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Rolls, Geneva
No. 1.--Rub two ounces of butter into a pound of flour till it is as fine as oatmeal; add a pinch of salt, a dessert-spoonful of strong yeast, and as much milk as will make a stiff dough. This will be about half a pint. Let it rise for an hour, then work in with it two eggs which have been beaten up with as much hot milk as will make them new-milk-warm; knead the dough till it is soft and light. Let it rise half an hour longer, form it into small rolls, and bake these in a quick oven. Time to bake, about twenty minutes. No. 2.--Dissolve two ounces of fresh butter and a tea-spoonful of salt in a pint of hot milk. Stir in a pound of flour, and when the batter is lukewarm add a quarter of a pint of fresh yeast. Put the dough in a warm place, and let it rise till light. This will be in three or four hours. Work in half a pound of flour, and let the dough rise again for an hour or two. Dissolve half a tea-spoonful of soda in a table-spoonful of hot water, knead this into the dough, and form it into small rolls three inches long and one wide. Put these side by side in buttered baking-pans, let them rise before the fire for five or six minutes, prick them, and bake in a quick oven. Time to bake, fifteen or twenty minutes.
Two versions of the same soft enriched roll, one a quick straight dough and one a long-rise sponge method built around barm. The measurements are imperial, and the yeast quantities are the part that will not transfer directly.
- The yeast is the hinge"strong yeast" and "fresh yeast" here mean brewer's barm or compressed cake yeast, both weaker by volume than modern dried yeast, and barm variable in strength from batch to batch. A dessertspoon (2 teaspoons) in No. 1 and a quarter pint in No. 2 cannot be converted precisely; roughly 1 to 1.5 teaspoons of instant dried yeast in each is a reasonable starting point. Use the smaller amount and give the dough the full rising time rather than rushing it.
- Imperial liquid measuresCassell's pint is 20 fl oz, so the half pint of milk in No. 1 is about 10 fl oz (1¼ US cups) and the pint in No. 2 is 20 fl oz (2½ US cups). A pound of flour is about 3½ cups; No. 2 takes another half pound, so 1½ lb in total.
- A quick oven425-450F (220-230C). Rolls this small want the heat high so the crust sets before the crumb dries out.
- "New-milk-warm"Milk at about the temperature it leaves the cow, roughly blood heat (call it 98-100F). Warm the eggs into it but keep it below 110F so the yeast is not damaged.
- The soda in No. 2Barm ferments long and turns sour; the half teaspoon of soda is there to neutralise that acidity, not to leaven. With modern dried yeast and a shorter, cleaner rise it is unnecessary and will leave a soapy tang.
- Rising timesThe three or four hours given for No. 2 assumes a cool Victorian kitchen and sluggish barm. In a 70F room with modern yeast, expect the first rise in 1 to 1½ hours; judge by doubling in bulk, not by the clock.
- Pricking and pan spacingSetting the rolls side by side in the tin gives soft pull-apart sides. Pricking with a fork keeps large blisters from forming under the crust.
- YieldNeither version says. No. 1 gives about 10 to 12 small rolls; No. 2, with half again as much flour, gives 16 to 18 of the three-inch fingers described.
Cassell's gives no explanation for the name, and the connection to Geneva is loose at best: through the nineteenth century British cookery books are often said to have attached continental city names to enriched breads and rolls to signal a soft, buttery, faintly sweet crumb distinct from a plain baker's roll. What is genuinely period about both recipes is the yeast. No. 2 calls for a quarter of a pint of fresh yeast measured by volume, which points to barm skimmed from brewing, still common in households near a brewery and notoriously variable in strength and sourness; the corrective dose of soda kneaded in at the end is the standard Victorian fix for a barm dough that has gone acid over a long rise. No. 1, by contrast, calls for only a small quantity of "strong yeast" and a brisk two-stage rise.