2117. To Make Gingerbread Cake
Take one pound and a half of treacle; one and a half ounces of ground ginger; half an ounce of caraway seeds; two ounces of allspice; four ounces of orange peel, shred fine; half a pound of sweet butter; six ounces of blanched almonds; one pound of honey; and one and a half ounces of carbonate of soda; with as much fine flour as makes a dough of moderate consistence.
Directions for making.
Make a pit in five pounds of flour; then pour in the treacle, and all the other ingredients, creaming the butter; then mix them altogether into a dough; work it well; then put in three quarters of an ounce of tartaric acid, and put the dough into a buttered pan, and bake for two hours in a cool oven. To know when it is ready, plunge a fork into it, and if it comes out sticky, put the cake in the oven again; if not it is ready. This is a good and simple test, which may be resorted to in baking bread and all kinds of cakes.
2118. Pic-Nic Biscuits
Take two ounces of fresh butter, and well work it with a pound of flour. Mix thoroughly with it half a saltspoonful of pure carbonate of soda, two ounces of sugar; mingle thoroughly with the flour, make up the paste with spoonfuls of milk; it will require scarcely a quarter of a pint. Knead smooth, roll a quarter of an inch thick, cut in rounds about the size of the top of a small wineglass; roll these out thin, prick them well, lay them on lightly floured tins, and bake in a gentle oven until crisp. When cold put into dry canisters. Thin cream used instead of milk, in the mixture will enrich the biscuits. To obtain variety caraway seeds or ginger can be added at pleasure.
A Duel is Folly Playing at Murder.