them into a mortar and pound them; put the pulp into a
cloth and extract the juice; take as much sugar as will be required
and boil it to the crack. When the sugar is at the feather commence
to add the pine-apple juice; pour it on slowly, so that by the time
the syrup is at the crack it shall all be mixed in with the sugar.
Finish as for barley sugar drops.
Extract the essence of the poppies
(the wild flowers are the best) in hot water, boil some sugar in a
pan -- the same way as for barley sugar drops -- and add the
decoction of poppies just before the syrup is at the crack. No
essence of lemon should be used, and they need not be sugared when
put into boxes.
Make these after the same manner as
barley sugar drops, in boiling the sugar, and flavour with a few
drops of the essence of ginger just before the syrup is at the crack.
These are made the same way as barley
sugar drops and the poppy and ginger drops. Flavour a minute before
the boiling sugar is at the crack. To give the cayenne flavour add a
few drops of the essence of capsicum.
Boil some clarified sugar to the
ball, and flavour with essence of ginger, then rub some of the sugar
against the sides of the pan with a spatula until the sugar turns
white; pour it into tins which have been oiled and put into the
stove. The sugar should be coloured with some vegetable yellow whilst boiling.
This is made in the same manner as
ginger candy. Colour yellow with a little saffron, add a few drops of
essence of lemon. This is made by boiling sugar to the feather and
ball, and grained by rubbing against the pan.
The mode of making this candy is the
same as that for making ginger candy, only add essence of peppermint.
Made the same way as ginger candy.
Rose candy should be coloured with cochineal or carmine.
1 lb. of almonds, 2 lbs. of sugar.
Take 2 lbs. of clarified sugar and boil it to the "ball"
put 1 lb. of Jordan or Valencia almonds, blanched and dried, into the
pan with the sugar; stir them from the fire, and let them absorb as
much sugar as possible. If you want them well saturated with sugar
repeat this until the sweetening is completed. Flavour with
orange-flower water.
Select the best refilled sugar with a
good grain, pound it and pass through a coarse hair sieve; sift again
in a lawn sieve, to take out the finest part, as the sugar, when it
is too fine, makes the drops heavy and compact and destroys their
brilliancy and shining appearance. Now put the sugar into a pan and
moisten it with any aromatic spirit you intend to use, using a little
water to make it of such a consistence as to allow of its dropping
off the spoon without sticking to it. Rose water is the best; it
should be poured in slowly, stirring all the time with a wooden
spoon. Colour the sugar with prepared cochineal or any other colour,
ground fine and moistened with a little water; the tint should be
light and delicate. Then take a small pan, made with a lip on the
right side, so that when it is held in the left hand the drops may be
detached from the right. Put in the paste and place the pan in the
stove on a ring that just fits it. Take a small spatula and stir the
sugar until it dissolves and makes a slight noise, but do not let it
boil, but remove it from the fire when it is near the boiling point,
then stir it well with the small spatula until of such a consistence
that when dropped it will not spread too much, but retain a round
form. Should it, however, be too thin add a little of the coarse
powdered sugar, which should be reserved for the purpose, and make it
of the thickness required. Take a smooth tin or copper plate and let
the paste drop on it from the lip of the pan at regular intervals.
You hold the pan in the left hand and with a piece of straight wire
in the right hand you separate the drop of sugar from the lip of the
pan, letting it fall on the tin. In the course of an hour and a half
or two hours the drops may be removed with a thin knife. If no copper
plates are at hand a piece of stout cartridge paper will do. Damp the
back of the paper with a sponge when you wish to remove the drops.
These are made as in the preceding
case. Flavour with essence of rose and colour with cochineal.
Flavour with orange-flower water or a
little of the essence of neroli.
2 ozs. of chocolate, 2 lbs. of sugar.
The chocolate must be scraped to a powder and then made into a paste
with cold water, finishing as for cast sugar drops.
2 ozs. of coffee, 2 lbs. of sugar.
Make a decoction of coffee in the regular manner and add it to your
sugar to make the paste or syrup. Finish in the same way as for cast
sugar drops.
6 ozs. of barberries, 1 1/2 lb. of
sugar. Press the juice out of the barberries and mix it into the
pounded sugar. Should there not be sufficient juice add a little
clear water. Make no more paste than you can actually use, as the
second time it is heated it becomes greasy and difficult to drop.
