Oatcake

“ Oatmeal is richer in oily, fatty matter than any other cultivated grain, and its proportion of proteine compounds exceeds that of the finest wheaten flour. Although so nutritious, it cannot be used as a substitute for flour; the peculiar character of its gluten preventing the meal being made into fermented bread. But in other forms it may be made into very pleasant food, such as biscuits, gruel, oatcake and porridge. Oats are a natural grain in England, and are cultivated at less expense than wheat. ”

“ In Scotland the thick cakes of oatmeal are called bannock, and the thin ones cakes, and in the farm-houses a great number are made at once and stored on a rack close to the ceiling, where they will keep for a long time if quite dry. When needed, they are crisped before the fire and slightly browned.
Bread is also made of oatmeal and wheat flour; also oatmeal and rice. Take a peck each of flour and oatmeal and half a peck of potatoes, peeled and washed and boiled. Knead into a dough with yeast, salt, and warm milk. Make into loaves and bake as usual. Rice is made in the same manner. ”

“ Another time, if you make this cake, you may put rose-water or peach-water instead of the wine, and chopped candied lemon-peel instead of the grated peel. You see the batter is much thicker than for the cup cake you made, but if at any time you use flour that absorbs more moisture, you must add another egg; this is, as it should be, as thick as pound-cake batter,—which means, as thick as can be stirred. It is more a paste than a batter. Will you remember that, when you have a recipe which says ‘thick as pound-cake batter’? Any cake with baking-powder made as thick as this would be spoiled. ”

“ Pancakes should be made of half a pint of milk, three great spoonfuls of sugar, one or two eggs, a tea-spoonful of dissolved pearlash, spiced with cinnamon, or cloves, a little salt, rose-water, or lemon-brandy, just as you happen to have it. Flour should be stirred in till the spoon moves round with difficulty. If they are thin, they are apt to soak fat. Have the fat in your skillet boiling hot, and drop them in with a spoon. Let them cook till thoroughly brown. The fat which is left is good to shorten other cakes. The more fat they are cooked in, the less they soak. ”

“ Cream together one pound of sugar and one pound of butter very light. Beat the yolks of six eggs, sift one and one-half pound of flour into the eggs, butter, and sugar; one teaspoonful of mixed spices, one-half glassful of rose water. Stir the whole well, and roll it on the board till it is half an inch thick; cut in cakes and bake quickly. When cold, spread the surface of each cake with marmalade. Beat the whites of four eggs light, and add enough powdered sugar to make them as thick as icing. Flavor it with lemon, and put it on top of each cake. ”

“ SIR,—I am not less than fifty years' old, and marked with small-pox, and therefore I think that Oatmeal and Oranges would be sure to do my complexion good. As mine is perhaps a rather unusual case, I am trying the remedy in a peculiarly thorough way. I have an Oatmeal-bath twice a day, during which I suck six oranges. My breakfast consists of porridge and marmalade. I have engaged a policeman to knock at my front door three times every night, to wake me. I then sit up in bed and consume oat-cakes soaked in orange-juice. ”

“ Should the cakes stick, they cannot be got out without breaking.
For queen-cakes, &c. the small tins of a round or oval shape are most convenient. Fill them but little more than half.
After the mixture is completed, set it in a cool place till all the cakes are baked.
In rolling oat cakes made of dough, use as little flour as possible. When you lay them in the pans, do not place them too close together, lest they run into each other.
When you are cutting them out, dip the cutter frequently in flour, to prevent its sticking.
QUEEN CAKE.
One pound of powdered white sugar. ”

“ One ounce more of butter will render them very good. They should be rolled a quarter of an inch thick.
Rich: to each lb. of flour, butter, 1/2 lb.; sugar, 3/4 lb.; eggs, 2 to 4. (Lemon-rinds, cinnamon, carraway-seeds, or ginger, or currants at choice) , small pinch of salt. Slow oven about 20 minutes.
Obs.—The cakes should be but lightly coloured, and yet baked quite through.
FLEED OR FLEAD CAKES. These are very much served as a tea-cake at the tables of the superior order of Kentish farmers. For the mode of making them, proceed as for flead-crust (see Chapter XVI.) ”

“ Do not cut more at a [301] time than you are likely to use, as it is not good when dry. Jelly-cakes are best set away upon plates, cloths wrapped closely about them, and a box enclosing all.
Cream your sugar and butter, measure milk, spices, etc., before beginning work. For fruit-cake it is best to prepare the materials the day before. Let your icing dry thoroughly before wrapping up the cake.
Sift your flour before measuring, as all the following receipts are for sifted flour.
Icing. ✠ Whites of 4 eggs. 1 pound powdered white sugar. Lemon, vanilla, or other seasoning. ”

