No. 3358

Sugar Cakes

Gateaux au Sucre

Make a ring with two pounds of flour; in the center place one pound of sugar, half a pound of butter, two eggs, four yolks, three-quarters of an ounce of salaratus, a quarter of an ounce of dissolved carbonate of ammonia, the peel of a lemon and a little milk; mix all well together to have a smooth paste; lay this aside in a stone crock, and just when ready to use roll it out very thin and cut it into rounds with a two and a half inch diameter channeled pastry cutter (Fig. 16), and from the center remove small pieces with a three-quarter of an inch diameter cutter. Range these rings on a buttered sheet, and bake in a hot oven.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A plain rolled cookie from Ranhofer's tea-cake chapter, leavened with two nineteenth-century chemical agents rather than one. The dough is stiff, and it wants a rest before rolling.

Roll thin, bake fastThis is the hinge. The rings are meant to be crisp, not soft, so the dough goes out very thin and into a genuinely hot oven. Thick rounds will puff on the ammonia and stay pale and cakey.
SaleratusSaleratus is the period name for potassium (later sodium) bicarbonate, essentially baking soda. Three-quarters of an ounce is about 21 g, roughly 4 to 5 teaspoons for two pounds of flour, which is heavy by modern standards and there is no acid in the dough to neutralise it. Cutting it back sharply, or using buttermilk or sour milk in place of the sweet milk, avoids a soapy alkaline aftertaste.
Carbonate of ammoniaBaker's ammonia, also sold as hartshorn or ammonium carbonate, is still available from baking suppliers and German or Scandinavian grocers. It works only in thin, dry goods, where the ammonia gas can escape completely during baking; the smell in the oven is normal and disappears as the cakes dry out.
"A hot oven"The book gives no temperatures. A hot oven is generally read as somewhere around 400F; at that heat thin rings need only a few minutes, until the edges just take colour.
The lemon peel"The peel of a lemon" means the yellow zest only, finely grated or chopped; the white pith is bitter. Rubbing the zest into the sugar with your fingers before mixing releases more of the oil.
The flour ring and the stone crockMixing in a well of flour on the board is the classic pastry method and translates directly to a bowl or a stand mixer. The crock is simply a cool, covered resting place; an hour or more in the refrigerator relaxes the dough and makes the thin rolling possible.
CuttersA 2 1/2-inch fluted cutter with a 3/4-inch cutter for the centre (the recipe does not say whether the small one is plain or channelled). Any doughnut-style pair works; re-roll the small centres rather than discarding them.
QuantityTwo pounds of flour is about seven cups and yields a very large batch, easily six to eight dozen rings. The proportions halve and quarter cleanly.
Butter and pans"Buttered sheet" predates modern silicone-coated parchment. Parchment gives more even bottoms and stops the sugary edges from sticking as they cool.

A Little History

Gâteaux au sucre sit in the tea-cake section of Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled from his years as chef of Delmonico's in New York. Tea cakes of this kind were the plain end of the pastry repertoire: no cream, no filling, and keeping well in a tin. Baker's ammonia was the older of the two agents, valued in thin biscuits and rusks because it left no residual salt and so no chemical taste, while saleratus was the cheaper household staple; commercial baking powder existed by this date, though here the components are dosed separately. The stone crock suggests a cool larder as the resting place.