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German Biscuits
Whisk two eggs thoroughly, and stir into them half a pound of sifted loaf sugar. Beat them for twenty minutes, then add the peel of a small lemon, grated, two dessert-spoonfuls of cream, and, gradually, half a pound of fine flour. Mix all well together, roll the pastry out very thin, stamp it, with an ordinary pastry-cutter, into different shapes, and bake in buttered tins, in a quick oven, till lightly coloured, which will be in about seven or eight minutes. Probable cost, 6d.
A plain egg-and-sugar biscuit dough with no chemical leavening — the twenty minutes of beating is the whole method, since the only lift comes from air whisked into the eggs and sugar.
- The beating is the hingeTwenty minutes by hand takes the eggs and sugar to a thick, pale ribbon that holds a trail; a stand mixer will reach the same point in a good deal less time. Beaten too little, the biscuits are likely to bake flat and hard.
- Loaf sugarSugar was sold as a hard cone to be broken up and sifted, which is why the recipe says "sifted." Caster sugar is the closest modern equivalent; granulated works but dissolves more slowly into the eggs.
- WeightsHalf a pound of sugar is 8 oz, roughly 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated. Half a pound of flour is 8 oz, somewhere between 1 3/4 and 2 cups measured by spoon-and-level. Weigh both if you can — this dough is sensitive to a heavy flour cup.
- Dessert-spoonfulsA dessert-spoon sits between a teaspoon and a tablespoon, about 2 teaspoons. Two of them is roughly 4 teaspoons of cream; use heavy cream.
- Quick ovenRoughly 400 to 425F. At that heat seven or eight minutes is right, but "till lightly coloured" means barely blond at the edges — pull them before they brown.
- Rolling and chillingThe recipe rolls the dough out straight away; if it feels soft to handle, resting it 30 minutes in the refrigerator will help. Roll thin — "very thin" suggests something around 1/8 inch — on a lightly floured surface and cut. Work in batches and keep the rest cold.
- Buttered tinsBaking sheets, not cake pans. Butter alone will encourage browning on the underside at this heat; parchment on an ungreased sheet gives a more even pale biscuit.
- YieldAround four dozen or more small biscuits from a 2-inch cutter, depending on how thin they are rolled. They crisp as they cool and keep well in a tin.
"German biscuits" was one of a number of loosely used names in Victorian cookery writing. The costing of sixpence is a reminder that these dictionaries were written for households budgeting to the penny, and that eggs, sugar and a lemon were the affordable end of confectionery. German-named dishes appeared freely in British cookbooks through the nineteenth century; many were quietly renamed after 1914.