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Ginger Balls No. 1
4 egg yolks beaten light (with part of sugar). 1/2 cup butter. 1 cup sugar. 1/2 cup sweet milk. 2 1/4 cups flour with one heaping teaspoon of baking powder. 2 tablespoons sherry wine. 2 teaspoons cinnamon. 1 light cup of crystallized ginger and raisins chopped fine.
Bake in well buttered gem rings.
A rich yolk-only cake batter baked in small tins, closer to a spiced tea cake than a cookie despite the name. The original gives ingredients and one line of instruction, so the method has to be inferred.
- Gem ringsGem pans are heavy cast-iron trays of small round or oval cups, the ancestor of the muffin tin. A standard 12-cup muffin pan, well buttered, is the direct substitute; fill each cup about two-thirds.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given anywhere in the recipe. For small cakes of this richness, around 350F is a reasonable modern reading, with 18 to 22 minutes until a tester comes out clean.
- Assembly orderNone is stated. Cream the butter with the remaining sugar, beat in the yolks that were whipped with their share of sugar, then add the milk and sherry alternately with the flour, baking powder and cinnamon, and fold in the fruit last.
- Sweet milkPlain whole milk. The term exists only to distinguish it from sour milk or buttermilk, which would have called for soda instead of baking powder.
- Flouring the fruitA cup of finely chopped crystallized ginger and raisins is heavy and sticky. Toss it with a spoonful of the measured flour before folding it in, or it will sink to the bottom of each cup.
- SaltNone is listed, which is common in period cake recipes where the butter was salted. If using unsalted butter, add a quarter teaspoon.
- The sherryTwo tablespoons is a flavouring, not a leavening or a liquid of consequence. Sweet or medium sherry suits the ginger; some alcohol will remain after baking, and apple juice with a splash of vanilla works if it must be omitted.
- YieldPerhaps 18 small cakes, depending on the size of the cups. They keep several days in a tin.
Crystallized ginger of the sort this recipe leans on was an imported item, sold by the pound from grocers' jars and treated as a small luxury rather than a staple. That it is paired here with raisins, cinnamon and a spoonful of sherry places the cake in a long Anglo-American line of "rich" small cakes baked in gem pans — a format that spread as cast-iron gem irons became common household goods in the later nineteenth century. Yolk-only formulas of this kind were often set alongside recipes that used up the whites.