Fine Cakes
"To make fine cakes; take a pottle of fine flour, and a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a little mace and a good store of water to mingle the flour into a stiff paste, and a good season of salt and so knead it, and roll out the cake thin and bake them on papers."
Sometimes the recipe redactions one finds on Gode Cookery are fantastic and sometimes they are really off the mark. This one wasn't too bad but I went a different direction with it.
A pottle equals about 2 quarts (8 cups) and that is an awful lot of cake to be stuck with if the recipe doesn't work out so well so I halved it and then halved the recipe again and ended up with this:
1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)
4 oz of sugar
2 cups of flour
less then a tsp of mace (I am guessing I used about a half teaspoon)
pinch of salt
enough water to make it all come together.
I mixed all of the dry ingredients together and cut the butter into it with a fork or pastry blender. I then slowly added water to it (I am guessing about a cup but this will vary so go slow) so that it came together. I think I may have added too much water to it as it was rather sticky. I decided to press it into a stoneware pan I have for making shortbread. Bake at 350 F for about an hour. I had to watch it.
I think next time I am going to roll it out as directed. It didn't really bake evenly and didn't pick up the pretty design from the shortbread mold. It might be kind of nice cut into circles with a biscuit cutter and served with a fruit compote. And, the mace was certainly an interesting flavor. I am glad I didn't add any more (I thought I was being a little skimpy) because the flavor really enhances when it bakes and permeates the whole dish. This is something I need to play with a little more. I think I might try a little poudre douce next time. I have seen some similar cake style dishes in Markham that used cinnamon and ginger for flavor and that is something I might enjoy a little more.
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Markham, Gervase. Best, Michael R (ed). The English Housewife. McGill-Queen's University Press. London: 2003. (page 117)
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