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Rout Biscuits
Three pounds of flour, six ounces of butter, one pound and a quarter of loaf sugar in powder, half a pint of milk, quarter of an ounce of volatile salts finely powdered, and a little essence of lemon. Put the sugar and volatile salts in the milk, and let them stand for an hour or two, stirring them occasionally.
Another method. One pound of sugar, a teacupful of milk or water, four ounces of butter, and half an ounce of volatile salts. Put the sugar and milk in a clean saucepan over the fire, let them boil up, and see if all the sugar is dissolved; if not, give it another boil or two, and set it aside to cool. It will be ready for use when cold. Rub the butter in with the flour, make a hollow, pour in the sugar, and make the whole into a dough of a moderate stiffness. In the last method, the volatile salts should be pounded and mixed with the sugar, and sufficient flour should be used to make them of a proper consistency, keeping the dough in a loose state until it is nearly of the size required; then work it together; take a part of the dough, mould it in a square piece, and lay it over the impressions or figures carved in a block of wood, and press it in; keep your hand firm on it, that it may retain its place; have a thin knife which is made for this purpose, called a toy knife, rub it over a damp cloth, or pass it through flour; lay it flat on the block, and cut off the superfluous dough; take the biscuits out and place them on tins slightly buttered, so as not to touch each other; wash them over lightly with milk, and bake them in a very hot oven. This mixture is the best for those who are not expert in pastry cutting. When made according to the first recipe, the dough is apt to get tough if worked or moulded too much--an error to which the inexperienced are very prone.
A Regency-era party biscuit, aerated with baker's ammonia rather than baking powder and stamped out on a carved wooden block. Two mixtures are given: the first is the classic, the second a more forgiving dough for anyone new to stamped work.
- Volatile saltsThis is baker's ammonia — ammonium carbonate or bicarbonate, sold as hartshorn and still used for thin Northern European biscuits. It works only in dry, thin doughs where the ammonia gas can bake out completely; in a thick or soft cookie it leaves a sharp smell and taste. The raw powder smells fiercely of ammonia, which is normal, and it should be dissolved or ground fine so no grain remains.
- QuantitiesA quarter of an ounce is about 7 g of volatile salts to 3 lb (1.35 kg) of flour; the second mixture uses half an ounce, roughly 14 g. The second recipe does not state a flour quantity — only that 'sufficient flour should be used' — so the exact ratio cannot be fixed, though it is likely the stronger of the two; keep those biscuits thin.
- Loaf sugar in powderLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a hard cone and scraped or pounded down as needed. Caster or superfine sugar is the direct equivalent; granulated will leave the dough gritty and the surface pitted.
- A very hot ovenUsually read as somewhere around 425-450F (220-230C). Rout biscuits are small and thin and want a short, brisk bake, so the ammonia drives off and the biscuit dries rather than colours deeply; watch them rather than trusting a fixed time.
- Half a pint, a teacupfulAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 285 ml. A teacupful in Victorian recipes is usually reckoned at about a quarter-pint, some 5 fl oz or 140 ml, though usage varies; treat it as approximate and add the last of it only as needed to reach a stiff dough.
- The block and the toy knifeThe carved wooden block is a shallow mould of the springerle or speculaas type, and the toy knife a thin blade for shearing the surplus dough flush with it. Modern cookie stamps or a springerle board do the same job; failing that, roll the dough thin and cut it plain.
- Do not overwork itThe warning at the end is the hinge of the whole recipe. This is a sugar-heavy, low-fat dough that turns leathery with handling, so bring it together with as few strokes as possible and keep it loose until it is nearly the size you want, exactly as directed.
- YieldThree pounds of flour will give something on the order of 150 small biscuits. Quartering the first mixture — 12 oz flour, 1.5 oz butter, 5 oz sugar, about 70 ml milk and a scant 2 g volatile salts — gives a manageable batch.
Rout cakes and rout biscuits take their name from the rout, the crowded evening reception that dominated fashionable Georgian and Regency entertaining, where guests circulated rather than sat down to dinner and the food had to be small, dry and eaten standing with a glass of wine. Recipes for them appear in English household books from the early nineteenth century onward, and by the time Cassell's compiled this entry the rout itself is generally said to have been giving way to the at-home and the ball supper, leaving the biscuit behind as a fancy dessert or tea-table item. The carved block and toy knife belong to a period when confectioners were expected to turn out ornamental work in quantity by hand; the fact that Cassell's supplies a second, easier mixture for those "not expert in pastry cutting" is a fair sign of the book's audience \— households with ambitions to confectionery but no confectioner.