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English Buns
One-quarter pound flour, two ounces butter, two ounces sugar, two egg yolks, the white of one egg, one ounce candied lemon peel, half gill hot milk, half saltspoon powdered nutmeg and two saltspoons carbonate of soda. Place the flour and butter in a bowl, work it well with a wooden spoon, add the sugar, nutmeg, lemon peel and one saltspoon salt. Pour in the hot milk and mix it lightly for two minutes. Beat the yolks and the whites of the eggs together, then add them to the preparation. Mix lightly, and when well thickened add the carbonate of soda, gently mixing for two minutes. Pour the preparation into a lightly buttered tin. Place in a slow oven for twenty-five minutes. Remove, let cool off, then cut into six even pieces and serve on a dish with a napkin.
A small, rich, chemically leavened cake baked in a tin and cut into portions rather than the yeasted rolls the name suggests. The quantities are tiny by modern standards, and the soda is the thing to watch.
- The measures in modern termsA quarter pound of flour is about 1 cup (115 g); two ounces of butter is 4 tablespoons, two ounces of sugar a scant 1/4 cup plus a tablespoon. Half a gill is 1/4 cup (2 fl oz) of milk.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So the nutmeg is a pinch, the salt 1/4 teaspoon, and the soda a full 1/2 teaspoon.
- Carbonate of sodaBaking soda. Half a teaspoon to a single cup of flour is heavy-handed, and there is no acid in the batter to neutralise it — no buttermilk, no cream of tartar, no molasses. Expect a soapy, faintly metallic edge and a yellowish crumb unless you cut it back to about a quarter teaspoon or swap in a teaspoon of baking powder.
- Slow ovenPeriod usage puts a slow oven somewhere around 275–325°F; 300°F is the usual modern reading. At that temperature a shallow batter will take the full twenty-five minutes and may want a few more; 325°F gives a better colour on something this small. Test with a skewer rather than trusting the clock.
- The tinThis is a small quantity, roughly a cup and a half of batter; it suits a 6-inch square or a small loaf tin and will sit well under an inch deep. Anything larger and you get a dry wafer.
- Hot milk into flour and butterThe hot milk scalds the flour and butter mixture, which is likely to give a closer, more scone-like crumb than a creamed batter. Have the eggs beaten and ready, and work quickly so the mixture is still warm when they go in but not hot enough to scramble them.
- Candied lemon peelOne ounce is about 2 to 3 tablespoons chopped; chop it fine so it distributes through so small a batter.
- Yield and servingSix pieces. Serving on a dish with a napkin is a presentation convention of the period; the folded cloth is usually explained as absorbing steam and keeping the pieces from sliding.
Alexander Filippini's International Cook Book (1906) sets out a very large collection of dishes for an American audience, many of them carrying national labels in their titles, and "English Buns" here is less a bun than an English tea cake done the quick way. A true bun in England — the Bath bun, the hot cross bun, the Chelsea bun — is a yeasted, enriched dough, and long had been; what Filippini gives is a soda-raised batter baked in a tin and cut into squares, the sort of shortcut that spread after chemical leaveners became cheap and reliable in the second half of the nineteenth century. Candied lemon peel and grated nutmeg are common seasonings in English baking of that era, and they are doing most of the work of making this dish read as English at all.