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Plum Buns, Without Yeast, Plain
Mix thoroughly a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda with a tea-spoonful of tartaric acid. Rub this and half a tea-spoonful of salt into two pounds of flour. Work in a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and add a quarter of a pound of moist sugar, a quarter of a pound of washed and dried currants, and, if liked, a few caraway-seeds. Make a hole in the centre of the flour, and pour into this two eggs which have been well beaten and mixed with a pint of lukewarm milk. Stir all quickly with a knife, and when the dough is ready mould it into buns, place these on a buttered baking-tin, and bake in a brisk oven for a quarter of an hour or more. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. Sufficient for about two dozen buns.
A quick bun raised chemically rather than with yeast, from the era when cooks mixed their own baking powder in the bowl. Nothing here is difficult, but the leavening starts working the moment the milk goes in.
- Work fastCarbonate of soda and tartaric acid react on contact with the liquid, and tartaric acid is faster than the cream of tartar or phosphates in modern baking powder. Mix, shape and get the tray into a hot oven without pausing, or the lift is spent before baking.
- The leavening, in modern termsA teaspoon of soda with a teaspoon of tartaric acid is a single-acting baking powder made in the bowl. Roughly one and a half to two tablespoons of ordinary baking powder is the nearest ready-made equivalent for two pounds of flour, and it is more forgiving of a slow cook.
- Brisk ovenBrisk means a hot oven, about 400-425F/200-220C. At that heat a bun of this size takes 15 to 20 minutes, which matches the quarter of an hour or more given.
- Moist sugarMoist sugar is unrefined soft sugar, damp and pale brown. Light soft brown sugar is the direct substitute; caster or granulated will work but gives a paler, drier crumb.
- A pint of milkThis is an imperial pint, 20 fl oz, or about 2.5 US cups. Add it in stages: flour absorbency varies and the dough should be soft enough to mould by hand but not slack.
- Plums that are currantsIn English baking of this period plum means dried fruit generally, not the stone fruit. Dried currants are specified here; washing and drying them removes packing grit and stops them sticking in a lump.
- Yield and sizeTwo pounds of flour gives about two dozen buns of roughly 2.5 to 3 oz each. Space them well apart, as chemical leavening spreads outward as much as up.
- Eating themSoda-raised buns are best the day they are made and go dry quickly. Split and toast any that survive.
Cassell's places this among the plain, quick baking that filled the gap between the yeasted bun of the professional baker and the rich cake of the special occasion. Bicarbonate of soda paired with an acid such as tartaric acid or cream of tartar was a common domestic raising agent in the nineteenth century; commercial baking powders combining the two with a starch filler were on sale from about the 1840s, though the components were also bought separately and mixed fresh, which is what the first line of this recipe describes. The caraway seeds, offered as optional, belong to an older English taste that put them in seed cake and bread alike. The costing of 1s 4d for two dozen buns is a reminder of what the book was for: a mistress or cook could compare that against the baker's price and decide.