Moisten the sugar, which should be
white and of the finest quality, with peppermint water, or flavour it
with the essence of peppermint and moisten it with a little clear
water. See that your utensils are very clean.
Take the pineapple and rub the rind
on a piece of rough sugar. The sugar thus impregnated you scrape off
for use directly. Pound the pine-apple, and pass the pulp or juice
through a fine hair sieve. Add the sugar just scraped off and as much
more as you think it requires to make it sweet. Make it into a paste
with clear water. Every precaution must be used, as it soon greases.
No more should be made than you actually want for immediate use.
2 pods of vanilla, 1 lb. of pounded
sugar. Use the pods of vanilla in preference to the essence; the
latter is apt to grease the paste. Cut the vanilla up very fine, put
it in a mortar, and pound it well along with a portion of your sugar.
When sufficiently smooth, sift it through a fine sieve. Finish as for
the rest.
Take as much ginger as you wish to
use, pound, and sift it through a fine lawn sieve; add it to as much
sugar as you desire to flavour, and mix it with clear water. Some use
the ginger sold at the shops already powdered; some, again, the
essence of ginger, colouring the paste with saffron.
Rub off the yellow rind of some
lemons on a piece of rough sugar; scrape it off, and mix it into your
paste. Add sufficient to your sugar to give it a good flavour, and
colour it a light yellow with saffron. Moisten with clear water, and
mix as the rest.
These are made the same as lemon drops.
Made the same as above, and flavoured
with the essence of jargonel pear.
214.
-- Lavender, Violet, Musk, and Millefleur Drops.
These are all made the same way as
the above, being flavoured with the essences that give them their names.
Put 1 pint of clarified sugar in a
round-bottomed pan on a clear fire, boil it to the degree called
blown, mix in as much prepared cochineal as will make it a good
colour, boil it again to the degree called blown, throw in the brown
burnt almonds free from small; take the pan off the fire and stir the
almonds well about in the sugar with the spatter until it is all upon
them, which is very easily done if you are careful. You may repeat
this two or three times, which will make the almonds very handsome.
216.
-- Philadelphia Caramels.
Take 10 lbs. of sugar, 2 quarts of
rich cream, 1 1/2 lb. of glucose, 1 lb. of fresh butter, 1
teaspoonful of cream of tartar, 1 lb. of cocoa paste, and 1/4 of a
lb. of white wax of paraffin. Boil these to the "crack,"
pour upon a greased marble slab, between iron bars, and let it remain
until cold, then cut it into small cubes and fold in wax-paper.
These are made of sugar boiled to the
hard crack, flavoured and tinted to suit your fancy; it is then
poured upon a greased marble slab. As soon as it becomes sufficiently
cold the edges are turned in and the batch is folded in a mass,
placed upon the candy hook and pulled; it is then run through a
machine the iron rollers of which are set very closely together, so
that the candy comes through as thin as a wafer; it is then cut into
strips to suit, or it may be wound around an oiled round stick and
then slipped off, making a curl. Two or more colours may be joined
together before it is run through the machine, thus making a parti-coloured ribbon.
Break up 1 lb. of loaf sugar into
small particles, let it dissolve in a pan with 1/2 pint of water and
2 spoonfuls of lemon-juice; skim and boil to the ball, add pieces of
lemon peel tied together with a string, boil until a sample is
brittle; take out the lemon peel, pour out the sugar on an oiled
slab, taking care to distribute it so that the whole mass cools at
the same time. It is pulled, manipulated, and cut in the ordinary
way. A small part of the sugar coloured red and boiled separately may
be used to variegate the sweets, and should be worked in just before cutting.
Oil a square or round tin with low
edges, split some almonds in halves and place them in rows over the
bottom with the split side downward until the surface is covered.
Boil some raw sugar to the crack, pour it over them so as to cover
the whole with a thin sheet of sugar.
Coconut cut in thin slices, currants,
and other similar candies are made in the same way, except that the
sugar is ground before it is poured over.
Put any quantity of picked gum dragon
into an upright earthen jar, cover it over with cold water and let it
stand two or three days. Have ready some of the very finest icing
sugar, take the gum into a coarse piece of canvas and let another
person assist in twisting it round until the whole has passed
through. Beat it well up in the mortar to make it tough and white,
then add sugar by degrees, still beating it with the pestle. When it
is stiff take it out and keep it in an earthen jar for use. When it
is worked into ornaments it will require a little starch-powder to
smooth and make it proper for use. If you want to colour any part of
it, use vegetable colouring.
