Sweets to the Sweaty
The Victorians were people who really knew their desserts. Cakes, pies, puddings, custards, trifles, jellies -- you name it and you can find a recipe for it somewhere in a cookbook published between 1860 and 1900. Usually an elaborate recipe, too. These folks truly never met a saturated fat gram, a carbohydrate, or a calorie they didn't promptly devour and then ask for more of.
And when you consider that they were utterly lacking in the kinds of kitchen tools we take for granted today, the variety of desserts they could produce is even more amazing. The Victorian cook is often portrayed as a brawny woman, and well she might be -- her arms were strengthened not only by lifting heavy cast iron stove lids and pots and pans, but also by the beating, whipping, grinding and pounding that could go into the production of just one dessert. Here, for instance, are Marion Harland's 1875 directions for making the icing (just the icing!) for a cake:
Icing
Whites of 4 eggs
1 pound powdered white sugar
Lemon, vanilla, or other seasoning
Break the whites into a broad, clean, cool dish. Throw a small handful of sugar upon them, and begin whipping it with long, even strokes of the beater. A few minutes later, throw in more sugar, and keep adding it at intervals until it is all used up. Beat perseveringly -- always with a regular, sweeping movement of the whisk -- until the icing is of a smooth, fine, and firm texture. Half an hour's beating should be sufficient, if done well. If not stiff enough, put in more sugar. A little practice will teach you when your end is gained. If you season with lemon-juice, allow, in measuring your sugar, for the additional liquid. Lemon-juice or a very little tartaric acid whitens the icing. Use at least a quarter of a pound of sugar for each egg.
Almond Icing advised you to follow the same recipe, but once the icing was made, to add almonds that you had blanched, removed the skins from, and pounded to a paste in a mortar, "moistening it with rose-water as you go on." But that wasn't all -- the kicker is in the final sentence: "Put on very thick, and, when nearly dry, cover with plain icing."
That's right -- you had to ice your icing.
The mind boggles.
And you didn't even make icing, of course, until you had first baked your cake. Let's take a look at the perils of cake-making in the Victorian kitchen. Here are Marion Harland's general directions for cakes:
Use none but the best materials for making cake. If you cannot afford to get good flour, dry white sugar, and the best family butter, make up your mind to go without your cake, and eat plain bread with a clear conscience.
There are no intermediate degrees of quality in eggs . . . they should be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. A tin whisk or whip is best for beating them. All kinds of cake are better for having the whites and yolks beaten separately. Beat the former in a large, shallow dish until you can cut through the froth with a knife, leaving as clear and distinct an incision as you would in a solid substance. Beat the yolks in an earthenware bowl until they cease to froth, and thicken as if mixed with flour. Have the dishes cool -- not too cold. It is hard to whip whites stiff in a warm room.
Stir the butter and sugar to a cream. Cakes often fail because this rule is not followed. Beat these as faithfully as you do the eggs, warming the butter very slightly if hard. Use only a silver or wooden spoon in this as in other parts of your work. I have heard of silver egg-whips, but they are not likely to come into general use, except where the mistress makes all the cake, pudding, etc.
Do not use fresh and stale milk in the same cake. It acts as disastrously as a piece of new cloth in an old garment. Sour milk makes a spongy cake; sweet, one closer in grain.
Study the moods and tenses of your oven carefully before essaying a loaf of cake. Confine your early efforts to tea-cakes and the like. Jelly-cake, baked in shallow flat tins, is good practice during the novitiate. Keep the heat steady, and as good at bottom as top.
Don't delude yourself, and maltreat those who are to eat your cake, by trying to make soda do the whole or most of the duty of eggs. Others have tried it before, with unfortunate results. If curiosity tempt you to the experiment, you had better allay it by buying some sponge-cake at the corner bakery.
Got all that? First you beat your egg whites until you can slice them (what we'd probably describe as "beating them dry"). Let's estimate a minimum of twenty to thirty minutes for this. Then you beat the yolks until thick -- say another ten or fifteen minutes. Then you beat the butter and sugar "as faithfully as you do the eggs" -- let's guess another fifteen minutes at least. That's between forty-five minutes and an hour of hand beating -- before you make your icing (or icings, if you're doing the almond variety).
