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Alpha Rocks
Beat four ounces of butter to a cream, then stir in three-quarters of a pound of flour, six ounces of loaf sugar, two ounces of sweet almonds blanched and sliced, and one egg; mix thoroughly, then drop it in spoonfuls on a well-oiled tin, and bake in a moderate oven. Lemon-or citron-peel and currants can be added if approved. Time to bake, about twenty minutes. Probable cost, 1s. 2d.
A stiff Victorian drop cookie of the rock-cake family. The proportions are heavy on flour and light on liquid, which is the one thing to watch before you commit the dough to the pan.
- The dough will not drop as writtenFour ounces of butter, one egg and no liquid against three-quarters of a pound of flour gives a dry, crumbly mass rather than something that falls from a spoon. Add milk a tablespoon at a time until it just holds together in rough craggy lumps; two to four tablespoons is usually enough. Do not smooth it out, the ragged surface is the point.
- Weights in cups4 oz butter is 1 stick; 12 oz flour is about 2 3/4 cups; 6 oz sugar is about 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons; 2 oz almonds is roughly 1/2 to 2/3 cup sliced.
- Loaf sugarRefined sugar was sold as a hard cone to be nipped and crushed at home. Granulated sugar is the direct replacement, and creaming it with the butter (rather than stirring it in after the flour, as written) gives a better texture.
- Moderate ovenUsually read today as about 350F, though the book gives no temperature. Twenty minutes suits spoonfuls the size of a walnut; they should be set and pale gold at the edges, still soft in the middle when they come out.
- Sweet almondsSimply the ordinary edible almond, named to distinguish it from bitter almonds, which were sold separately as a flavouring and are not interchangeable. Blanch by pouring boiling water over them and slipping off the skins, or use blanched sliced almonds from a packet.
- Well-oiled tinA baking sheet, greased. Parchment is easier and stops the sugary undersides catching.
- The optional additionsChopped candied lemon or citron peel and dried currants, in the region of 2 to 4 oz total, folded in at the end. Currants here means the small dried grape, not fresh berries.
- YieldAbout two dozen to thirty, depending on the spoon. They keep four or five days in a tin and are firmer on the second day.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of British "rock" cakes and rock buns, plain buttery drop mixtures baked rough-surfaced so that they resembled small stones, in an era when nothing was piped or iced. What the "Alpha" signifies is not explained in the book, and Victorian cookery writing was fond of attaching decorative names to slight variations of a standard formula; one can only guess at the source here, perhaps a shop, a ship or simply the first in a series. The recipe also shows how such books were used: a price is given, 1s. 2d., and the almonds and candied peel mark this as a step above the everyday currant rock bun without straying into anything a middle-class kitchen could not manage from the store cupboard.