Vintage Baking - Cockles from 1912

Cockles
Quarter of a pound of flour, 1/4 lb. cornflour, 1/4 lb. sugar, 1/4 lb. butter, 1 small teaspoon of baking powder, a pinch of salt.

Beat butter and sugar together; break in 2 eggs one by one; mix well, add other ingredients. 

Drop in small teaspoonfuls on a buttered tin, and bake in a quick oven.  Stick two together with jam.
Recipe from The Goulburn Cookery Book 1912 Edition

Tips and Conversions:
1/4 lb. equals 125 grams
Use 2 small eggs or 1 large egg (I used one large egg).
The mixture needs to be quite stiff.
Cook on 180 degrees celsius in a conventional oven for 15 minutes. 

I omitted the jam and flavoured my cockles with lavender and dusted them with icing sugar.

What started out as cockles, cockles by the sea shore ended up more like a walk in the English countryside picking narcissus.  As much as I love cockles, I think flowers look much prettier and I thought that it would be lovely for my gorgeous girls to open up their school lunch box tomorrow to find cute edible flowers that tasted of lavender.  I used a mini silicone narcissus cup cake mould.  For this recipe, small teaspoonfuls of batter should be put onto a flat baking tray.  The mixture spreads and you end up with cake type biscuits that look like cockle shells.  They are sometimes sandwiched together with jam.  My gorgeous girls decided that they didn't want the jam, these cake type biscuits are perfect just the way they are!

Vintage Baking - Queen Cakes from 1912

 Queen Cakes is a recipe from 'The Goulburn Cookery Book'.  According to the Southern Tablelands History Matters website, The Goulburn Cookery Book was compiled by an Irish lady by the name of Mrs William Forster Rutledge of Gidleigh, Bungendore. She gave the copyright to the Church Society of the Anglican Diocese on 2nd October 1899, and for thirty years the cookbook brought in a steady income to Church funds, selling 205,000 copies in thirty editions.  By the thirty-sixth edition in 1936, the book had been reprinted almost every year with either 5,000 or 10,000 copies.  There were three more editions, the last in 1945.  I have the Twelth Edition from 1912. The pupils of the Goulburn Public School Cooking Class contributed several recipes, and three are from the National School of Cookery, London. 

Girls living in the country were brought up to manage a household and to be self-reliant.  There was much work to be done to provision a country house.  Milk from the dairy was set in flat open pans and skimmed for cream.  Butter was churned by hand, the surplus clarified and used for cooking.   

So lovely ladies apply your brightest red lipstick, pop on your tiara, a pretty dress and a retro apron and let's get baking.  I made my Queen cakes miniature size.  They look absolutely gorgeous when served up on a vintage plate for afternoon tea.  Guaranteed, when you eat one of these little darlings you'll feel like royalty!

Queen Cakes
Half a pound of flour, 1/2 lb. sugar, 6 oz. of butter, 1/2 lb. of currants, 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, 4 eggs, a little salt, 1 teaspoon brandy.

Beat the butter and the sugar to a light cream; add the yolks of the eggs; sift in flour and baking powder; add whites of eggs, beaten till stiff, add the currants.  

Blending the currants & stiff egg whites into the cake batter.

Put into buttered patty-tins and fill half full. Bake from 15 to 25 minutes, according to the heat of the oven.  These cakes are nicer if the baking powder is omitted; but in that case the mixture must be beaten for an hour.  The brandy may be omitted.

Ready to be popped into the oven.

As a six generation Australian, I am sooooo proud to say that I can still buy products in the supermarket that were around over a hundred years ago! 

White Wings Flour Australian Owned & Milled for Over 100 Years!

