Summertime Treats in Edwardian England

[ubiquitous-a.livejournal.com]

These are a couple of recipes I got that are from the Edwardian era (c. 1905).  No scans, unfortunately, but I got them from a BBC website on a shows about Edwardian culture:

Edwardian Champagne Cup

Serves 10

• 2 oranges, sliced
• ¹/₂ cucumber, sliced
• 2 sprigs of mint
• 1 wine glass of brandy
• 1 wine glass of orange Curacao
• 1 bottle of Champagne (chilled)
• 750ml soda water (chilled)

Put the Champagne, sliced oranges, mint, cucumber, into a jug or bowl. Add the orange Curacao, brandy and soda water. Stir until blended. Serve in tumblers over ice.

Iced Biscuits

Lemon biscuits:

• 4 oz Butter
• 3 oz Caster sugar
• 6oz Plain flour
• 1 x Zest lemon

Cream butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Stir in the lemon rind and plain flour and mix into a soft dough. Wrap the dough and chill in the fridge for 20 mins. Roll the dough out to 3mm and cut out required shapes. Lay the shapes onto a baking tray. Make holes at the top of the biscuits if you would like to hang them with decorative ribbons later. Bake for 12 mins at 175 c / 350 f place on wire racks to cool.

Gingerbread biscuits:

• 4 oz Butter
• 4 oz Brown Sugar
• 3 oz Treacle
• 1 x Egg
• 10oz Flour
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 2 tsp Ground ginger
• 1 1tsp Ground cinnamon

Cream the butter and sugar together. Stir in the treacle. Beat in the egg. Stir in the plain flour, baking powder and spice and form a stiff dough. Chill for one hour before rolling out and cutting out the shapes .Bake at 175 c / 350 f for 10 minutes . Place on racks to cool.

Royal Icing:

• 1 lb icing sugar
• 2 large egg whites

Place egg whites into a grease free bowl. Whisk the whites until stiff. Add the icing sugar and beat until stiff until it forms soft peaks. The icing should be of a consistency to gently fall off the back of a spoon. To store the icing and prevent it drying place a soft cloth over the bowl. Colour with food colouring as required.

 

Top Tips for decorating the biscuits:

• Split the icing into smaller bowls and use small quantities of food colouring to tint the royal icing to your required decorative colours.
• Fill your piping bag no more than half full or else it will overflow when you attempt to pipe with it.
• Whilst piping hold the bag a couple of inches above the biscuit and continue to gently squeeze until just before you reach the end of your decoration.
• Set aside to dry for a couple of hours before adding detailing.
• Whilst waiting you can practice your piping skills and decorative details designs onto a piece of paper.
• The decorative detailing can be piped as well as painted onto the plain iced biscuit.
• Silver and gold sugar balls can be added to the decoration for a bejewelled effect.

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's great - I've been looking for another recipe for baked, shaped biscuits I could make alongside gingerbread ones, and that lemon recipe looks perfect. Thanks!

[mattiescottage.livejournal.com]

I agree; that lemon biscuit recipe looks good. If anyone figures our a U.S. volumetric equivalent for the flour and sugar (or knows a conversion site), let us know. I don't trust my cheapy weight scale. :-)

[lnearth.livejournal.com]

http://www.easyunitconverter.com/volume-unit-conversion/volume-unit-converter.aspx is most helpful to me.

[mattiescottage.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but this only provides volume-to-volume conversion. I assumed the ounces for flour and sugar here are weights, not volume, similar to how the specify these amounts in European recipes. See more in
my comment here (http://community.livejournal.com/vintage_recipes/85816.html?view=538680#t538680).

[lnearth.livejournal.com]

oops--you're right. Sorry--I was zooming through this too quickly. Guess you could google it? Good luck.

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

Here's a conversion chart link I found:
http://www.asknumbers.com/OuncesToCupsConversion.aspx

So that means: 4 oz. = 1/2 cup (iirc)

It sounds like caster sugar is 'regular' that needs to be run through a food processor. Treacle seems to be *roughly* the equivalent of molasses.

Sorry, I am a "recipe experimenter" fanatic.

[racerxgirl.livejournal.com]

Our Super Target, Whole Foods and Kroger (which surprised me) carry Heinz brand treacle if you're looking for the real deal...otherwise, dark blackstrap molasses would be a pretty good substitute.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

Yes- caster sugar can be made by running ordinary sugar through the blender. It is better for very light cakes biscuits and meringues- especially meringues! It has smaller crystals than what we would call granulated sugar, but isn't as fine as icing (confectioners?) sugar.

[mattiescottage.livejournal.com]

I assumed the ounces in this recipe were weight ounces (as in, 16 ounces = 1 pound), not liquid volumetric ounces. This was how recipes specify dry good amounts in Europe--and I assumed this British recipe was similar. (I suspect that this is because traditionally you could walk to the dry goods store and ask for exactly the amount of sugar or flour you need; they would weigh it out for you.)

Edit: I just noticed an example in the Royal Icing recipe, which specifies one pound of sugar.

So 4 ounces (1/4 pound) of flour would have a different volume than 4 ounces of sugar--because their densities (weight per unit volume) are different. Trying to use the ounces on your liquid cup measure could lead to rather unexpected results!

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

That punch recipe looks tasty -- rather like a Pimms cup. I'm all into the cucumber cocktails lately.

[hydrolagus.livejournal.com]

It does. I've wanted to try a Pimms cup for a while now but haven't gotten to it. It is good weather for breaking out the Lillet though...
I so need to have a garden party.

[racerxgirl.livejournal.com]

I can't do the Pimm's No. 1 Cup since it's gin-based, but I Pimm's No. 6 cup (vodka based) and the Pimm's Winter Cup (brandy based) are both really tasty....

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

This looks romantic, and decadent!