“ The hope is sure which has its foundation in virtue.
1304. Pancakes
Make a light batter of eggs, flour, and milk; a little salt, nutmeg, and ginger may be added; fry in a small pan, in hot dripping or lard. Sugar and lemon should be served to eat with them. Or, when eggs are scarce, make the batter with small beer, ginger, and so forth; or water, with flour, and a very little milk, will serve, but not so well as eggs and all milk.
1305. Cream Pancakes
Mix two eggs, well beaten, with a pint of cream, two ounces of sifted sugar, six of flour, a little nutmeg, cinnamon, and mace. ”

“ Oat cakes are often preferred to those made of wheat flour, as they tend to open the body, and are rather warmer, to cold and weak stomachs. Barley is not so nourishing, and requires more preparation to render it digestible, than the other kinds of grain. Cakes, biscuits, muffins, buns, crumpets, and small bread, made with eggs, butter, or sugar, seldom agree with delicate persons. Biscuits made without leaven, yeast, butter, or sugar, are more difficult of digestion, than bread when it is fermented. ”

“ Mix and bake as for jelly-cake, flavoring the dough with essence of bitter almond.
Beat one egg light in a bowl, and into it a cup of sugar. Add to this the strained juice and grated rind of a lemon.
Peel and grate three fine pippins or other ripe, tart apples directly into this mixture, stirring each well in before adding another. When all are in, put into a farina-kettle and stir over the fire until the apple-custard is boiling hot and quite thick. Cool and spread between the cakes. A nice and simple cake. Eat the day it is baked. ”

“ Melt 1⁄2 lb. butter, and stir in 4 eggs, 1 tea-spoonful of powdered volatile salts, dissolved in a tea-spoonful of milk, 1⁄2 lb. flour, 1⁄4 lb. finely powdered loaf sugar, a few currants and carraway seeds. Mix well, and drop the cakes on tins. They will rise very much. Bake in a quick oven.
Ginger or Hunting Cakes.
To 2 lbs. sugar, add 1 lb. butter, 2 oz. ginger, and a nutmeg grated; rub these into 1 lb. flour, and wet it with a pint of warm cream, or as much as is sufficient; roll out in thin cakes, and bake in a slack oven. ”

“ The famous olykoeks, or olijkoecks, were [Pg 141] thus concocted, as given by an old Dutch receipt of the year 1740 belonging to Mrs. Morris Patterson Ferris:—
“About twelve o’clock set a little yeast to rise, so as to be ready at five P. M. to mix with the following ingredients: 33⁄4 pounds of flour, 1 pound of sugar, 1⁄2 pound of butter and lard mixed, 11⁄2 pints of milk, 6 eggs, 1 pint raised yeast. Warm the butter, sugar and milk together, grate a nutmeg in the flour, add eggs last. Place in a warm place to rise. If quite light at bedtime, work them down by pressing with the hand. ”

“ Five full-sized eggs, the weight of four in sugar, and of nearly three in flour, will make an exceedingly good cake: it may be flavoured, like the preceding one, with lemon-rind, or with bitter almonds, vanilla, or confected orange-blossoms reduced to powder. An hour will bake it thoroughly. All the ingredients for sponge cakes should be of good quality, and the sugar and flour should be dry; they should also be passed through a fine sieve kept expressly for such purposes. ”

“ The repast prepared for the dead was presented in two forms: (a) fruits or cakes placed in a basket, (b) a libation poured out on the steps of the pillar. It is difficult to determine the nature of these fruits or this food. Our only knowledge is obtained, for the most part, from the paintings on the vases and the resemblance of an egg to a pomegranate is so close that the object in the picture may be mistaken for either. The delineation of the cake is not altogether clear, although without doubt the honey-cake, the melittouta, is intended. ”

“ Apple Pancakes.— Mix 2 cups sifted flour with 2 cups water, 1⁄2 teaspoonful salt and the yolks of 3 eggs; when these are well mixed together add the whites of the eggs, beaten to a stiff 109 froth; place a fryingpan with 1 tablespoonful lard over the fire; when hot pour in some of the mixture, about 1⁄4 inch in thickness, put over this a thick layer of very finely cut apples, slip a knife underneath the pancake to keep it from burning and shake the pan too and fro; when the underside is a light brown slip the pancake onto a plate ”

