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Kneaded Cakes
Mix a quarter of a pound of currants with three-quarters of a pound of flour, and a pinch of salt. Make up into a paste with some thick cream, knead well, roll to the thickness of half an inch, cut it into rounds with the top of a small teacup, and bake on a griddle, or in a brisk oven. If no cream is at hand, good cakes may be made by rolling out a pound of puff paste to the thickness of a penny piece. Strew some currants and a little moist sugar over half of these, place the other half over them, and bake as before. These cakes are best when served hot. Time, ten or fifteen minutes to bake. Probable cost, 1s., if made with cream; 8d. with pastry. Sufficient for about two dozen cakes.
A plain currant griddle cake, closer to a scone than to anything iced. The dough has no raising agent and no sugar at all in the cream version, so its success rests entirely on the fat in the cream and on getting the griddle right.
- Thick cream means double creamThick cream probably means something like double cream -- Victorian "thick cream" is generally taken to be close to what is now sold as double cream (about 48% fat) or, in the US, heavy cream at 36% and above. A thinner cream such as single cream or half-and-half carries much less fat, and the dough is likely to be less short.
- Quantities in modern termsA quarter pound of currants is about 4 oz (115 g, roughly 3/4 cup); three-quarters of a pound of flour is 12 oz (340 g, about 2 3/4 cups). Cream is unmeasured — work in enough to bring the dough together, around 2/3 to 1 cup, adding it gradually.
- Currants are Zante currantsNot fresh red or black currants but small dried grapes, sold as Zante currants or, in Britain, simply currants. Raisins are a coarser substitute and will make the cakes harder to roll thin.
- "Brisk oven"Brisk means hot; modern equivalences usually put it somewhere around 400-450F (200-230C). With only ten to fifteen minutes' baking and no chemical leavening, a cooler oven is unlikely to set the centres.
- Griddle heatA griddle or heavy pan is better at a moderate heat than a fierce one, or the outside will colour before the middle of a half-inch cake sets; five to seven minutes a side keeps within the recipe's stated ten to fifteen minutes.
- Knead well, but brieflyThe recipe says "knead well", which is unusual for a scone-type dough; there is no egg or raising agent to lift it. Work it only until smooth, since extended kneading develops gluten and toughens the cake.
- The cutter and the pastry version"The top of a small teacup" is about 2 1/2 inches across. In the alternative, "the thickness of a penny piece" means very thin, roughly 1/16 inch — the two layers of puff paste puff during baking and sandwich the fruit.
- Moist sugarMoist sugar is soft, damp, lightly refined sugar; light brown soft sugar is the nearest modern equivalent. Granulated white will work but gives none of the faint molasses note.
- Yield and servingAbout two dozen small cakes. They are best hot from the griddle, split and buttered, and they stale within hours — the recipe gives no sugar or egg to keep them soft.
The recipe describes a form of griddle cake that was made across Britain wherever a bakestone or iron plate sat over the fire: flat, fruited, cooked on top of the heat rather than in an oven, and eaten the same day. Welsh cakes, Scottish girdle scones and the various "currant cakes" of English regional baking all belong to the same family, and the alternative given here — puff paste with currants and sugar between two sheets — is essentially the Eccles or Banbury idea flattened out. The costings, 1s. with cream and 8d. with pastry, point to a practical purpose, and the cream version is offered first with the pastry version as the fallback "if no cream is at hand." The currants themselves came almost entirely from Greece and the Ionian islands, cheap and ubiquitous in Victorian baking, which is why so many plain cakes of the period are studded with them.