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Gingerbread, English
Mix together a pound and a half of flour, half a pound of honey, half a pound of treacle, two ounces of ground ginger, two ounces of ground allspice, and one ounce of soda. Work them into an elastic paste; put this into a square tin mould capable of holding it to the thickness of two inches. Allow it to stand in moderate warmth for an hour, brush it over with white of egg, bake in a moderate oven. When done, and cold, cut it into slices as occasion requires. Probable cost, 1s. 6d.
A stiff, honey-and-treacle gingerbread of the old European lebkuchen type, baked as a slab and cut down as wanted. The recipe assumes you know what "elastic paste" should feel like and gives no liquid at all beyond the two syrups.
- Weights in metric1½ lb flour is about 680 g; ½ lb honey and ½ lb treacle are 225 g each; 2 oz ground ginger and 2 oz allspice are roughly 55 g apiece; 1 oz soda is about 28 g.
- Treacle'treacle' in a Victorian English recipe generally means black treacle rather than a light syrup. Unsulphured dark molasses is the nearest supermarket stand-in; golden syrup is much lighter and sweeter and will not give the same bitter edge against the honey.
- Soda in this quantityAn ounce of bicarbonate to a pound and a half of flour is far more than modern practice, roughly six teaspoons. It is partly neutralised by the acidity of treacle and honey, but any excess leaves a soapy, metallic aftertaste and a strong brown colour. Two to three teaspoons is closer to what a present-day baker would use in a dough of this weight.
- Spice loadFour ounces of ground spice is a genuine feature of this style, not a misprint. Modern pre-ground ginger and allspice may well be stronger than what a Victorian household bought, so taste the raw dough on a fingertip before committing.
- Working the pasteWarm the honey and treacle gently so they pour, then work them into the flour. The dough will be very firm; it is kneaded rather than beaten, and it should pull back slightly when pressed. If it will not come together at all, a few spoonfuls of warm water are legitimate.
- "Moderate warmth for an hour"This is not a yeast rise. The recipe gives no temperature; a warm kitchen counter is what is meant, and the rest mainly lets the stiff dough hydrate and relax.
- Oven'Moderate' is usually reckoned at somewhere around 325-350F (165-175C). Baked two inches deep, the slab is likely to need roughly 45 to 60 minutes; test with a skewer at the centre, as the dark colour tells you nothing.
- Egg washThe recipe brushes the white of egg on after the hour's rest, immediately before baking. Egg white alone gives a thin, hard glaze rather than the golden colour of a whole-egg wash.
- Keeping and yieldThe recipe leaves the slicing open, to be cut 'as occasion requires'. It is meant to be stored rather than eaten hot: wrapped airtight, a fatless gingerbread of this kind softens and mellows over several days and keeps well.
Honey gingerbreads of this kind are the older English form, closer to Continental lebkuchen and pain d'épices than to the buttery, egg-rich cakes that took the name in the nineteenth century. The dividing line is fat: this recipe contains none, relying on honey and treacle for both sweetness and moisture, which is why it keeps so well and why it was traditionally cut from a slab as required rather than served as a cake. Treacle became cheap in Britain as sugar refining expanded through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and it steadily displaced honey in gingerbread; a recipe using both, in equal measure, sits at the hinge between the two.