Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine

A French Cake to eat hot : — Take a dozen of eggs, and a quart of cream, and as much flour as will make it into a thick batter ; put to it a pound of melted butter, half a pint of sack, one nutmeg grated, mix it well, and let it stand three or four hours ; then bake it in a quick oven, and when you take it out, split it in two, and pour a pound of butter on it melted with rose-water; cover it with the other half, and serve it up hot. To make the thin Dutch Bisket: — Take five pounds of flour, and two ounces of carrawayseeds, half a pound of sugar, and something more than a pint of milk. Warm the milk, and put into it three-quarters of a pound of butter ; then make a hole in the middle of your flour, and put in a full pint of good aleyeast ; then pour in the butter and milk, and make these into a paste, and let it stand a quarter of an hour by the fire to rise ; then mould it, and roll it into cakes pretty thin ; prick them all over pretty much or they will blister ; so bake them a quarter of an hour. To make Dutch Ginger-bread : — Take four pounds of flour, and mix with it two ounces and a half of beaten ginger ; then rub in a quarter of a pound of butter, and add to it two ounces of carraway-seeds, two ounces of orange-peel dried and rubb’d to powder, a few coriander-seeds bruised, two eggs : then mix all up in a stiff paste, with two pounds and a quarter of treacle; beat it very well with a rolling-pin, and make it up into thirty cakes ; put in a candied citron ; prick them with a fork : butter papers three double, one white, and two brown ; wash them over with the white of an egg ; put them into an oven not too hot, for three-quarters of an hour. To make Cakes of Flowers : — Boil doublerefin’d sugar candy-high, and then strew in your flowers, and let them boil once up ; then with your hand lightly strew in a little doublerefin’d sugar sifted; and then as quick as may be, put it into your little pans, made of card, and pricked full of holes at bottom. You must set the pans on a pillow, or cushion ; when they are cold, take them out. VI.— CAUDLES AND POSSETS. To make a Posset tuith Ale : King William's Early Receipts. Posset: — Take a quart of cream, and mix with it a pint of ale, then beat the yolks of ten eggs, and the whites of four ; when they are well beaten, put them to the cream and ale, sweeten it to your taste, and slice some nutmeg in it ; set it over the fire, and keep it stirring all the while, and when ’tis thick, and before it boils, take it off, and pour it into the bason you serve it in to the table. To make the Pope's Posset: — Blanch and beat three-quarters of a pound of almonds so fine, that they will spread between your fingers like butter, put in water as you beat them to keep them from oiling; then take a pint of sack or sherry, and sweeten it very well with double-refin’d sugar, make it boiling hot, and at the same time put half a pint of water to your almonds, and make them boil ; then take both off the fire, and mix them very well together with a spoon ; serve it in a china dish. To make Flummery Caudle: — Take a pint of fine oatmeal, and put to it two quarts of fair water : let it stand all night, in the morning stir it, and strain it into a skillet, with Early Receipts.