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Rice Cakes, Small
No. 1.--Beat four ounces of fresh butter to cream. Add four ounces of pounded and sifted sugar, four ounces of ground rice, and one or two drops of any flavouring that may be liked. Add, gradually, first the yolks and afterwards the whites of four well-whisked eggs. Beat the mixture to a paste, and bake in a small buttered tin in a well-heated oven. Probable cost, 1s. No. 2.--Beat four ounces of butter to cream. Add eight ounces of finely-pounded sugar, eight ounces of ground rice, and the yolks and whites of four well-beaten eggs. Drop the mixture in cakes on a buttered baking-tin, sift sugar over them, and bake in a well-heated oven. Probable cost, 1s. 3d. No. 3.--Rub three ounces of butter into half a pound of rice-flour. Moisten the mixture with a little cold water. When it is quite smooth roll it out till it is very thin, stamp it into small cakes, and bake in a quick oven. No. 4.--The remains of cold boiled rice may be beaten up with milk and eggs, and a little flour to make a batter, then fried in hot fat till they are lightly browned, and served for breakfast.
Four different small cakes under one heading, all built on rice rather than wheat. None contains a raising agent, so the lift comes entirely from air beaten into the butter and eggs.
- Ground rice and rice-flourVictorian "ground rice" is coarser than modern rice flour, closer to fine semolina, and gives a pleasantly sandy bite. Modern rice flour works in all four, but the cakes will be smoother and slightly denser; look for coarse-ground rice at an Asian or South Asian grocer if you want the original texture.
- Pounded and sifted sugarThis is caster (superfine) sugar. Granulated will not dissolve fully in a mixture with no liquid beyond the eggs.
- Oven heatA "well-heated oven" for small cakes is roughly 375-400F. The "quick oven" in No. 3 is hotter, perhaps 425F, but those biscuits are rolled very thin and will colour quickly, so watch them.
- The hinge: beat the butter properlyWith no baking powder, everything depends on creaming the butter until genuinely pale and light, then adding the yolks and whites separately in No. 1 to keep the air in. Rush this and you get flat, heavy rounds.
- Flavouring"One or two drops of any flavouring" means an essence of the period: lemon, vanilla or almond. A modern extract can stand in, added a drop or two at a time as the recipe directs.
- Quantities and yieldFour ounces is 115 g, eight ounces 225 g, half a pound 225 g. No. 1 baked as one small tin gives a shallow cake for six; Nos. 2 and 3 each make roughly 20-24 small cakes.
- TimingSmall dropped cakes (No. 2) need 12-15 minutes and are done when set and just gold at the edges; they firm considerably on cooling, so pulling them early is the safer error.
- No. 3 needs rest, not waterRice flour has no gluten, so the dough will not come together like pastry. Add the water a teaspoon at a time until it just coheres, and roll between sheets of baking paper rather than on a floured board.
- No. 4 as writtenA leftovers fritter, not a cake: cold rice, milk, egg and enough flour to make a thick dropping batter. Fry in shallow fat until brown on both sides, which means the egg is fully cooked.
- "Probable cost, 1s"One shilling, from the era of pounds, shillings and pence. Cassell's priced almost every entry so a household could compare dishes at a glance.
Rice-flour cakes were a fixture of British baking from the late eighteenth century onward, when rice arrived through the colonial trade and cooks found it made a shorter, more delicate crumb than wheat. Such cakes were often recommended for invalids and children on the traditional grounds that rice was easily digested, and they turn up in Victorian household manuals alongside arrowroot and sago puddings. The four numbered variants here are typical of Cassell's method: rather than one authoritative recipe, the dictionary gathers versions, two of them costed at 1s. and 1s. 3d., and finishes with a thrift note for using up yesterday's boiled rice.