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Rice Cakes
Mrs. A. M. Gibbs.
One teacup of soft boiled rice, the yolk of one egg, a pinch of salt, two tablespoons of sifted flour, beaten well together; add sweet milk until it is about the consistency of sponge cake or thick cream, and just before baking stir in lightly the beaten white of the egg. The less flour used the better for invalids.
A very small batter of cooked rice bound with a single egg, thinned to pouring consistency. "Baking" here means the griddle, not the oven.
- Griddle, not ovenIn this period "baking" cakes of this kind most often meant cooking them on a hot greased griddle or spider over the fire, though the recipe never says so; the thin, pourable batter points that way. Work at a medium heat, around 375F on an electric griddle, and turn once when the surface sets and bubbles.
- A teacupA nineteenth-century teacup is smaller than a modern mug; it is usually reckoned at about 3/4 cup, or 6 fluid ounces, though the measure was never standardised. Measured as cooked rice, that is roughly 5 ounces by weight.
- Soft boiled riceThis means rice simmered well past al dente until the grains collapse, often in milk, so it will mash into the batter rather than sit in it as separate grains. Leftover rice pudding base or plain rice cooked with extra liquid both work; cold rice from the refrigerator will need mashing with a little warm milk first.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh unsoured milk, as distinct from the buttermilk or clabbered milk that a nineteenth-century kitchen also kept on hand. Whole milk is the right substitute.
- Consistency is the instructionThere is no fixed milk quantity because the rice governs it. Add milk until the batter falls from the spoon in a thick ribbon like sponge-cake batter; too stiff and the cakes stay pasty in the middle, too loose and they will not hold together on the turn.
- The beaten whiteFold it in at the last moment and cook immediately. Rice batter is heavy and the foam is the only leavening in the recipe; there is no soda or baking powder here.
- "Better for invalids"The note about less flour is dietary advice from sickroom cookery, not a texture instruction. With flour cut to a single tablespoon the cakes are frail and need careful handling on the griddle.
- YieldOne egg and a teacup of rice give about six small cakes, enough for one or two people. Scale up by whole eggs.
Rice cakes of this kind belong to the tradition of invalid cookery, a category that occupied whole chapters of Victorian household manuals: soft, bland, thinly leavened dishes built on rice, arrowroot, sago or milk toast, intended for the sick and for small children. The closing line about flour being reduced for invalids is the tell, and it reflects what was a common nineteenth-century view, that wheat flour was harder to digest than rice. The Home Cook Book, first published in Chicago in the 1870s and issued in Canada as a separate edition, was compiled from contributions by named local women, and the attribution to Mrs. A. M. Gibbs is typical of the format: these were working recipes handed over as they were actually cooked.