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Cinnamon Cakes
Work well together two pounds of flour, one pound of sugar and one pound of butter; beat the yolks of three and the whites of six eggs with a little rosewater and make all into a dough, reserving only a small quantity of the eggs. Form the dough into cakes, brush them over with the egg, sprinkle over a little cinnamon, sugar and chopped blanched almonds. Butter some baking-sheets, lay the cakes on, and bake in a slow oven.
A plain rich shortbread-type dough of the old school: no leavening, no liquid but egg and rosewater, and a slow bake that dries the cakes rather than browning them. The proportions are given by weight, which makes it easy to scale down.
- Scale it downTwo pounds of flour, one pound each of sugar and butter is a bakery-sized batch — roughly seven cups of flour and enough dough for six to eight dozen small cakes. Quartering the recipe (8 oz flour, 4 oz sugar, 4 oz butter, one whole egg plus one white) gives a manageable tray or two.
- A slow ovenModern equivalents for a slow oven are usually given as somewhere between about 275F and 325F. The point is to set and dry the cakes without colouring them; small cakes are likely to need somewhere in the region of 20-30 minutes, and should still be pale when they come out.
- The egg proportion is deliberateThree yolks to six whites is a lean, drying egg mixture — the extra whites bind the dough and give a crisp rather than a short, crumbly cake. Do not substitute whole eggs and expect the same texture.
- Reserve the wash first"Reserving only a small quantity of the eggs" means holding back a spoonful or two of the beaten egg before it goes into the dough. Once the flour is in there is no getting it back out.
- RosewaterUse culinary rosewater from a Middle Eastern grocer, not cosmetic rose water. A teaspoon or so per pound of flour is plenty; strengths vary a good deal between brands, and too much tastes soapy.
- Working the doughWith no liquid beyond the eggs and the little rosewater this will look impossibly dry at first. Keep working it — the butter softens under the hands and brings it together. If it truly will not cohere, a teaspoon of cold water is safer than more egg.
- Blanched almondsAlmonds with the skins slipped off, then chopped fine. Slivered almonds from a packet are blanched and can stand in (sliced almonds are often sold natural, with the skin on), though the topping will be coarser.
- Baking sheetsButtering is what the period called for; parchment does the job better and stops the sugar topping from welding the cakes down. Cool them a minute on the sheet before moving, as they are fragile while hot.
Cinnamon cakes of this kind are a survival from the English and German baking of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when "cake" meant a small flat biscuit rather than a risen sponge, and when rosewater was the standard household flavouring — vanilla extract did not displace it in American kitchens until well into the nineteenth century. The formula here is essentially a 2:1:1 shortbread with a spiced and nutted top, a conservative piece of pastry work of the kind that fed a clientele still expecting the plain sweet biscuits of their grandmothers with tea.