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Cinnamon Cakes (Pound butter pounds flour)
1 pound butter. 2 pounds flour. 1 pound sugar.
Six eggs, leaving out two yolks, which you will beat up with a little rose water, and, with a feather, spread on the cakes; then strew cinnamon and sugar on them, and blanched almonds. Lay them on tins, and bake them in a slow oven.--Mrs. I.H.
A pound-cake ratio worked stiff enough to cut and lay on tins — closer to a rich cinnamon shortbread than anything resembling a cake in the modern sense. Two points decide whether it works: reading the egg instruction correctly, and keeping the oven low.
- The egg arithmetic"Six eggs, leaving out two yolks" means six eggs go into the dough with two of the yolks held back; those two reserved yolks, thinned with rose water, become the glaze. So the dough gets six whites and four yolks.
- Slow oven"slow" in period usage is usually taken to mean somewhere around 300-325F. The low heat matters because a sugar-and-cinnamon topping colours faster than a thick, butter-heavy dough sets. The recipe gives neither thickness nor timing, so watch the cakes and take them out when the edges are just colouring.
- No leavening at allThere is no saleratus, no baking powder, no yeast. The recipe gives no mixing method either, so do not expect a risen crumb; whatever lightness there is comes from the butter, sugar and eggs alone.
- "Lay them on tins"The cakes are shaped and set out on flat tins; the recipe does not say whether they are rolled and cut or simply formed by hand. Whichever you choose, chill the dough firm first — a pound of butter to two pounds of flour goes slack fast in a warm kitchen.
- Rose waterStill sold, usually in Middle Eastern and Indian groceries. Strength varies a great deal between brands, so start with a teaspoon or two beaten into the yolks; too much turns the glaze soapy.
- With a featherFeathers were commonly used for brushing on glazes and basting. Any soft brush does the same job; the point is a thin even film so the cinnamon and sugar have something to grip.
- Blanched almondsAlmonds sold blanched today are ready to use. Slice or sliver them and press them lightly into the wet glaze, or they will slide off in the oven.
- Scale it downAs written this is roughly four and a half pounds of dough. The recipe never says how big the cakes should be, so the yield is open — but it is a great deal either way. A quarter batch (4 oz butter, 8 oz flour, 4 oz sugar, one large egg plus a yolk for the wash) is a sensible test.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree, was assembled from contributions by some 250 Virginia housekeepers, which is why so many of its receipts end with a set of initials rather than a byline. The recipe itself is older than the book: measuring by the pound, with no chemical leavening and flavour carried by rose water and whole spice, is eighteenth-century English practice. Rose water was the standard sweet flavouring in Anglo-American baking long before vanilla extract became cheap and widely available in the later nineteenth century, and its survival here — alongside cinnamon and blanched almonds, both once costly imports — points to a kitchen tradition older than the printed collection that carried it.