Since 1926 Sunbeam Australian Grown Currants

Australian Western Star Butter since late 1800's

Anchor Since 1854 Baking Powder Proudly Made in Australia

Now you may be wondering... mmmm, how much is half a pound or how much is 6 oz?  Worry no more as I've included conversions and tips below :)

Half a pound is equal to 250 grams
6 oz is equal to 180 grams

Tip:  I decided to make miniature Queen cakes so took the chance of omitting 2 eggs to obtain a stiffer cake batter.  Luckily, they turned out just perfect.  I cooked them at 170 degrees celsius in a conventional oven for 15 minutes. The only problem I had was trying to prevent my gorgeous girls from eating them before dusting them with icing sugar! 

Vintage Lemon Cake from 1912

This cake recipe is from "The Goulburn Cookery Book" twelfth edition published in 1912.   The original recipe is made with orange but today I decided to try it with lemon instead.  

Orange Cake
Three eggs, their weight in sugar, butter and flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 orange, a pinch of salt.

Beat the sugar and butter to a cream; add 2 eggs one at a time, and beat well; then add half the flour, beating well all the time; add the grated rind of the orange and half the juice; then put in remainder of flour and a small teaspoon of baking powder; add the third egg.  Bake 1 hour or longer in a moderate oven.  Ice with the following icing: - Six ounces of icing sugar, enough orange juice to make a thick cream (about 1 ½ tablespoons); warm, but do not let get hot, and pour over the cake.

It's so delicious and moist that I increased the quantity and used 4 eggs, their weight in sugar, butter and flour; added a heaped teaspoon of baking powder and replaced the orange with one whole lemon.  The cake is moist, flavoursome, has a gorgeous texture and rises really well.  I baked the cake at 150 degrees celsius (fan forced) for one hour.

I also made a Rose Cake from the 1930s from a different vintage cookbook but sadly it was a flop.  Although, the recipe sounds gorgeous I was skeptical when I started making it as the mixture was extremely runny.  When cooked, the cake was moist and the flavour was allright but it had this weird rubbery texture.  It also didn't rise that well.  The recipe also omits instructions for the cooking temperature and time which is problematic in itself.  I cooked the cake in a moderate oven (150 degrees celsius) for 45 minutes.

Rose Cake
Take 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 3 eggs, 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, 1/2 teaspoon bicarb. soda, 1 tablespoon milk, with enough boiling water to make 1/2 cup, a few drops of essence of rose, 1 teaspoon cochineal and 1 tablespoon butter.  Cream sugar and butter, add eggs well-beaten, the flour sifted with cream of tartar and soda, then milk and water, and lastly the essences.  Bake in sandwich-tins.  When cold ice the rose-flavoured icing and fill with whipped cream.  

I chose not to add the cochineal

Vintage Cooking in 1912

In between making macarons I'll also be making lots of vintage recipes from 'The Goulburn Cookery Book' twelfth edition printed in 1912.  And, although I've stated that these recipes are dated 1912 they are much older as the first edition was printed in 1899.  This Australian cookery book was so popular that up until 1912 it had to be re-printed each year!  Here are some snippets of this amazing but very fragile little book.  I don't know its previous owner but it has been well loved and is jam packed full of scribbled notes and newspaper cuttings.  Some recipes even mention war coupons!  I think this little gem is really exciting and I love it to bits... so lets start baking and bring it back to life ready for its centenary next year.  Be warned however, that I absolutely cannot and will not cook sheeps head, tripe, liver or the like...  eeewwwww!

Vintage Orange Cake from 1912

A vintage orange cake from my collection of recipes that was printed in 1912.

Three eggs, their weight in sugar, butter and flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 orange, a pinch of salt.

Beat the sugar and butter to a cream; add 2 eggs one at a time, and beat well; then add half the flour, beating well all the time; add the grated rind of the orange and half the juice; then put in remainder of flour and a small teaspoon of baking powder; add the third egg.  Bake 1 hour or longer in a moderate oven.  Ice with the following icing: -Six ounces of icing sugar, enough orange juice to make a thick cream (about 1 ½ tablespoons); warm, but do not let get hot, and pour over the cake.

I baked this cake at 150 degrees celsius in a conventional oven for 40-45 minutes.