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Gingerbread

A historical recipe from The English Housekeeper, by Anne Cobbett (1851).

A historical recipe

The English Housekeeper: Or, Manual of Domestic Management Containing advice on the conduct of household affairs and practical instructions concerning the store-room, the pantry, the larder, the kitchen, the cellar, the dairy; the whole being intended for the use of young ladies who undertake the superintendence of their own housekeeping, by Anne Cobbett (1851). Project Gutenberg eBook #55314.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Source and licence

From The English Housekeeper, by Anne Cobbett (1851). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #55314 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55314). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

Read the original Public domain in the USA

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.

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Ingredients

Method

  1. Put 1¼ lb.
  2. treacle on the fire, and as it gets hot, take off the scum;
  3. stir in ¼ lb.
  4. of fresh butter, and let it cool;
  5. then mix it into a paste with 1½ lb.
  6. flour, 4 oz.
  7. brown sugar, a little ginger, and allspice;
  8. cut it into shapes, and bake on tins.
  9. More butter, or a little cream may be added.
  10. Candied orange, lemon peel, or carraway seeds, may be added.--Another: mix 1 lb.
  11. flour, ½ lb.
  12. butter (rubbed in), ½ lb.
  13. brown sugar, lemon, ginger, and ½ lb.
  14. treacle;
  15. let it stand all night, and bake it the next day.
  16. Soft Gingerbread--Six tea-cupfuls of flour, 3 of treacle, 1 of cream, and 1 of butter, 2 eggs, a table-spoonful of pearl-ash, dissolved in cold water, a table-spoonful of ginger, 1 tea-spoonful of pounded cloves, and a few raisins, stoned;
  17. mix well, and bake in a rather slow oven.
  18. Gingerbread Nuts--They may be made the same way as the receipt before the last, adding more spice.
  19. Cut in small cakes, or drop them from a spoon, and bake on paper.
  20. Parliament--Melt ¾ lb.
  21. butter with 2 lbs.
  22. treacle, and 1 lb.
  23. sugar, add ½ oz.
  24. ginger, the juice and grated rind of a lemon, and sufficient flour to make it into a paste: roll out thin, cut it into cakes, and bake it.