A VERY GOOD SEED-CAKE.
1776. INGREDIENTS.—1 lb. of butter, 6 eggs, 3/4 lb. of sifted sugar, pounded mace and grated nutmeg to taste, 1 lb. of flour, 3/4 oz. of caraway seeds, 1 wineglassful of brandy.
Mode.—Beat the butter to a cream; dredge in the flour; add the sugar, mace, nutmeg, and caraway seeds, and mix these ingredients well together. Whisk the eggs, stir to them the brandy, and beat the cake again for 10 minutes. Put it into a tin lined with buttered paper, and bake it from 1-1/2 to 2 hours. This cake would be equally nice made with currants, and omitting the caraway seeds.
Time.—1-1/2 to 2 hours. Average cost, 2s. 6d.
Seasonable at any time.
BREAD-MAKING IN SPAIN.—The bread in the south of Spain is delicious: it is white as snow, close as cake, and yet very light; the flavour is most admirable, for the wheat is good and pure, and the bread well kneaded. The way they make this bread is as follows:—From large round panniers filled with wheat they take out a handful at a time, sorting it most carefully and expeditiously, and throwing every defective grain into another basket. This done, the wheat is ground between two circular stones, as it was ground in Egypt 2,000 years ago (see No. 117), the requisite rotary motion being given by a blindfolded mule, which paces round and round with untiring patience, a bell being attached to his neck, which, as long as he is in movement, tinkles on; and when it stops, he is urged to his duty by the shout of "Arre, mula," from some one within hearing. When ground, the wheat is sifted through three sieves, the last of these being so fine that only the pure flour can pass through it: this is of a pale apricot-colour. The bread is made in the evening. It is mixed with only sufficient water, with a little salt in it, to make it into dough: a very small quantity of leaven, or fermenting mixture is added. The Scripture says, "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump;" but in England, to avoid the trouble of kneading, many put as much leaven or yeast in one batch of household bread as in Spain would last them a week for the six or eight donkey-loads of bread they send every night from their oven. The dough made, it is put into sacks, and carried on the donkeys' backs to the oven in the centre of the village, so as to bake it immediately it is kneaded. On arriving there, the dough is divided into portions weighing 3 lbs. each. Two long narrow wooden tables on trestles are then placed down the room; and now a curious sight may be seen. About twenty men (bakers) come in and range themselves on one side of the tables. A lump of dough is handed to the nearest, which he commences kneading and knocking about with all his might for about 3 or 4 minutes, and then passes it on to his neighbour, who does the same; and so on successively until all have kneaded it, when it becomes as soft as new putty, and ready for the oven. Of course, as soon as the first baker has handed the first lump to his neighbour, another is given to him, and so on till the whole quantity of dough is successively kneaded by them all. The bakers' wives and daughters shape the loaves for the oven, and some of them are very small, and they are baked immediately. The ovens are very large, and not heated by fires under them; but a quantity of twigs of the herbs of sweet marjoram and thyme, which cover the hills in great profusion, are put in the oven and ignited. They heat the oven to any extent required; and, as the bread gets baked, the oven gets gradually colder; so the bread is never burned. They knead the bread in Spain with such force, that the palm of the hand and the second joints of the fingers of the bakers are covered with corns; and it so affects the chest, that they cannot work more than two hours at a time.