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Victoria Buns
Beat two ounces of fresh butter to cream; add two ounces of powdered white sugar, an ounce and a half of ground rice, an ounce and a half of currants, a small piece of candied peel thinly sliced, a pinch of salt, and a well-beaten egg. Beat the mixture between every addition, and add as much flour as will make the dough firm and smooth. Divide it into eight portions, roll these into balls, place them on a buttered baking-tin, and bake them immediately in a brisk oven. If left to stand they will become heavy. Time to bake the buns, about half an hour. Probable cost, 3/4d. each.
A small, plain creamed-butter bun with no chemical leavening at all — the lift comes entirely from air beaten into the butter and egg, which is why the instruction to bake at once is not a formality.
- Bake immediatelyWith no baking powder or soda, the only rise available is the air whipped into the butter, sugar and egg. Have the tin buttered and the oven fully up to heat before you start mixing, and get the balls in within a minute or two of shaping.
- "A brisk oven"Brisk in Victorian usage is a hot oven, somewhere in the region of 400-450F. For buns this small that is hot enough to set the outside quickly; watch them rather than trusting the stated time.
- The half hour is longEight buns from this quantity are small, and in a brisk oven they may well be coloured and firm to a light press before the stated time. Watch them rather than baking the full half hour.
- Ground riceRice milled fine, close to the rice flour sold today in the baking or gluten-free aisle, though traditionally a shade coarser. It is there for a short, slightly sandy crumb, not for structure; do not swap it for cornflour or cornstarch, which behaves quite differently.
- Flour is left to your judgementThe original gives no quantity, only "as much as will make the dough firm and smooth." Expect somewhere around 4 to 5 oz of plain flour for this quantity of butter and egg. Stop as soon as the dough holds a ball without sticking; extra flour is what makes these buns tough.
- Candied peel"A small piece" is left to the cook; an ounce or less will do. Buy peel in whole caps or large pieces and slice it yourself if you can -- the pre-diced sort is usually drier and harsher.
- Powdered white sugarIn this period that means finely ground sugar, closest to modern caster sugar. Granulated will work but creams less readily; icing sugar will make the buns pale and short.
- YieldEight buns, best eaten the day they are made. Without leavening or much sugar they stale quickly.
Cassell's gives no clue why these are Victoria buns, and the name is often said to have been applied fairly loosely in nineteenth-century baking — Victoria sandwich, Victoria sponge, Victoria buns — as a general compliment to the reigning queen rather than a record of any particular royal connection. What distinguishes the recipe is its method: it is a creamed mixture, butter beaten to a cream and enriched step by step with beating between each addition, the same technique that produces the Victoria sponge. The lightness depends on that hand-creaming, and the warning that the buns "will become heavy" if left to stand is a plain statement of the limits of the method. The costing in farthings at the end is a standard feature of Cassell's, aimed at a household reader who was expected to know what her baking ought to come to per head.