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Vermont Biscuits
Rub six ounces of loaf sugar upon the rind of half a small fresh lemon until the yellow part has been rubbed off, then crush the sugar to powder, and mix with it five ounces of fine flour and the well-whisked yolks of three eggs. Put the mixture into a copper saucepan, and beat it briskly over a very gentle fire until smooth and thick, something like cream, then add the whites of the eggs, which have been beaten to a firm froth. Drop small portions from the end of a spoon upon waxed baking-sheets, and then put them into a cool oven. When they are firm and lightly browned they are done enough. Probable cost, 6d. for this quantity.
This is a lemon sponge drop in the ladyfinger family, and the whole thing turns on temperature control: the yolk-sugar-flour paste is warmed only until it thickens, never until it sets.
- Weigh, don't measureSix ounces sugar to five ounces flour is a weight ratio, and the biscuits fail if it drifts. That is roughly 170 g sugar and 140 g flour.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a hard cone and broken off as needed. Its point here is that the hard lump can be scrubbed against the lemon rind to strip the zest and oil. Use sugar cubes for the rubbing, or simply zest the lemon finely into granulated sugar and rub the two together with your fingers.
- The copper saucepanCopper pans were valued for even, responsive heat, though the recipe itself gives no reason for specifying one; Victorian kitchen copper was usually tin-lined. Since acid and sugar are involved, use a heavy stainless pan, or better, a bowl set over barely simmering water, which makes the "very gentle fire" impossible to overshoot.
- The hinge: warm, do not cookBeat constantly and take the mixture off the heat the moment it thickens to the consistency of cream. Yolks begin to set around 150F; a few seconds too long and you have sweet scrambled egg that no amount of whisked white will rescue.
- Folding the whitesAdd the firmly whisked whites to the warm base and fold them in gently and quickly. This is the only leavening in the recipe, so lost air means flat, hard biscuits.
- Waxed baking-sheets'Waxed' here most likely means the tins were rubbed with wax to stop the sugar gripping. Parchment paper does the same job with less trouble.
- A cool ovenIn modern terms, roughly 275-300F, though the recipe gives no temperature. These are meant to dry out and set pale, with only the faintest colour; a hotter oven browns the sugar before the centres are firm.
- Yield and keepingExpect roughly two to three dozen biscuits from these quantities, depending on the size of the spoonfuls. They crisp as they cool and keep a week in a tin, but go soft quickly in a damp kitchen.
The name is a puzzle worth flagging rather than solving: nothing in the method is American, and the biscuit is a straightforward member of the European sponge-drop family that runs from Naples biscuits and biscuits a la cuiller to the modern ladyfinger. Victorian cookery dictionaries collected such names freely, sometimes from a household, a shop or a mangled French original, and Cassell's rarely explains where a title came from. What the recipe does show clearly is a method that uses no chemical leavening at all: the entire rise comes from egg whites beaten to a firm froth and from warming the yolk paste, a technique that demanded real skill at the fire. The costing in pence at the end was a standard feature of Cassell's, aimed at the domestic cook rather than at a professional kitchen.