Saturday, December 01, 2007

Gingerbread Additions.

It is getting to be quite a challenge to find gingerbread recipes to add to the archive that have a different 'spin' on them!

Here are a couple of offerings. In the interests of completeness they have also been added to the Through the Ages with Gingerbread archive.

The first one is from Charles Elme Francatelli who was briefly chef to Queen Victoria. Presumably it is "Swiss" because it is rolled up like a traditional Swiss Roll, but with almonds as the filling. The second is from the American cookbook author Sarah Josepha Hale, and it is an easily remembered "cup" formula.

Swiss Gingerbread.
Ingredients: 1 ½ lb. of flour, 6 oz. of skinned almonds, 1 lb. of warm honey, 1 oz. of ground coriander seeds, 1 oz. of ground ginger, ½ oz. of ground cinnamon, ½ oz. of ground cloves, ½ gill of orange flower water, 1 oz. of carbonate of soda.
Work all the ingredients (except the almonds) into an elastic paste, allow it to rest till the next day, covered over in a cold place ; then roll it out, place the whole almonds in rows upon the paste, roll it up in the form of a bolster, bake it in a long shaped buttered tin mould, and when done, and cold, cut it in slices with a sharp knife.
[Francatelli, Charles Elmé; The Royal English and Foreign Confectioner: A Practical Treatise…; 1862]

Cup Gingerbread.
Mix together 6 cups of flour; 1 cup of butter; 1 cup of sugar; 1 cup of molasses; 1 cup of milk; 4 eggs well beaten; 1 nutmeg, grated; 3 table-spoonsful of ginger ; some grated orange-peel; 1 dessert spoonful of pearl-ash.
Bake it quickly.
[The Ladies' New Book of Cookery: A Practical System for Private Families; Sarah Josepha Buell Hale; 1852]

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