Take 1 pint of clarified sugar and 1
teaspoonful of lemon juice, boil it in a small pan to the degree
called caramelled; the moment the sugar is ready take it off and put
the bottom of the pan in cold water. As soon as the water is warmed
take the pan out. This precaution will keep the sugar from
discolouring. As this sugar is to represent silver you must be
particularly careful not to boil it too high. Have ready a crocanth
mould neatly oiled with sweet oil, then take a teaspoon and dip the
shank of it into the sugar on one side of the pan, take up a little
sugar and throw the spoon backwards and forwards in the mould,
leaving as fine a thread as possible. Continue to do so until the
mould is quite full. You must observe that there be no blotches and
that the threads be as fine as hair; you may then take it out and
cover it over a custard or any other sweet, and may, if you please,
raise it by spinning light threads of sugar on the top.
Proceed with a gold web exactly the
same as with the silver web, only boil the sugar a moment longer.
Provide four or five round moulds,
the one larger than the other, oil them neatly, then boil your sugar
as for silver web, only let it remain on the fire one minute longer,
then take up sugar with the shank of the spoon and spin it as near
the side of the mould as possible, but let no blotches appear; do
this to the four moulds. As soon as cold take them out and fix one
above another with hot sugar, then spin long lengths of sugar round
until they form a complete pyramid. You may spin long threads of
sugar to represent a feather, and place them on the top, or you may
place a sprig of myrtle on the top and spin long lengths of sugar
round it. The way to do it is to take the shank of your spoon, dip it
into the cool sugar at the side of the pan, take hold of a bit of the
sugar with your finger and thumb and pull it out to any length and
fineness you please.
224.
-- To spin a Gold Sugar Crocanth.
Boil your sugar a minute longer than
for the silver web, using the same precaution as before. Have ready
your mould neatly oiled, then take a little sugar on the shank of
your spoon, spin it quite close to the side of your mould (be careful
you make no blotches), spin all round, and strengthen the sugar as
much as you can. There must be no holes or blotches, but an even
regular sugar, all parts as near alike as possible. When the sugar is
perfectly cold turn it out carefully, and set it over a custard or
any other sweet. You may use it plain or ornament it with gum paste,
as you think proper.
Provide a copper mould like a cup. It
must be made in three parts, and must be perfectly smooth within; oil
each neatly, and spin sugar in each, agreeable to the directions for
the crocanth. If two persons can spin at the same time it will be
much better. When the three moulds are perfectly covered with sugar,
and cold, take each out and put them together in a proper manner with
hot sugar. You may ornament the cup with gum paste, which will make
it very beautiful.
Note. -- In
boiling sugar to spin, great care must be taken to have a clear fire,
and only to boil a small quantity at a time in a small brass pan. If
you have two or three sugars to spin you must use two or three pans.
One person may be attending to the boiling while another is spinning.
A teaspoonful of lemon juice must be put to a pint of clarified
sugar. If the sugar is likely to boil over the top of the pan drop
one drop of sweet oil from your finger into the sugar, which will
stop it immediately.
Mould twenty or thirty bees in gum
paste, as near the colour and shape as possible, make a hole with a
pin on each side of the mouth and let them dry; make some of the
wings extend as if flying. Provide a large round crocanth mould as
near the shape of a bee-hive as possible, then boil the sugar as
formerly instructed. Spin the sugar hot close to the inside of the
mould. It must be regularly spun and very strong, the threads very
fine, and no blotches. When it is so, let it stand until quite cold,
then turn it out of the mould on to a large dish and ornament as under.
227.
-- To Ornament a Beehive.
Before you begin to boil the sugar
take as many borders out of your gum paste moulds as will go round
the bottom; also take out leaves for the top; run a husk round the
sides to represent the matting of the hive, lay your borders and
leaves on a marble slab, with a cloth over them to keep them moist.
You may also twist a length of gum
paste like a wreath and make it into a large ring; this must be
dried; then fix on the ornaments with a little hot sugar and set the
ring upright on the top. You may then spin long lengths of sugar very
fine on to a tin plate. Take the bees and fix them with hot sugar on
the top and sides of the hive; break the lengths of sugar in short
pieces and fix them in the holes made in the bees. You may also form
three entrances into the hive with the gum paste husk.
228.
-- To prepare Sugar for Colouring.
