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Faggots
3/4 lb. (3 cups) flour Flavor to taste 1/4 lb. (1/2 cup) butter 1 egg Milk 2 ozs. (4 tablespoonfuls) sugar Rub the butter into the flour, add the sugar and a flavor, to taste, of whatever spice may be liked best, or of grated orange or lemon peel.
If desired, no special flavoring need be used; or, in preference to those mentioned, a few sweet almonds finely grated with as much of a bitter one as will give an agreeable but not too pronounced a flavor, may be employed. Beat up the egg until light, and having thoroughly mixed the dry ingredients, work them to a suitable consistency with it, adding a small quantity of milk or part of another beaten egg if the dough is too dry. Turn the mass out on a sugared pastry board, roll out to a piece about one-half inch thick, divide this into strips about the thickness of two fingers and the length of one, and bake in a slow oven until nice and crisp.
Serve hot or cold with butter.
A plain rubbed-in sweet dough baked as crisp fingers — closer to shortbread sticks than to anything a modern cook would call pudding. Two things in the original need attention before you start: the almond flavouring and the oven.
- Skip the bitter almondBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the nut is crushed or chewed; their sale for culinary use is restricted in the United States and they are not something to source today. If you want that flavour, use a few drops of commercial almond extract or a spoonful of finely ground sweet almonds and leave the bitter one out entirely.
- A slow ovenTaken as somewhere around 300°F; these want the long dry heat rather than colour. Time will vary — start checking at about 30 minutes for half-inch strips; they should be pale gold and dry through, since the crispness comes from drying out, not browning.
- Weights over cupsWeigh if you can: 12 oz (340 g) flour, 4 oz (115 g) butter, 2 oz (55 g) sugar. Three level cups of modern all-purpose flour is nearer 12.75 oz, which will give a slightly drier dough than the stated weight.
- "Flavor to taste"The recipe leaves this open — pick one. A teaspoon of ground cinnamon, mixed spice or ginger, or the grated zest of one orange or lemon, all suit this quantity of dough.
- Butter temperatureRubbing in works with cool, firm butter cut into the flour until the mixture looks like coarse meal. Soft butter creams into the flour instead and gives a tougher, denser finger.
- HydrationOne egg is barely enough to bring 12 oz of flour together; add milk a teaspoon at a time until the dough just coheres. A wet dough spreads and loses the sharp edges that make these look like their namesake bundle of sticks.
- Sugared boardThe recipe has you roll out on sugar rather than flour, which leaves a faint sweet crust. Use granulated, not powdered.
- Size and yield"The thickness of two fingers and the length of one" is roughly 1.5 inches wide by 3 inches long. From this quantity expect somewhere around a dozen and a half fingers, depending on how thin you roll.
- ServingButter on a sweet biscuit reads oddly now, but these are dry and only lightly sugared; they behave like a rusk or a tea finger. Good with strong tea or coffee, and they keep a week in a tin.
A faggot is a bundle of sticks bound for the fire, and the name here is presumably descriptive: the dough is cut into short thick strips and baked until they look and snap like kindling. The same word attaches to a quite different British dish — the Midlands and Welsh faggot of minced pork offal and breadcrumbs wrapped in caul fat — and the two share nothing but the image of something bundled. This sweet version belongs to the large family of hard, keeping biscuits: cheap in butter and sugar, baked slow to drive off moisture, and stored in a tin against unexpected callers.