2119. Ginger Biscuits and Cakes
Work into small crumbs three ounces of butter, two pounds of flour, and three ounces of powdered sugar and two of ginger, in fine powder; knead into a stiff paste, with new milk; roll thin, cut out with a cutter: bake in a slow oven until crisp through; keep of a pale colour. Additional sugar may be used when a sweeter biscuit is desired. For good ginger cakes, butter six ounces, sugar eight, for each pound of flour; wet the ingredients into a paste with eggs: a little lemon-peel grated will give an agreeable flavour.
2120. Sugar Biscuits
Cut the butter into the flour. Add the sugar and caraway seeds. Pour in the brandy, and then the milk. Lastly, put in the soda. Stir all well with a knife, and mix it thoroughly, till it becomes a lump of dough. Flour your pasteboard, and lay the dough on it. Knead it very well. Divide it into eight or ten pieces, and knead each piece separately. Then put them all together, and knead them very well into one lump. Cut the dough in half, and lay it out into sheets, about half an inch thick. Beat the sheets of dough very hard on both sides with the rolling pin. Cut them out into round cakes with the edge of a tumbler. Butter tins and lay the cakes on them. Bake them of a very pale brown. If done too much they will lose their taste. Let the oven be hotter at the top than at the bottom. These cakes kept in a stone jar, closely covered from the air, will continue perfectly good for several months.
2121. Lemon Sponge
For a quart mould—dissolve two ounces of isinglass in a pint and three quarters of water; strain it, and add three quarters of a pound of sifted loaf sugar, the juice of six lemons and the rind of one; boil the whole for a few minutes, strain it again, and let it stand till quite cold and just beginning to stiffen; then beat the whites of two eggs, and put them to it, and whisk till it is quite white; put it into a mould, which must be first wetted with cold water. Salad oil is much better than water for preparing the mould for turning out jelly, blancmange, &c., but great care must be taken not to pour the jelly into the mould till
quite cool
, or the oil will float on the top, and after it is turned out it must be carefully wiped over with a clean cloth. This plan only requires to be tried once to be invariably adopted.