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Spice Cakes
These are the French gateaux d'epice; they are made of the following ingredients:--Treacle, one pint, the very freshest butter, half a pound, powdered ginger, an ounce, powdered cinnamon, an ounce, powdered allspice, a quarter of an ounce, coriander-seeds and small cardamom-seeds pounded, each a quarter of an ounce, candied lemon-peel chopped very fine, two ounces, tincture of vanilla, six drops, flour, as much as necessary. These ingredients are to be thus manipulated: the treacle being set over the fire, the butter is to be added, and, successively, all the other ingredients, except the flour. Let them, when well mixed, take a single boil, stirring all the while, when set them to cool. When cold, mix in with a wooden spoon as much flour as will convert the whole into a pretty stiff paste. Butter a tin baking-dish, and lay on it with the spoon the paste in bits of the size and shape necessary to form the small cakes or nuts. Set the baking-dish in the oven. You may ascertain when these cakes are done by taking one out of the oven, and letting it cool. If, when cold, it is hard, they are done enough. These are considered the ne plus ultra of French gingerbread-nuts.
A stiff, spice-heavy treacle dough baked in small lumps -- closer to a hard gingerbread nut than to a cake. Two things are left to the cook: the quantity of flour and the oven, and both need judgement.
- Treacle, one pintAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, about 2.5 US cups; by weight that is roughly 1 lb 12 oz of black treacle or dark molasses. Golden syrup will give a paler, blander cake and is not what is meant here.
- The spice load is not a misprintAn ounce of ground ginger is about 4-5 tablespoons, and the same again of cinnamon. Against nearly two pounds of treacle and two pounds or so of flour this reads correctly for a gingerbread nut, which was expected to be fiercely aromatic.
- Coriander and cardamomPound the seeds fresh rather than using pre-ground powder; ground cardamom loses its aroma quickly. Use the small green pods and discard the husks, weighing only the seeds.
- Tincture of vanillaAn alcoholic extract of vanilla beans, essentially modern vanilla extract. Six drops in a batch this size is a background note, not a flavour.
- The single boilBring the treacle, butter and spices just to the boil and take it off; treacle scorches quickly and prolonged boiling will concentrate the syrup further than wanted. Stir constantly.
- Cool before flouringAdd the flour only once the mixture is cold, as the recipe directs, then work it in until the paste is stiff enough to hold a shape on the spoon; the quantity is not given, so judge it by feel.
- OvenNone is given. A moderate oven suits these; the small nuts will need only a short bake, and the recipe's own test -- take one out, let it cool, and see whether it is hard -- is the reliable guide.
- Yield and keepingThis is a large batch, several dozen small nuts. Gingerbread of this kind keeps well in a tin, though note that the recipe's own test of doneness is that a cake is hard once cold.
Gateaux d'epice belongs to a long French tradition of honey- and later treacle-sweetened spice breads, associated above all with Dijon and Reims and generally traced back to medieval spiced honey cakes of the kind found across northern Europe. By the nineteenth century the English gingerbread nut -- a small, hard, keeping cake -- was a familiar fairground and household-tin article. What marks this recipe as the French article rather than the ordinary British one is the spice cabinet -- coriander, cardamom and candied lemon peel alongside the expected ginger and cinnamon, plus a tincture of vanilla, which in this period was still a fairly costly flourish. The claim that these are the ne plus ultra of French gingerbread-nuts reflects the period habit of holding up French practice as the standard against which an English kitchen should measure itself.