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Transparent Dessert Cakes
Take a large cake (almost any kind will do), cut it into slices about the third of an inch thick, and stamp these into any fancy shapes, such as diamonds, squares, hearts, stars, rounds, etc. Spread a little good jam over them, having previously hollowed the surface a little to keep the jam from running over the sides. Boil half a pound of refined loaf sugar with half a pint of water to the second degree. When this point is reached, take it from the fire and set the bottom of the saucepan in a basin of cold water: as soon as the sugar begins to thicken beat it from the middle against the side of the pan for a minute or two, and add very gradually one-eighth of a pint of maraschino or Curacoa and two or three spoonfuls of clear syrup. Spread a little of this preparation over the jam upon the cakes, and as each cake is masked lay it on a drainer in a dish, and when this is full place it in an open screen for a few minutes to dry. In order to ascertain when the sugar has reached the second degree, skim it carefully, dip a perforated spoon into it, and blow the sugar off into the pan. When it has boiled long enough large bubbles will form on the holes of the skimmer (see directions under SUGAR BOILING).
This is a way of turning yesterday's cake into petits fours: stamped shapes, a dab of jam, and a liqueur-flavoured sugar glaze. Everything depends on getting the sugar to the right stage, and the book's numbered degree is less useful than the test it gives.
- The hinge: the "second degree"Ignore the number and trust the test described at the end \dperforated spoon, blow the sugar off into the pan, and look for large bubbles forming at the holes. That is the old "blow" or souffl\as somewhere between about 230F and 240F on a sugar thermometer. Boil past it and the glaze sets hard and cloudy; stop short and it will be slow to dry.
- Imperial measuresCassell's is a British book, so half a pint is 10 fl oz (about 1¼ US cups) and one-eighth of a pint is 2½ fl oz, about 5 tablespoons. Half a pound of sugar is a generous cup and a bit.
- Loaf sugarRefined loaf sugar was sold in cones and broken up for use; it was prized because it was clean and free of molasses. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the usual modern substitute.
- Beating from the middleCooling the pan base in cold water and then working the syrup against the side starts a fine, controlled crystallisation — the same principle as fondant. Do it for a minute or two only, until the syrup turns satiny and just opaque at the edges; keep going and it will set solid in the pan.
- Clear syrupA plain clarified stock syrup, sugar boiled with water and cooled; the proportions varied from book to book. Its job here is to loosen the glaze after the liqueur has been added so it spreads thinly rather than sitting in lumps.
- Maraschino or CuraçaoMaraschino or Curaçao -- Both are still made. Use a dry maraschino or a decent orange curaçao rather than the syrupy neon versions; the syrup is still hot enough to drive off some of the alcohol, but the flavour comes through strongly.
- The "open screen"A drying rack or screen set where warm air moves — beside the range, in Victorian practice. A wire rack in a barely warm oven with the door propped, or simply an hour in a dry room, does the same work of setting the glaze to a firm shell.
- Cake and jamA close-grained cake cuts and stamps cleanly; an open sponge crumbs at the edges. Chill or slightly stale cake is easier to handle. Warm the jam and sieve it so it spreads in a thin, even layer inside the hollowed surface.
- YieldA large cake sliced a third of an inch thick will give a couple of dozen or so small shapes, depending on the cutter, and this quantity of glaze should be ample for them.
Cassell's is writing in the tradition of French confectionery, where sugar boiling was taught as a ladder of numbered degrees — thread, pearl, blow, feather, crack — each identified by a hand test long before thermometers were common in domestic kitchens. The blowing test given here, forcing syrup through a skimmer to see whether it forms bubbles, appears in confectioners' manuals across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was considered reliable enough to stake a batch of sugar on. The dish itself belongs to the economical end of Victorian dessert-making: a large cake is cut down into small glazed fancies fit for a dessert service or a tea table, and the recipe opens by saying almost any kind will do. The two liqueurs named were the fashionable flavourings of the period — maraschino, a cherry-stone spirit generally traced to the Dalmatian coast around Zadar, and curaçao, the bitter-orange liqueur named for the Caribbean island whose oranges gave it its character.