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Ginger Cakes
Take one pound of flour, three-quarters of a pound of butter, three-quarters of a pound of sifted sugar, two ounces of ground ginger, and eight yolks of eggs. Mix all together, and work into a compact mass on the pastry board. Separate it into four parts; roll these out to the thickness of the sixth part of an inch, one after another, and stamp out as many cakes as the paste will produce. Place them upon a slightly buttered baking-dish, and put into the oven. When about half done, pass a paste-brush dipped in white of egg over them, dredge some sugar over their surface, and finish baking the cakes to a light brown colour. Probable cost, 2s.
A short, eggy ginger biscuit with no liquid and no raising agent — the yolks and butter are all the moisture there is. The dough behaves like a rich shortcrust, and it wants to be treated as one.
- Chill before rollingThree-quarters of a pound of butter to a pound of flour makes a paste that turns greasy and hard to roll at room temperature. Work it just until it comes together, then rest it cold for half an hour before rolling each quarter; rolling them "one after another", as the recipe directs, has the incidental effect of keeping the rest of the paste cool.
- The ginger is not a misprintTwo ounces of ground ginger is somewhere between half and two-thirds of a cup — assertive by modern standards, and the point of the cake. Ground ginger also loses its pungency in the jar, so a tin that has been open a year will give a flat, dusty result.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A moderate oven, 350F/175C, suits this dough; much hotter and the sugar-heavy edges brown before the centres set.
- "Baking-dish" means a flat sheetRead it as a baking tray. Butter it very lightly as directed, or line with parchment; with this much butter in the paste sticking is unlikely, though the dredged sugar can catch.
- Thickness and sizeA sixth of an inch is about 4 mm. Cut with a 2-inch round, a pound of flour's worth of dough makes a very large batch — many dozens of small cakes.
- Timing and the glazeAt 350F these need about 12-15 minutes total. "Half done" is around the 6- or 7-minute mark, when the surface has set but taken no colour: brush with lightly beaten egg white, dredge with caster sugar, and return to finish to a light brown.
- CoolingThey are soft and fragile straight from the oven and crisp as they cool. Leave them on the tray for a few minutes before moving them.
- The cost lineTwo shillings is a Victorian price for the ingredients, quoted so a cook could budget the dish. It is a period detail, not a measurement.
Ground ginger was among the cheaper and more dependable spices in a British household cupboard — long-lasting, widely imported, and stocked by grocers. This version is a rich one: egg yolks and a very high proportion of butter put it closer to a French petit four than to the treacle-and-oatmeal parkin of the north, and the lack of treacle or golden syrup is what keeps the cakes pale and short rather than dark and chewy. The egg-white-and-sugar glaze applied partway through baking gives a faint crackled frost on top. The costing at the end is typical of Cassell's, which was written for households running on an accounted budget and routinely told the cook what a dish should come to.