Take good loaf sugar, get it ground
well, put it through a hair sieve; what remains in the hair sieve put
into a fine wire sieve and sift it, and the sugar which comes through
the wire sieve will be rough sugar proper for colouring.
Divide the sugar into as many parts
as you intend to colour, put each into a sheet of paper, then prepare
your colours. Take a round-bottomed pan and put it on a warm stove,
pour in your lot of sugar, stir it about with a dry whisk until the
sugar is warm, add the colour, stir it well with the whisk to make
the sugar all of that colour, then stir it about till the sugar is
nearly dry, when you may spread it about on the sheet of paper. You
may proceed in this manner with all the colours. The first colour
used should be yellow, and the next green, which may be coloured in
the yellow pan and with the same whisk. You must then wash both, and
colour red, and after that orange. When the sugar is cold, sift it to
take out any coupled, then bottle it separately. It will be found to
be a useful article to ornament rout biscuits, creams, &c.
Take a fig of the best indigo, dip
one side in warm water and rub it on a marble slab until you gain the
strength you want; or if you wish for a quantity, put a fig into a
small cup, drop a tablespoonful of water upon it, and let it stand
half an hour; then pour off the water at the top, and you will have a
fine smooth colour.
Take carmine, No. 24 or 40, 1 dr.,
liquor potassae 2 1/2 drs., water 2 ozs., glycerine sufficient to
make 4 ozs. Rub the carmine to a paste with liquor potassae and add
the water and glycerine. This is a splendid red, and works well with
liquor acids.
Take some strong saffron colour and a
little of the fine melted blue; mix them well together, which will
make a green colour. If you want a pale green, use more yellow; if a
dark green, use more blue.
233.
Another Way. -- Take a quantity of spinach, pick the leaves
from the stalks, put them very tight down in a small pan, add a small
quantity of water, cover them closely up, and set the pan on a warm
stove for two hours; then turn the leaves into a coarse canvas, and
let two persons twist it round until all the liquor is squeezed out;
set it on a clear fire in a small pan, and let it boil one minute.
When cold, bottle and cork it tight.
Note. -- The
vegetable colouring bought at shops which manufacture it specially
for confectioners is the safest, cheapest, and best.
Take one tablespoonful of cochineal
colour and the same quantity of the saffron liquor; mix them together
and you will have an orange colour. If it be too red, add a little
more yellow; if it be too yellow, add a little more red.
Beat 1 oz. of cochineal fine in a
mortar, to which put 1 1/2 pint of soft water and 1/2 oz. of cream of
tartar; simmer them in a pan for half an hour over a slow fire. Take
it off, and throw in 1/2 oz. of roach alum to strike the colour. You
may ascertain the strength by dipping in a piece of writing paper. If
not sufficiently strong, simmer it again for a short time. When
nearly cold, strain it through a strong piece of canvas, and before
you bottle it add 2 ozs. of double refined sugar
Put the best saffron down tightly in
a small jar, pour a little boiling water over it, cover it closely
up, and set it in a warm place for half an hour, turning it two or
three times in the water; then strain and bottle it for use.
XII. LOZENGES.
Lozenges are made of loaf sugar
finely ground, gum arabic dissolved in water, also gum dragon. They
are mixed together into a paste, cut round or oval with cutters, and
dried. To make the best sort of lozenges, 1 lb. of gum arabic should
be dissolved in 1 pint of water; but the proportion of gum and water
in general use is 2 1/2 lbs. of gum arabic in 1 quart and 1/2 pint of
water, and 1 oz. of gum dragon in 1/2 pint of water.
Take some finely powdered loaf sugar,
put it on a marble slab, make a bay in the centre, pour in some
dissolved gum, and mix into a paste, flavour with the essence of
peppermint, roll the paste on the marble slab until it is about an
eighth of an inch thick. Use starch-powder to dust it with; this
keeps it from sticking. Dust the surface with a little starch-powder
and sugar, and rub it over with the palm of your hand. Cut out the
lozenges and place them on wooden trays, and place them in the stove
to dry. All lozenges are finished in the same way.
Make the paste the same way as the
preceding, and use essence of roses to flavour with; colour the paste
with cochineal.
1 oz. of powdered ginger, 1 lb. of
powdered sugar. Mix to a paste with dissolved gum; colour with yellow.
240.
-- Transparent Mint Lozenges.
These are made with the coarser
grains of powdered loaf sugar. Pass the sugar through a hair sieve,
then sift it through a fine sieve to take away the powder. Flavour
with peppermint. Finish as the others.
