The complete servant / Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables

by servant Samuel Adams; Sarah Adams

17. BANBURY CAKES.

Take a pound of dough made for white bread, roll it out, and put bits of butter upon the same as for puff paste, till a pound of the same has been worked in; roll it out very thin, then cut it into bits of an oval size, according as the cakes are wanted. Mix some good moist sugar with a little brandy, sufficient to wet it, then mix some clean washed currants with the former, put a little upon each bit of paste, close them up, and put the side that is closed next the tin they are to be baked upon. Lay them separate, and bake them moderately, and afterwards, when taken out, sift sugar over them. Some candied peel may be added, or a few drops of the essence of lemon.

18. ALMOND CAKES.

Take six ounces of sweet almonds, half a pound of powdered sugar, seven eggs, six ounces of flour, and the raspings of four lemons. Pound the almonds very fine, with whole eggs, add the sugar and lemon raspings, and mix them well together in the mortar. Take it out, put it in a basin and stir it with the yolks of eggs, till it is as white as a sponge paste; beat up the whites of the eggs to a strong snow, mix them very light with the paste, then take the flour and mix it as light as possible; on this the goodness of the paste principally depends, as it is impossible to make a good cake with a heavy paste; butter the mould and bake in a slack oven for an hour, with ten sheets of paper under it and one on the top.

19. PLAIN GINGERBREAD.

Mix three pounds of flour with four ounces of moist sugar, half an ounce of powdered ginger, and one pound and a quarter of warm treacle; melt half a pound of fresh butter in it; put it to the flour and make it a paste; then form it into nuts or cakes, or bake it in one cake.

20. Another Method.

Mix six pounds of flour with two ounces of caraway seeds, two ounces of ground ginger, two ounces of candied orange peel, the same of candied lemon peel cut in pieces, a little salt, six ounces of moist sugar; melt one pound of fresh butter in about half a pint of milk, pour it by degrees into four pounds of treacle, stir it well together, and add it, a little at a time, to the flour; mix it thoroughly, and make it into a paste; roll it out rather thin, and cut into cakes with the top of a dredger or wine glass; put them on floured tins, and bake them in rather a brisk oven.

21. CREAM CAKES.

Beat the whites of nine eggs to a stiff froth, stir it gently with a spoon lest the froth should fall, and to every white of an egg grate the rinds of two lemons; shake in gently a spoonful of double refined sugar sifted fine, lay a wet sheet of paper on a tin, and with a spoon drop the froth in little lumps on it near each other. Sift a good quantity of sugar over them, set them in the oven after the bread is out, and close up the mouth of it, which will occasion the froth to rise. As soon as they are coloured they will be sufficiently baked; lay them by two bottoms together on a sieve, and dry them in a cool oven.