35.--Queen’s Gingerbread.
Take 2 lbs. of honey, 1¾ lb. of best moist sugar, and 3 lbs. of flour,
½ lb. of sweet almonds blanched, and ½ lb. of preserved orange peel cut
into thin fillets, the yellow rinds of two lemons grated off, 1 oz. of
cinnamon, ½ 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
till 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.
36.--German Gingerbread.
Same as Queen’s Gingerbread, but dust tins with flour instead of grease.
37.--Spiced Gingerbread.
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, ½ 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 ½ 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.”
39.--Ginger Cakes.
2¼ lbs. of flour, ½ 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.
40.--Prepared Treacle.
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
2 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.
42.--Laughing or Fun Nuts.
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, 2½ lbs. of loaf sugar, 4 ozs. of butter, 1 oz. of
volatile salt, 1 pint of milk, ½ oz. of ginger, ¼ oz. of ground
cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace, ½ oz. caraway seeds.
44.--Spice Nuts.
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, ¼ 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, ¼ 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, 2¾ lbs. of moist
sugar, 1 lb. of lard, 4 ozs. ginger, ½ oz. of tartaric acid, ½ oz. of
carbonate of soda, ½ oz. of cinnamon, ½ oz. of mace. Mix and work same
as other doughs. This is a capital mixture.
47.--Light Gingerbread.
Dr. Colquhoun gives a recipe for preparing a light gingerbread as
follows: Take 1 lb. of flour, ¼ 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, 1¼ 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. 3½d. worth.
This mixture is for wholesale purposes, and pays well.
NOTE.--Nearly all mixtures made in this way are best made the day
before.
50.--Hunting Nuts.
7 lbs. of flour, 3½ 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.
51.--Parkings.
3½ lbs. of oatmeal, 1 lb. of flour, 1 lb. of butter, 8 ozs. of moist
sugar, ½ 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 2½ inches apart. Bake in a cool oven.
52. _Another Way._--6 lbs. of snap dough, 12 ozs. of moist sugar, 10
ozs. of butter, 1¾ lb. of oatmeal, 1½ oz. of carbonate of soda, 1 oz.
of caraway seeds, 1 oz. of seasoning. Proceed as above.
53.--Parking Cake.
3 lbs. 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.
54.--Scotch Shortbread.
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.
55.--English Shortbread.
1 lb. of flour, ½ lb. of sugar, ½ lb. butter, 2 eggs. Mix as for Scotch
Shortbread, ornament the tops with designs of neatly-cut lemon peel and
caraway comfits.
56.--French Shortbread.
2 lbs. of flour, ¾ lb. of butter, ¾ lb. of sugar, 4 eggs, ½ 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.