Mix as the others; flavour with
cinnamon in powder, adding a few drops of essential oil. Colour with
coffee colour.
1 oz. of cloves powdered and 2 1/2
lbs. of sugar. Mix, and finish as for the others.
1/4 oz. of oil of nutmeg, 2
lbs. of sugar. Mix as instructions for the others.
Mix as for others; flavour with
English oil of lavender, and colour with a little cochineal and blue mixed.
Use essence of vanilla or the stick
pounded with sugar and sifted through a fine hair sieve.
Take either of the pastes for
lozenges and cut into small fancy devices or ornaments.
The genuine recipe for making ice
creams will be found below. The first operation is the thorough
scalding of the cream, sugar, and eggs: this gives it greater body
and richness.
Put into a perfectly bright and clean
copper basin 2 lbs. of sugar, 4 eggs, 1 large fine bean of vanilla
split and cut into small pieces, stir all well together with a large
wire whisk, then add 4 quarts of rich cream, place it upon the fire
and stir well and constantly until it is about to boil; then
immediately remove it from the fire and strain it through a hair
sieve into an earthen tureen or crock; let it stand till cool, pour
it into your freezing.can already imbedded in broken ice and
rocksalt, cover and turn the crank slowly and steadily until it can
be turned no longer, open the can and remove the dasher, scrape the
hardened cream from the sides with a long-handled spatula, and beat
and work the cream until smooth. Close the can, draw off the water,
and repack with fresh ice and salt and let it rest for an hour or two
to harden and ripen.
Ice cream is often made from fresh
unscalded cream beaten vigorously during the entire freezing process,
this causes it to swell and increase in bulk from a fourth to a
third, but what is gained in quantity is lost in quality, as it
becomes very light and snowy in texture, having no body: it is simply
a frozen froth.
Ice cream should be firm, smooth, and
satiny, yet melting on the tongue like the best quality of gilt-edged butter.
In flavouring ice creams with fruit
juices or the pulp thereof, the latter must never be cooked or
scalded with the cream under any circumstances; they must be added,
mixed, and beaten into the cream after it is frozen.
The process given above for vanilla
ice cream is the same for all cream ices.
248.
-- Bisque or Biscuit Glace.
Make a rich and highly flavoured
vanilla ice cream and add for each quart 1/4 of a lb. of almond
macaroons dried crisp and reduced to a powder in a stone mortar.
After the cream is frozen, add and work into it the macaroon powder,
and finish as above directed for vanilla ice cream.
249.
-- Crushed Strawberry Ice Cream.
As for bisque, make a rich vanilla
ice cream, and when it is well frozen add to it 1 pint of
strawberries to each quart of cream. The berries must be full ripe
and be crushed to a pulp with some fine sugar before adding and
working them into the cream. Finish as for vanilla.
This article is not an ice cream
proper, but a species of frozen custard made of milk, eggs, sugar,
gelatine, and flavouring. Take 2 ozs. of gelatine, dissolve in 1/2
pint of milk or water, then to 4 quarts of milk and 8 eggs slightly
beaten add 1 1/2 lb. of sugar and the thin yellow rind of 2 lemons,
and a pinch of salt; put the ingredients into a clean, bright basin,
place on a moderate fire, and stir constantly till it begins to
thicken, then remove quickly, and pour it into an earthen pan and
continue to stir it till nearly cold, then add and stir in the
dissolved gelatine; pour all into your freezer and freeze as for
other ices. When frozen it may be put in small boxes about three
inches long by two inches wide, or it may be wrapped in wax paper and
kept ready for sale in an ice cave. The office of the gelatine is to
solidify the compound and assist its "keeping" qualifies.
Take grated white meat of 3 fine
cocoanuts and the milk they have contained, to which add 3 quarts of
filtered water; place on the fire and boil for ten minutes, then pour
it into an earthen or stoneware crock, cover, and let it infuse till
nearly cold, then strain and press off the liquid with a fine sieve;
to this liquid add 1 1/4 lb. of pulverised sugar and the whites of 3
eggs; mix all thoroughly well together and pour it into the freezer
already imbedded in ice and salt. Freeze and finish as other ices.
The preserving of fruits has always
been considered a principal branch of confectionery, and one which
requires no small degree of attention and diligence. As you are
instructed in the boiling of sugars in its several degrees, named in
each recipe, should it be boiled lower the fruit will lose its
colour, turn windy, and spoil; if it is boiled higher it will rock
and cannot be got out of the jars. Another important point is to
preserve such fruit only as is quite fresh picked, the flavour, which
is a very essential consideration, being lost if the fruit be stale.
