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Brandy Snaps
Rub a quarter of a pound of butter into each pound of flour used, a half pound of moist sugar, a couple of ounces of ginger, a dessertspoonful of allspice, the grated peel of half a lemon, and the juice of a whole lemon, also beat in half a pound of molasses. Spread this paste thinly over some buttered baking-sheets, and bake lightly in a moderate oven. When cooked, cut into squares, and serve.
A scaled formula rather than a fixed recipe: everything is given per pound of flour, and the quantities assume a professional bakeshop. Working from 1 lb (about 3 1/2 cups) flour gives roughly three to four dozen squares.
- The hinge: spread thin, cut hotThese set hard as they cool, so the paste must go onto the sheet in a genuinely thin layer and the sheet must be scored into squares within a minute or two of leaving the oven. Once cold the slab shatters rather than cuts.
- Moderate oven350F. Molasses and brown sugar both scorch quickly at higher heat, and a thin sheet needs only 8-12 minutes; "bake lightly" means pull it when the surface looks dry and the edges have just darkened.
- Moist sugarNineteenth-century "moist sugar" is unrefined or partly refined brown sugar, still damp from the syrup. Light brown sugar, packed, is the modern equivalent.
- MolassesHalf a pound is about two-thirds to three-quarters of a cup. American molasses is broadly comparable to what Britain calls treacle; unsulphured mild molasses works, blackstrap will overwhelm the ginger and lemon.
- The ginger is ambiguousTwo ounces per pound of flour is something like two-thirds of a cup of ground ginger, which is extraordinary even by Victorian standards. The original may mean chopped preserved or root ginger; if using ground, start at 2-3 teaspoons and taste the raw paste.
- DessertspoonfulBetween a teaspoon and a tablespoon, conventionally two teaspoons. Allspice at that rate is reasonable.
- Rubbing inA quarter pound of butter to a pound of flour is a comparatively lean mixture. Rub the cold butter into the flour and spices first, then work in the molasses and lemon juice last, as the original directs; it is easiest spread with an offset spatula or a damp hand.
- No brandyDespite the name there is no spirit in the formula, and none is needed. If the paste seems too tight to spread, a spoonful of warm water or milk loosens it without changing the set.
- StorageThey stay crisp only in an airtight tin. Any humidity turns them leathery within a day.
Brandy snaps are an English confection, generally traced to the fairground and market-day gingerbread trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where thin spiced wafers were sold rolled into tubes around a stick or spoon handle. The name is a puzzle even in period sources: most printed versions, including this one, contain no brandy at all, and the usual explanation offered is that the biscuits were served alongside spirits or that early recipes used a splash to thin the paste. Oscar Tschirky's version is the flat, sheet-baked bakeshop form rather than the rolled cylinder. The heavy hand with ginger, allspice and molasses is characteristic of the older gingerbread tradition, in which spice was the point and sweetness came from unrefined sugar and treacle rather than white sugar.