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SPANISH BUNS (another way)
Rub half a pound of fresh butter into a pound of flour. Add a pinch of salt, three-quarters of a pound of powdered sugar, a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon, and the eighth of a nutmeg, grated. Beat four eggs thoroughly, and work them into the mixture with two table-spoonfuls of rose-water and as much milk as will form a thick batter. Knead into this a quarter of a pint of yeast, cover the bowl, and leave the dough on the hearth all night. The next morning knead it again, and let it rise a second time. Butter some shallow tins, fill them three-parts full, and bake the buns in a moderate oven. When done enough, let them get cold, sift powdered sugar upon them, and with a sharp knife cut them into squares of a suitable size.
A rich overnight yeast batter, closer to a sheet cake than a bun — it is baked in shallow tins and cut into squares once cold. Two things decide the outcome: the yeast substitution and the sugar load.
- The yeast is the main translation problemA quarter of a pint of yeast means liquid brewer's yeast or barm — about 5 fl oz of active foam, not dried granules. Roughly one 7 g sachet (2¼ tsp) of instant yeast is a workable substitute; because the barm also supplied liquid, add extra milk as needed to reach the "thick batter" the recipe asks for.
- Sugar slows the riseThree-quarters of a pound of sugar to a pound of flour is a heavy osmotic load on yeast; the overnight ferment in the original is not optional slowness but necessity. At around 70-75F the first rise may take most of the night and the second an hour or two; do not judge readiness by doubling — this dough puffs rather than doubles.
- Powdered sugarIn Victorian usage this is sugar ground fine, equivalent to caster sugar, not modern confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch. Caster sugar for the batter; icing sugar is fine for the dusting at the end, where it is only decoration.
- "On the hearth all night"A warm spot beside a banked fire, roughly 70-80F. An oven with only the light on, or a turned-off oven with a bowl of hot water, does the same job. Much warmer and the butter-heavy dough will slacken and weep.
- Moderate ovenConventionally taken as about 350F, though the recipe gives no temperature. Shallow tins filled three-parts full are likely to take roughly 25-35 minutes; the surface browns before the centre sets, so test with a skewer rather than by colour.
- Rose-waterTwo tablespoons of modern distilled rose water is assertive but correct for the period. If yours is a concentrated flavouring rather than a distillate, use a fraction of that amount.
- Rubbing in half a pound of butterUse cool butter and rub it to fine crumbs before the eggs go in, as with pastry. Melted or creamed butter here gives a greasier, denser crumb.
- YieldA pound of flour with this enrichment will fill roughly two 8-inch square tins and cut into something like 24 to 32 squares, depending on tin size and depth. Cut only when completely cold — warm, the crumb tears.
Spanish buns appear in English and American cookery books from at least the early nineteenth century and have very little to do with Spain; the name is often said to reflect a fashion for attaching foreign labels to enriched, spiced sweet doughs, in the same spirit as "Portugal cakes" and "French rolls", though that is tradition rather than documented etymology. What marks the recipe as belonging to an older tradition is the method: sugar, spice, eggs and butter are carried by a yeast batter left overnight, the technique used for cakes before chemical leavening became widely reliable in the middle of the nineteenth century. Rose-water, nutmeg and cinnamon are the standard aromatics of that earlier baking. The instruction to bake in shallow tins and cut the result into squares is a reminder that a "bun" in this period could be a portion cut from a slab rather than a shaped individual roll.