Cleanliness in this branch, as in every other, must not be neglected.
Preserving pans, &c., must resemble a looking-glass as much as
possible. Fruits well preserved will keep in almost any place. It is
better, however, to keep them neither in too dry nor in too damp a
place. The jars must be well protected from air by covering each with
writing-paper dipped in brandy, covered and tied over with wet bladder.
Note. -- A wood
skimmer must be made of ash or elm about 4 inches long, 3 inches
broad, and 1 inch thick. There is a handle fixed on one side, which
take hold of and lay the wood gently on the fruit where the scum is,
then take it off and scrape off the scum, and so on until all is
taken off.
Procure the largest Carolina or
Hanoverian strawberries, pack two layers with care in a flat-bottomed
preserving pan, then pour over them 1 pint of currant juice, cover
them with smooth clarified sugar, and over it a sheet of paper, set
them on a warm part of the stove until the syrup is new-milk warm,
then take them off; next morning take them out one at a time with an
egg-spoon and lay them on a fine splinter sieve set over a pan to
drain; add to the syrup a little clarified sugar and boil it to the
degree called "pearled," put in the fruit with care and
simmer them round; as soon as the syrup is off the degree called
pearled, take them from the stove, skim, and put them with great care
into a flat pudding pot, cover them up for two days, then lay them on
a splinter sieve to drain, and add to the syrup 1 or 2 pints of
clarified sugar as occasion may require, with the proportion of red
currant juice, boil it to the degree called pearled, and put in your
fruit with great care and simmer them very gently round the sides of
the pan; as soon as the syrup is off the degree called pearled skim
them and put them into jars, filling them within half an inch of the
top. When cold cover them with writing-paper dipped in brandy and
bladder them over.
Take any quantity of scarlet
strawberries, pass them through a fine splinter sieve, add to them 1
or 2 pints of red currant juice, according to the quantity of
strawberries, put the same weight of sifted loaf sugar as fruit, boil
them over a bright fire, keep stirring all the time with a spatter,
and with it make a figure of eight in the pan to prevent the jam
taking hold of the bottom; when it has boiled ten minutes take it off
and take a little jam out with a scraper, which drop upon a plate; if
it retains the mark of the scraper it is of a proper consistency and
ready to put into jars, but should it run thin on the plate it must
be boiled again until of the substance above named. It is necessary
here to observe that all sorts of red fruit should be kept as short a
time as possible on the fire, and for that reason let your fires be
perfectly bright before you use them.
Take 4 quarts of clear raspberry
juice, add to it 8 pounds of sifted lump sugar, set it on a clear
fire in your preserving pan, stir it with the spatter to keep it from
burning; let it rise, then take it from the fire, skim it, set it on
the fire again, and let it rise three or four times, skimming it each
time. If, on taking out the skimmer, small flakes hang from it, it is
of a proper consistency and may be put into jars. When cold cover it
with writing-paper dipped in brandy, and bladder them over.
Pick black currants from the stalks
as well and in as short a 'time as you can, then put them into strong
earthen jars or stew pots, cover them well over and set them in a
slow oven for one night; next morning put them into the jelly-bag,
and as soon as drained, which will be in three or four hours, measure
the juice. To each pint of juice take 1 lb. 4 ozs. of sifted loaf
sugar, boil and skim it as before. You may if you think proper
clarify the sugar, but this is a much easier way.
Pick red currants until you have 7
lbs., then force the whole of them through a splinter sieve, to which
add 7 lbs. of sifted lump sugar; boil this very well over a brisk
fire for twenty minutes, stirring it all the time with the spatter.
This is very useful for tartlets, cheaper than rasps, and a much
better colour. Put it into jars, cover them with paper dipped in
brandy and bladder them over.
Take codlin apples, cut them very
thin across, fill your preserving pan nearly full, cover them with
soft water and then with a sheet of paper, set them on a slow fire,
let them simmer slowly for a considerable time to extract the jelly
from the apple. They must not on any account be stirred about in the
pan. When the virtue appears to be quite extracted from them pour
them into a jelly-bag. Cut more apples as before, about half the
quantity, put them into the pan, and pour over them the extract from
the first apples, simmer them very slowly as before. When the essence
is all extracted put them into a jelly-bag. This jelly is used in the
putting up of all preserved fruits.
