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Flour Mixtures Continued: Cake: Cream
WAFER JUMBLES 1/2 cup of butter Grated yellow rind of 1 lemon 1/3 cup of sugar (granulated) or 1 egg beaten light (not sepa- 1 teaspoonful of vanilla extract rated) 1 1/4 cups of flour Cream the butter; gradually beat in the sugar, the egg, flavoring and flour. Drop with a teaspoon onto a buttered baking sheet or, preferably, turn the mixture into a pastry bag with star tube (half inch) attached and dispose on the baking sheets in rings or figures the shape of the letter S; dredge with granulated sugar and bake in a quick oven. These containing no liquid but egg, are rather rich and are for occasional not daily use. PEANUT MACAROONS The whites of 3 eggs 1 teaspoonful of flour 1/4 teaspoonful of cream of tartar 1 pint of peanuts (chopped to tartar a powder) 1 cup of granulated sugar Beat the whites of the eggs until foamy; add the cream of tartar and beat until dry, then gradually beat in half of the sugar and continue bearing until the whole is very light; then cut and fold in the other half of the sugar, the flour and the crushed nuts. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a tin, lined with a buttered paper, making smooth rounds. Sift granulated sugar on the top of each and bake on the floor of a quick oven from five to seven minutes. Meats from English walnuts or other nuts may take the plaze of the peanuts. A cherry or bit of firm fruit jelly pressed into the center of the top of each round is an improvement.
ALMOND CRISPS 1/2 cup of butter 1 teaspoonful of vanilla extract 1 cup of powdered sugar 1/4 teaspoonful of almond extract 2 eggs 2 tablespoonfuls of milk Blanched almonds, cut in halves 2 cups of flour Cream the butter and gradually beat in the sugar. Reserve the white of one egg to glaze the cakes. Beat the yolk of this egg and the other whole egg; add to the creamed ingredients with the milk, flour and flavoring. More flour may be needed. The dough must be stiff enough to hold its shape when baked. Take a little of the dough onto a floured board, turn it in the flour with a knife, then knead slightly and with the rolling pin roll into a thin sheet. With a French patty cutter stamp the dough into rounds and stamp each round with the same cutter again, to divide each into a crescent and an oval shaped cake. Set these on buttered baking pans. Press upon each three halves of almonds, then brush over with the white of egg, reserved for the purpose, and sprinkle the whole with granulated sugar. Bake in a quick oven to a pale straw color. ROLLED OATS, FRUIT - AND - NUT COOKIES 1/2 cup of butter 1/2 cup of raisins 1/2 cup of sugar 1/4 cup of chopped nuts 1 egg beaten light 1 cup of rolled oats 3 tablespoonfuls sweet milk 1 cup of flour 1/2 teaspoonful of soda Mix in the usual manner. Add more flour if needed to make a firm dough. Roll into a thin sheet and cut into rounds. Bake in a moderate oven. The recipe makes about thirty cookies.
Four small-batch cookie recipes from a book written for two-person households. The techniques are all standard creaming and meringue work; the vagueness is in oven heat and in a couple of vanished measures.
- "Quick oven"Read this as roughly 400-450F. The jumbles and almond crisps are thin and sugared and will want only a few minutes; the crisps are done at pale straw color, as the recipe says, and the jumbles should not be allowed to brown. "Moderate oven" for the oat cookies is around 350-375F.
- "On the floor of a quick oven"Coal and gas ranges of the period gave fierce bottom heat, which would have firmed the base of the rounds quickly. In a modern oven use the lowest rack, ideally over a preheated stone or heavy sheet.
- A pint of peanutsA dry volume measure of shelled nuts, roughly 10–12 oz, ground fine. Use roasted unsalted peanuts and pulse them with a spoonful of the sugar so they powder rather than turn to butter.
- French patty cutterA small round cutter, plain or fluted. Stamping a second, offset circle divides each round into a crescent and an oval, exactly as the recipe describes.
- Sweet milk and soda"Sweet milk" is ordinary fresh milk as opposed to sour or buttermilk. With no acid in the oat cookies, the half teaspoon of soda mainly promotes browning and spread; it will not lift much, and the dough stays firm as the recipe intends.
- "Cut and fold"In the macaroons the first half of the sugar is beaten in to build the meringue, the second half folded so the structure survives. Fold the flour and ground nuts in with the same restraint or the rounds spread flat.
- Dough consistencyThe almond crisps say "more flour may be needed," which is honest: flour of the period varied more in strength and absorption than modern bagged flour. Add flour a tablespoon at a time only until the dough rolls thin without tearing; overshooting gives a hard, dry cookie.
- YieldOnly the oat cookies give a number, about thirty. The other three are unstated, and the count will depend entirely on the size of the piped shapes, teaspoon drops and stamped rounds.
Cooking for Two belongs to a small genre of early twentieth-century American books scaled for couples and small households rather than large families with servants, and the cake chapter shows it in its modest quantities. Jumbles are among the oldest cookie names in English-language cookery, appearing in seventeenth-century receipt books as ring-shaped or knotted sweet biscuits — the "S" and ring shapes called for here preserve that older form, now piped from a bag rather than rolled by hand. The peanut macaroons are the more modern entry: macaroons had long meant almond, but peanuts were cheap and newly abundant in the American South by 1900, and this book makes the substitution while noting that walnuts or other nuts will serve. The author's aside that the jumbles are "for occasional not daily use" is characteristic of the era's domestic-science writing, which weighed richness as a matter of household economy and digestion alike.