Naples Biscuits.—Take 6 oz. each moist and loaf sugar, ¼ pint water; proceed as for diet cake, with 6 eggs and ¾ lb. flour; have tins papered: fill nearly full of the batter; sugar the tops; bake in rather slow oven. These biscuits are diet-bread batter, fancifully dropped into tins, papered with white paper, and baked in a warm oven, with a little sugar sifted over the top.
Oatmeal Cakes.—These are composed of oatmeal and water; and the difficulties lie, first, in wetting, with sufficient quickness, the whole of the meal, without drenching any portion of it; secondly, in properly kneading and rolling out the cakes with dexterity and despatch; and, finally, in turning them while baking, or “firing.” They are sometimes baked on a “girdle” or “griddle”—a flat piece of cast iron, placed over a bright fire; sometimes on a “toaster,” which is similar to a hanger, with a sliding back, which supports the cake in front of the fire; and sometimes in an American oven.
The process of making is as follows:—Put 2 or 3 handfuls of meal into a 3 pint basin; stir while pouring in boiling water; when all is moistened, having scattered a handful of dry meal over the paste-board, turn out the “leaven” with a spoon or your hand, dusted with meal; take a piece, according to the size of cake required, and knead out, using the rolling-pin if wanted thin; shape with a knife or tin cutter 4-5 in. in diameter. As oatmeal swells and dries very rapidly, to have cakes that will stick together, and, at the same time, eat short or “free,” this process cannot be done too expeditiously. Each of the three modes of baking gives a different flavour. For toasting let the cakes be 10 or 12 in. in diameter, nip up the edge all round, and cut them across twice, which makes a square edge for them to stand on. In this form they are called “farls.” For turning, use a broad, supple knife, or a piece of tin plate. A little butter melted in the water is an improvement.
Parkin.—(a) 4 lb. oatmeal, 4 lb. treacle, 1 lb. sugar, 1 lb. butter, 2 oz. powdered ginger. Set a pan before the fire with the treacle and butter in it. When dissolved, add the other ingredients, and stir it as stiff as you can with a knife, but do not knead it. Add 1 teacupful brandy (if liked), and bake it in a cool oven in dripping pans or flat dishes about 2 in. thick. Do not turn it out till quite cold, or it will break, but cut it across with a knife where you would like it divided. It must be baked in a cool oven. Some people make it in round cakes. (b) 1 lb. Yorkshire oatmeal, 1 lb. thick treacle (not golden syrup), ¼ lb. butter, ¼ lb. moist sugar, mixed spice and ginger to taste. Rub the butter into the meal with the sugar and spice, then add the treacle (melted, if too thick), mix all well together, and bake in flat tins, such as are used for Yorkshire puddings, in a slow oven, for 2 hours or more. Parkin is not fit for eating for 2-3 days, till it has become perfectly soft. (c) 7 lb. oatmeal, 1 lb. butter, 2 lb. treacle, 3 tablespoonfuls soda carbonate; to be baked in hoops the same as teacakes. The butter to be melted and mixed with the treacle warm. (d) 4 lb. oatmeal, ¾ lb. butter, ¾ lb. lard; currants, raisins (candied lemon peel if approved), ginger, and cayenne pepper to taste. Add sufficient treacle to make the whole into a soft paste. Bake in a slow oven. The treacle, butter, and lard should be warmed a little together. Butter and lard keep the cake moist longer than if only butter were used.
Plum Cake.—(a) Set a sponge with 1 lb. flour, ½ pint warm milk, and 3 tablespoonfuls good yeast; beat up 4 oz. butter, 4 oz. powdered sugar, 2 eggs, and 4 oz. flour as for pound cake; put in sponge, and beat all well together; add 1 lb. currants; bake without proving in a slow oven.
(b) Beat 1 lb. butter with your hand in a warm pan till it comes to a fine cream, add 1 lb. powdered loaf sugar; beat together to a nice cream; have 1¼ lb. flour sifted, put in a little, and stir; add 4 eggs; beat well; add a little more flour and 4 more eggs; beat it well again; stir in remainder of flour; for small cakes, butter the tins; for large ones, paper; sugar over the top, and bake in moderate heat.
(c) Sift 1 lb. loaf sugar; add 1 lb. fresh butter, melted a little, and worked by hand to consistency of cream; beat together; while doing so, add 10 eggs; beat till well incorporated; mix 4 oz. candied orange or lemon peel, shred or cut small, a few currants and 1 lb. flour well together; put in a hoop; sift sugar on top; bake in warm oven.
Porridge.—Put on the fire a pan, of the size that will hold the quantity required, about ⅔ full of water; when the water is quick boiling take a handful of meal, and holding the hand over the pan—of course high enough to avoid being burned by the steam—let the meal slide slowly through the fingers into the water, the other hand stirring all the time with a wooden spoon, or what Scotch cooks call the “spurtle.” Continue this till enough of meal is put into the water, then add salt to taste, and, allow the porridge to boil for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally lest it stick to the pan and scorch. Porridge is not good if boiled less than 20 minutes; but for children, or delicate stomachs it should be boiled the full ½ hour, by which time the meal is so well swelled and softened that it becomes a digestible and most nutritious article of food. Letting the meal slide slowly into the water is an important element in making good porridge. If it is thrown in too quickly, or the water allowed to cease boiling, it forms into lumps, and is not so good. It is not easy to give any rule as to the proportion of meal to water, as the thickness of porridge is quite a matter of taste. Of course it must be still thin when one stops putting in the meal, as it swells to more than half as much again with the boiling.
Pound Cake.—The following table gives the ingredients necessary for rich pound-, Twelfth-, or bride-cakes of different prices:—