Hot Cross Buns.—Take 1 qt. milk, 12 oz. butter, 12 oz. sugar, ½ oz. mixed spice, 2 eggs, 2 oz. German yeast, or ½ teacupful of good thick small-beer yeast, and 4 lb. flour. If to be made with currants, add 1 or 1½ lb. currants, clean washed, picked, and dried. Make the milk blood-warm; if the weather is cold, rather warmer; put it into a gallon pan, with half the sugar, 6 oz. of flour, the yeast and eggs; mix together, cover the pan, and put in a warm place. When this has risen with a high, frothy head, and again fallen and become nearly flat, it is ready for the remaining portion of the ingredients to be mixed with it; but while rising, the butter should be rubbed in with the flour between the hands, until reduced to small crumbles. Mix the whole together into a nice mellow dough. If the flour is not very good and strong, about 4-6 oz. more may be required to make the dough of the required consistence. Cover the pan; let remain in a warm place for about ½ hour, or until the dough has risen 4 in. Make into buns by moulding the dough up into small balls lightly under the hands, and place on warm tins, slightly rubbed over with butter, about 3-4 in. asunder. Half-prove, and cross; brush the tops over with milk, and finish proving; bake in a hot oven; when done, brush the tops over again with milk. The best method for proving is to put the tins on shelves in a warm cupboard near the fire. Place a pan with hot water at the bottom, but put no tin on the pan. Put a piece of heated iron or brick into the water in the pan occasionally, to cause a steam to ascend, which will keep the surface of the buns moist, when they will expand or prove to their full size, otherwise the surface will be hardened, and prevent expansion. Keep the cupboard door close shut until ready to bake.
Italian Bread.—Take 1 lb. butter, 1 lb. powdered loaf sugar, 18 oz. flour, 12 eggs, ½ lb. citron and lemon peel. Mix as for pound-cake. If the mixture begins to curdle, which is most likely from the quantity of eggs, add a little of the flour. When the eggs are all used, and it is light, stir in the remainder of the flour lightly. Bake in long, narrow tins, either papered or buttered; first put in a layer of the mixture, and cover with the peel cut in large thin slices; proceed in this way until ¾ full, and bake in a moderate oven.
Lemon Biscuits.—Prepare dough as for filbert biscuits, but leave out orange-flower water and use 6 drops essence of lemon; cut out, dock with lemon docker; bake in good steady heat.
Lemon Cheese Cake.—Prepare as for common cheese-cakes; grate rind of fresh lemon; squeeze the juice, and mix.
Lord Mayor’s Cake.—Whisk 1 lb. sifted loaf sugar and 8 eggs in a warm earthen pan for 15 minutes, or until quite thick; add a few caraway seeds and 1 lb. flour; mix lightly with a spoon, and drop on paper, about the size of a small teacup; place on iron plates; sift sugar or caraway seeds on top; bake in hot oven; when done, take off the papers, and stick two together.
Lunch or School Cake.—Mix ½ lb. moist sugar with 2 lb. flour; in a hole in the middle put 1 tablespoonful good thick yeast (not bitter); warm ½ pint milk rather more than blood warm, but not hot enough to scald the yeast; mix ⅓ with the yeast and a little of the flour; when it has risen (say ¾ hour if the yeast is good) melt ½ lb. butter in a little more milk; add 1½ lb. currants, a little candied peel, and grated rind of lemon, and 1 teaspoonful powdered allspice; mix; butter hoop or tin, put in, and set in warm place to rise; bake in warm oven. This cake should be mixed up rather softer than bread dough.
Macaroons.—Pound 1 lb. blanched and dried sweet almonds fine in a mortar; pass through wire sieve; make into softish batter, with whites of 5 or 6 eggs, and a spoonful or two of orange-flower water; beat well; lay on oval wafer-paper; dredge tops with powdered loaf sugar; bake in rather cool oven.
Madeira Cake.—Whisk 4 eggs very light, and, still whisking, throw in by slow degrees the following ingredients in the order named—6 oz. each sifted sugar and flour, 4 oz. butter, slightly dissolved but not heated, the rind of a fresh lemon, and ⅓ teaspoonful soda carbonate; beat well just before moulding; bake for 1 hour in moderate oven. Each portion of butter must be beaten into the mixture until no appearance of it remains, before the next is added.
Muffins.—These should be baked on a hot iron plate. To 1 peck flour add ¾ pint good small-beer yeast, 4 oz. of salt, and water (or milk) slightly warmed, sufficient to form a dough of rather soft consistency; when light, small portions of the dough are put into holes, made in a layer of flour about 2 in. thick, placed on a board; cover up with a blanket, and stand near a fire, to cause the dough to rise to a semi-globular shape; place on heated iron plate, and bake; when bottoms begin to acquire brownish colour, turn, and bake opposite side.