Third recipe: fair success. For this one, I did new year's cakes, which is a Victorian recipe, but from the US. Just goes to show that not all Victorian recipes are from England or Victoria : )
Original Recipe:
Seven pounds of flour, two pounds and a half of sugar*, two pounds of butter, and a pint of water, with a teaspoonful of volatile salts** dissolved in it. Work the paste well; roll it thin and cut it in small cakes*** with a tin cutter; lay them on tin plates*** and bake in a quick oven for fifteen minutes.
Modern Redaction:
Ingredients:
3.2kg plain flour
1.2kg sugar
900g butter
600ml water
1 tsp baking soda
Method:
Sift the flour into a bowl, dice the butter and add to the flour. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips (or cut in with pastry knives) until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the sugar then dissolve the baking soda in the water and add to the bowl. Bring the mixture together as a dough then turn out onto a lightly-floured work surface. Roll out about 4mm thick then transfer to a lightly-greased baking tray. Place in an oven pre-heated to 180°C**** and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes, or until cooked through and golden brown. Allow to cool on the baking tray for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
*I used mostly sucanat, which is sugar in a very unprocessed form (basically crystallised molasses), so that’s why the cakes look a little spotty in the picture.
**Despite the ‘modern redaction’ saying baking soda, my dad and I worked out that “volatile salts” are actually closer to baking powder than baking soda.
***I used cookie sheets.
****Or 356 Fahrenheit, for those ovens that use Fahrenheit (like mine).
I may have slightly forgot to take pictures of the recipe in its earlier stages.Also, this recipe was from a different website, so it has an ingredients table and stuff.
For this one, I'm actually going to make a different version later. I think that the dough would work quite well with savory flavorings as well as sweet, like in this recipe. The reason I had this idea is that the main bread-like part had a taste much like biscuits, which I had previously had sweet and savory. Therefore, I would like to try this same dough and shape, but yogurt and green onion flavour instead of sugar.
I would also like to try this recipe recipe with gluten-free flour, partly because I noticed they didn't rise much, and therefore would probably not need gluten to help them stick together. The other reason is that my mother is gluten sensitive, and she would like to try the new year's cakes too.
The dough rolled out and half cut.
The cakes before baking...
...and after.
