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Russian Cakes
Make a batter by whisking together the yolks of five eggs and a quarter of a pound of powdered sugar. Add gradually three ounces of dried flour, two ounces of blanched and pounded almonds, a salt-spoonful of aniseed, and, lastly, the whites of the eggs beaten to a firm froth. Bake the batter in strong paper cases nearly a foot long and a quarter of a foot wide and deep. When they are sufficiently baked, let them get cold, then cut them into thin slices, and put them again into the oven till they are crisp.
A twice-baked almond and aniseed biscuit in the biscotti and rusk family. The original gives no oven temperature, no timings and no yield, so the numbers below are the ones worth fixing before you start.
- The paper casesA quarter of a foot is three inches, so the mould is roughly 12 x 3 x 3 inches — a deep, narrow loaf. A small loaf tin lined with parchment, or a parchment case built around a folded cardboard former, does the same job. "Strong" paper mattered because the batter is loose and unsupported.
- Powdered sugarIn Victorian usage this is sugar pounded and sifted fine at home, closest to modern caster or superfine sugar, not icing sugar with its cornflour. A quarter pound is 4 oz, about half a cup plus a spoonful.
- Dried flourFlour was spread in a warm oven or before the fire to drive off damp before weighing and sifting. Modern flour is stored dry; simply sift 3 oz (about two-thirds of a cup) and fold it in.
- Salt-spoonful of aniseedA saltspoon is usually reckoned at roughly a quarter teaspoon. Whole aniseed is intended; bruising the seeds lightly in a mortar releases more flavour.
- AlmondsTwo ounces of blanched almonds pounded to a coarse meal, not the smooth paste "pounded" sometimes implies. Pulse in a processor with a spoonful of the weighed sugar to stop them oiling.
- The hinge: foldingThere is no chemical raising agent here. The whisked yolks and sugar plus the firm whites are the entire lift, so fold the whites in three additions with a large spoon and stop the moment no white streaks remain.
- Oven temperaturesThe original specifies neither heat nor time, and never uses the words 'moderate' or 'slow oven'. As a modern starting point, bake the loaf around 350F until a skewer comes out clean, then dry the slices at a low heat, judging them by dryness rather than by the clock.
- Cooling before slicingCold is the minimum; a day wrapped at room temperature is better. A warm loaf shreds under the knife. Use a long serrated blade and cut slices about a quarter inch thick.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives no yield, and it speaks of 'cases' in the plural, so the batter may have been divided. From a single 12-inch loaf cut a quarter inch thick you would get up to about forty slices. Once fully dried they keep several weeks in a tin, which is the whole point of a twice-baked biscuit.
Twice-baked biscuits of this kind are found widely in Europe — the Italian biscotti, the German Zwieback, the Baltic and Russian rusks or sukhari — and all of them exist because a loaf baked once, sliced, then dried out again will keep for weeks without going stale or mouldy. Anise was a common spice in northern European keeping-cakes and holiday baking. Names like "Russian Cakes" in Victorian dictionaries of cookery should be treated loosely: British cookbooks of the period often attached national labels to sweet things on the strength of a single characteristic ingredient or a fashion for the country, and such compilations generally drew on many earlier sources rather than reporting from a kitchen in the named country. The recipe does show something of the household economy behind rusks, in that the batter is baked in a home-made paper case rather than a tin.