“ Arrange between layers of shortcake and garnish top with whole strawberries and beaten and sweetened cream.
Raspberry, Blackberry, and Pineapple shortcake may be made in a similar way.
GRIDDLE CAKES Sour Milk Griddle Cakes 2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon soda
2 cups sour milk
2 eggs
Mix in order given, beat well. Heat a griddle; when hissing hot, grease with piece of salt pork on end of fork. Drop a tablespoon of batter from tip end of spoon on hot griddle. When full of bubbles, turn; when cooked on both sides, serve on hot plate. ”

“ Many a hardy race of peasants, and even farmers, both in Scotland and England, in mountain districts, never see any thing in the shape of bread but oat-cake. In Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cumberland, and the Peak of Derbyshire, there are thousands that would not thank you for wheaten bread. The girdle-cakes, as they call them, which the wives of the hinds make, of mixed barley and pea meal, I frequently ate of and enjoyed. ”

“ Spread the flat sides with an icing colored green. Blanch some almonds, split them, and cut them in strips. Arrange them in a circle, and place in the center a little icing mixed with yolk of egg to color it yellow; or the icing can be white and the almonds colored in the oven to a light yellow.
No. 3. Medallion fruit-cakes. Use a sponge- or a cup-cake mixture and bake it in gem-pans. If they rise in the center cut off the tops to even them. Invert them, and with a small cutter stamp a circle in the center of each one and take out a thin layer of the cake. ”

“ Make a white cake mixture. Bake it in shallow layer-cake pans, in a moderate, not slow, oven. Join them with a caramel filling, and frost the top with the same, or use White Mountain frosting instead of the caramel, flavored with rose-water, and left either white, or colored a delicate shell pink with carmine.
CAKE FILLING AND FROSTING WHITE MOUNTAIN FROSTING
Boil together, without stirring, one cup of granulated sugar with one third of a cup of boiling water, for eight or ten minutes. When the sugar has been boiling five minutes, beat the white of one egg until it is very light. ”

“ None of the breakfast foods which are so much used are so wholesome as a simple dish of rolled oats or the old-fashioned oatmeal. Served with or without cream and sugar, these are to be highly recommended to persons who are compelled to live indoors a great deal, and are generally relished by those who lead an outdoor life. Although rolled oats is supposed to be a dish quickly prepared, it is better, like oatmeal, for being cooked a long time, and baked for two hours, after being boiled a few minutes, it is very palatable and nutritious. ”

“ Or, having lined a basin or mould, or small tin cups with any convenient cake, such as lady fingers, sliced savoy cake, or yellow lady cake, fill them with mock cream, blanc-mange or custard, made from the yolks of eggs; let them become cold, then turn them out and serve.
ANOTHER WAY
Break an ounce of isinglass small, and pour on it a teacup of hot milk or water; let it dissolve, then strain it through muslin, on half a pound of fine white sugar. When nearly cold add to it a quart of rich cream, already beaten to a froth; continue to beat it for a few minutes, holding the pan on ice. ”

“ Two teaspoonfuls of baking powder will serve the same end. Mix as directed in “Practical Preliminaries,” and bake in small tins.
Jelly-cake
Is made by mixing the above cup-cake, leaving out the flavoring, and baking it in “jelly-cake tins,” turning these out when almost cold by running a knife around the edges, and spreading all but that intended for the top with a thick coating of fruit-jelly. Sift white sugar over the upper one or frost it.
Cream-cake.
Mix a cup-cake without spice or other flavoring, bake in jelly-cake tins, and when cold spread between the layers this filling:
One egg. ”

“ Butter these paper plates, and lay them on baking tins. Spread over each a layer of the above mixture not thicker than a thin pancake. Bake them in a moderate oven a nice yellow, but do not let them tinge brown. When cold cut away the paper round, turn the cakes over, and peel off the bottom paper, but take great care not to break the cakes. Lay one cake over the other, with preserve between each, till all are piled up. It may be all of one sort of preserve, or varied, one layer of marmalade if liked. Dissolve powdered sugar with a little lemon juice. ”

“ Look!” cried the woman. “There is an oat cake rolling in at the door, and no one coming after to claim it. Catch it before it can get away again.”
The good man jumped up and threw his breeches at it. They fell on the oat cake and almost smothered it, but it managed to roll out from under them and away it went, with the man and his wife in full chase after it, and the children crying after them.
But the oat cake was too quick, even for the two of them. It outran them both, and
As soon as he saw the oat cake he was wide awake again in a moment. ”