The arms of the Victorian cook must have been marvels of musculature. Just think of all the money spent at gyms today to get perfectly-toned arms, when a few months of making a cake a day the old-fashioned way could give the same results, plus dessert!
And when you consider that they were utterly lacking in the kinds of kitchen tools we take for granted today, the variety of desserts they could produce is even more amazing. The Victorian cook is often portrayed as a brawny woman, and well she might be -- her arms were strengthened not only by lifting heavy cast iron stove lids and pots and pans, but also by the beating, whipping, grinding and pounding that could go into the production of just one dessert. Here, for instance, are Marion Harland's 1875 directions for making the icing (just the icing!) for a cake:
Icing
Whites of 4 eggs
1 pound powdered white sugar
Lemon, vanilla, or other seasoning
Break the whites into a broad, clean, cool dish. Throw a small handful of sugar upon them, and begin whipping it with long, even strokes of the beater. A few minutes later, throw in more sugar, and keep adding it at intervals until it is all used up. Beat perseveringly -- always with a regular, sweeping movement of the whisk -- until the icing is of a smooth, fine, and firm texture. Half an hour's beating should be sufficient, if done well. If not stiff enough, put in more sugar. A little practice will teach you when your end is gained. If you season with lemon-juice, allow, in measuring your sugar, for the additional liquid. Lemon-juice or a very little tartaric acid whitens the icing. Use at least a quarter of a pound of sugar for each egg.
Almond Icing advised you to follow the same recipe, but once the icing was made, to add almonds that you had blanched, removed the skins from, and pounded to a paste in a mortar, "moistening it with rose-water as you go on." But that wasn't all -- the kicker is in the final sentence: "Put on very thick, and, when nearly dry, cover with plain icing."
That's right -- you had to ice your icing.
The mind boggles.
And you didn't even make icing, of course, until you had first baked your cake. Let's take a look at the perils of cake-making in the Victorian kitchen. Here are Marion Harland's general directions for cakes:
Use none but the best materials for making cake. If you cannot afford to get good flour, dry white sugar, and the best family butter, make up your mind to go without your cake, and eat plain bread with a clear conscience.
There are no intermediate degrees of quality in eggs . . . they should be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. A tin whisk or whip is best for beating them. All kinds of cake are better for having the whites and yolks beaten separately. Beat the former in a large, shallow dish until you can cut through the froth with a knife, leaving as clear and distinct an incision as you would in a solid substance. Beat the yolks in an earthenware bowl until they cease to froth, and thicken as if mixed with flour. Have the dishes cool -- not too cold. It is hard to whip whites stiff in a warm room.
Stir the butter and sugar to a cream. Cakes often fail because this rule is not followed. Beat these as faithfully as you do the eggs, warming the butter very slightly if hard. Use only a silver or wooden spoon in this as in other parts of your work. I have heard of silver egg-whips, but they are not likely to come into general use, except where the mistress makes all the cake, pudding, etc.
Do not use fresh and stale milk in the same cake. It acts as disastrously as a piece of new cloth in an old garment. Sour milk makes a spongy cake; sweet, one closer in grain.
Study the moods and tenses of your oven carefully before essaying a loaf of cake. Confine your early efforts to tea-cakes and the like. Jelly-cake, baked in shallow flat tins, is good practice during the novitiate. Keep the heat steady, and as good at bottom as top.
Don't delude yourself, and maltreat those who are to eat your cake, by trying to make soda do the whole or most of the duty of eggs. Others have tried it before, with unfortunate results. If curiosity tempt you to the experiment, you had better allay it by buying some sponge-cake at the corner bakery.
Got all that? First you beat your egg whites until you can slice them (what we'd probably describe as "beating them dry"). Let's estimate a minimum of twenty to thirty minutes for this. Then you beat the yolks until thick -- say another ten or fifteen minutes. Then you beat the butter and sugar "as faithfully as you do the eggs" -- let's guess another fifteen minutes at least. That's between forty-five minutes and an hour of hand beating -- before you make your icing (or icings, if you're doing the almond variety).
The arms of the Victorian cook must have been marvels of musculature. Just think of all the money spent at gyms today to get perfectly-toned arms, when a few months of making a cake a day the old-fashioned way could give the same results, plus dessert!