Take 7 lbs. of clean, picked, dry
gooseberries, put them into your preserving pan with 1 pint of water
and 7 lbs. of sifted loaf sugar. Boil over a clear fire from twenty
minutes to half an hour; when they are boiled to the consistency
required take them off, put them into jars and secure them from the
air as the others.
Take 12 Seville and 12 China oranges,
pare the outer skin off as thin as you can, lay it in soft water and
freshen it every two hours to take out the bitterness, then pull off
the white skin from the pared oranges and throw it away; cut them
across, squeeze the juice from them, and set them on the fire in the
preserving pan with plenty of soft water, boil them until so soft as
to pulp through a hair sieve. Then boil the outer skin equally soft.
If it will not go through, beat it well in a mortar and then put it
through; add to it the other pulp and the juice. Weigh it, and to
each pound allow 1 lb. 2 ozs. of sifted loaf sugar. Boil this well
together, stirring it all the time, until it will retain the mark of
the scraper, when it will be ready to put into jars, which must be
secured from air as before.
260.
-- General Directions for Making Chocolate.
Provide yourself with an iron pestle
and mortar, also a stone slab of a very fine grain about two feet
square, and a rolling-pin of hard stone or iron. The stone must have
an opening beneath in which to place a pot of burning charcoal to
heat it. Warm the mortar and pestle by placing them on a stove, or
charcoal may be used, until they are so hot that you can scarcely
bear your hand against them. Wipe the mortar out clean, and put any
convenient quantity of prepared nuts in it, which pound until they
are reduced to an oily paste into which the pestle will sink with its
own weight. Add fine powdered sugar to the chocolate paste. After it
has been well pounded, the sugar must be in proportion of 3 lbs. to 4
lbs. of prepared cocoa. Continue to pound it until completely mixed;
then put it in a pan and place it in the stove to keep warm. Take a
portion of it and roll or grind it well on the stone slab with the
roller, both being previously heated like the mortar until it is
reduced to a smooth impalpable paste, which will melt in the mouth
like butter when this is accomplished. Put it in another pan and keep
it warm until the whole is similarly disposed of; then place it again
on the stove, which must not be quite so warm as previously. Work it
over again, and divide it into pieces of two, four, eight, or sixteen
ounces each, which you put in tin mould. Give it a shake, and the
chocolate will become flat. When cold, it will easily turn out.
261.
-- Chocolate Harlequin Pistachios.
In making harlequin pistachios, you
warm some of the sweet chocolate by pounding it in a hot mortar.
After it has been prepared in this manner, take some of it and wrap
it round a blanched pistachio nut; roll it in the hand to give it the
form of an olive, and throw it into nonpareils of mixed colours, so
that it may be variously coloured, a la harlequin. Proceed with the
remaining pistachio nuts after the same fashion, dropping them into
the nonpareils so that the comfits will adhere to the pistachios.
Fold them in coloured or fancy papers, with mottoes. The ends are
generally fringed.
262.
-- Chocolate Drops with Nonpareils.
Prepare some warm chocolate as
in the preceding recipe. When the chocolate has been well pounded and
is a smooth impalpable paste, make it into balls the size of a small
marble by rolling in the hand. Place them on square sheets of paper
about one inch apart; having filled the sheet, take it by the corners
and lift it up and down, letting it touch the table each time: this
will flatten them. Completely cover their surfaces with white
nonpareils, gently shaking off the surplus ones. After the drops are
cold, they can be very easily removed from the paper. The drops
should be about the size of a sixpence.
It is usual now amongst confectioners
to use the English unsweetened chocolate, as it saves much time and
trouble, and is equally good. To form it into shapes you must have
two kinds of moulds, made either of thick tin or copper tinned
inside; the one sort is impressed with a device or figure, and with a
narrow edge; the other is flat or nearly so, and the same size as the
previous mould, with a shallow device in the centre. You put a piece
of prepared chocolate into the first mould, and then cover it with
the flat one; upon pressing it down the chocolate receives the form
of both devices. After it is cold it can be easily taken out. It
should have a shining appearance.
THE END
Measures below are approximate
only:
UK - Metric
- 1 pound = 450 grams
- 1 quart = 1140 mls
- 1 pint = 570 mls
- 1 gill = 90 mls
- 1 ounce = 18 mls
- 1 drachm = 3.5 mls
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