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Almond Buns
2 ounces Five Roses flour 2 ounces cornstarch 2 ounces ground rice 2 ounces butter 3 ounces white sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon baking powder ¼ 1/4 teaspoon almond essence.
Cream butter and sugar, and beat in the eggs till quite smooth. Add dry ingredients and beat 5 minutes. Quite at the last add the baking powder and almond Bake in small fancy bun tins. essence.
A small-batch English-style bun, closer to a light cake than a yeasted roll. The original gives no oven temperature or baking time, and the last lines have been scrambled in typesetting — "Bake in small fancy bun tins" belongs at the end, after the almond essence.
- Weights, not volumesAll quantities are avoirdupois ounces by weight: 2 oz flour is about 55 g (a scant ½ cup), 3 oz sugar about 85 g (a scant ½ cup), 2 oz butter about 55 g (4 tablespoons). Weighing gives a far more reliable result than cup conversions here, since cornstarch and ground rice pack very differently.
- Ground riceThis is rice flour, sold today as white rice flour in the baking or gluten-free aisle. Old "ground rice" was slightly coarser than modern rice flour; either works, and it is what gives these buns their characteristic short, sandy crumb.
- Almond essenceA quarter teaspoon of almond extract, and there is no need to increase it; the modern product is potent. There are no actual almonds in the recipe; the flavour is entirely from the extract.
- OvenNone is specified. A moderate oven in the region of 375°F for roughly 15 to 18 minutes suits small rich buns of this type; bake until springy in the centre and just colouring at the edges. They dry out quickly if pushed further.
- The five-minute beatingBeating the batter for five minutes was written for hand work and develops the eggs into a light, fine-grained batter. With a stand mixer, two to three minutes on medium is ample; longer will not help, and the mixture may break.
- Baking powder lastThe instruction to add the baking powder "quite at the last" is deliberate. After a long beating the leavening would otherwise be spent before the pans reached the oven. Fold it in briefly and bake immediately.
- Tins and yield"Small fancy bun tins" means shallow fluted or patterned moulds. This is a small quantity of batter and will make a dozen or so little buns; a standard muffin tin can stand in, though the buns will be taller and will need longer in the oven.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company and distributed in connection with the sale of Five Roses flour — a promotional cookbook, built largely from recipes submitted by Canadian housewives, which is why the flour is named by brand in the ingredient lists. The word "bun" at this period covered both yeast-raised rolls and small chemically leavened cakes of this sort, baked in patterned tins for tea. The combination of wheat flour, cornstarch and ground rice belongs to a nineteenth-century British habit of cutting wheat flour with starches for a tender, close crumb, before soft cake flours were widely sold.