Savarin

What survives here is the ingredient list only — and, judging by the proportions, not even the full one. Flour, yeast, sugar and milk with no eggs, butter or salt is the ferment for a savarin, not the finished paste; the method and the enriching ingredients belong to lines that did not make it onto this page.

• Read it as a spongeHalf a pound of flour to a gill of milk and no fat or egg gives a soft ferment, left to rise and then beaten with eggs and butter to make the true savarin paste. Take this as the first stage of a longer procedure rather than a complete formula.
• GillIn a British book of this period a gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, 5 fl oz or about 140 ml. That is a little over half a US cup, not exactly half.
• German yeastFresh compressed baker's yeast. Half an ounce is 14 g; the equivalent is roughly 7 g active dry or 5 g instant. It should be creamed with the sugar and a spoonful of the milk, warmed to blood heat, before it meets the flour.
• Vienna flourA strong, finely dressed wheat flour associated with the Hungarian and Austrian roller-milling of the period and with Vienna bread. Modern strong white bread flour is the closest match; a soft plain flour is unlikely to carry the butter and eggs a savarin needs.
• Castor sugarSuperfine sugar. A quarter teaspoon is not for sweetness — it is simply there to start the yeast.
• Half a pound of flour227 g, enough for a savarin of a size to serve perhaps six to eight once soaked, though the page gives no mould size and no yield.
• The mould and the soakA savarin is baked in a plain ring mould so the syrup can reach the crumb from both faces, and is drenched with hot rum or kirsch syrup while still warm. A dry savarin is a failed one.
• OvenThe page gives no oven direction. Modern savarin practice is a fairly quick oven, around 400F/200C, so the ring colours and sets quickly.