Recipe: Victorian recipes and authentic menu...

Here are some authentic recipes along with an authentic menu...Hope it gives you great ideas! Have fun!!Victorian Plumcake
The following is an authentic Victorian Plum Cake recipe.

2 cups raisins
1 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup dried currants
1/2 cup dried apricots, finely chopped
1/2 cup candied cherries, chopped
1/2 cup candied peel, orange and lemon
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup sherry or brandy
2 cups butter
1 cup soft brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon molasses
Grated rind of 1 orange
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg,
ginger, ground cloves and mace
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 eggs
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon enriched flour
Peach or apricot wine for soaking cake
One round 10-inch baking pan, 4-inches deep (a springform cake pan is good)

Mix together the first seven ingredients in a bowl. Pour on the sherry or brandy and mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and let set overnight.

Butter the entire baking pan well. Cut parchment paper to size, and press in place to cover the inside of the pan. Cut two or three 8-inch thick brown paper strips (grocery bag paper is good). Tie the paper strips around the outsides of the pan with string. There should be an overlap of 3 or 4 inches. Cut a 12 to14-inch circle of brown paper and tuck this into the overlapping paper to form a "roof" that protects the cake from browning too soon. Preheat your oven to 275 degrees F.

In another (large) bowl, or food processor, cream well together the butter and sugars. Add the molasses, the grated rinds, spices and vanilla. Then add the beaten eggs alternately with the flour. The batter should be soft but not liquid, and should drop from the spoon in a soft mass. Add the fruit mixture and stir to distribute evenly. Pour into your prepared pan.

Bake in oven for 1-1/2 hours at 275 degrees F. Reduce heat to 250 degrees F. and bake for 4 hours more. One hour before it's done check the top of the cake. If it's not too brown, you may remove the paper "roof." Otherwise leave it on. Test for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the center of the cake. It should be crumbly - not sticky.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan overnight. Turn the pan upside down on a rack after the first ten minutes of cooling, to keep the cake moist.

The next day remove the pan and the parchment paper very carefully. Stick the cake all over with an ice pick or some other sharp, thin pointed object. Then spoon the apricot wine on and around the cake. Allow it to soak into the cake for a few minutes. Then turn the cake over and do the other side. Leave loosely covered for half an hour, then wrap in clean waxed paper and store in a tin in a cool, dry place. Over the next few days (or couple of weeks), you can repeat the wine soaking process a few times.

Plum Cake is best made a month or more before Christmas. It becomes more flavorful and rich the longer it sits. It will keep for a least 6 months (and as long as six years) in an airtight tin.

MENU FOR A CHRISTMAS DINNER
from Godey's Lady's Book, December 1890

Raw Oysters
Bouillon
Fried smelts.................................Sauce tartare
Potatoes a la Maitre d' Hotel
Sweetbread Pates............................Peas
Roast Turkey..................Cranberry Sauce
Roman Punch
Quail with Truffles.............Rice Croquettes
Parisian Salad
Crackers and Cheese
Nesselrode Pudding.............Fancy Cakes
Fruit......................Coffee


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RAW OYSTERS
Have blue-point oysters; serve upon the half shell, the shells being laid upon oyster plates filled with cracked ice; six oysters and a thick slice of lemon being served upon each plate.


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BOUILLON
Put into a pot three pounds of shin beef, one pound of knuckle of veal, and three quarts of water, and simmer gently. As soon as the scum begins to rise, skim carefully until it quite ceases to appear. Then add salt, two carrots, the same of onions, turnips, and a little celery. Simmer gently four hours, strain, and serve in buillon cups to each guest.


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FRIED SMELTS. SAUCE TARTARE
Clean about two dozen smelts, cut off the gills, wash them well in cold water, and then dry them thoroughly. Put in a pinch of salt and pepper in a little milk, into which dip your smelts, and then roll them in cracker dust. Put into a frying pan some lard, in which, when very hot, fry your smelts a light brown. Also fry some parsley, which place around your fish, and serve with sauce tartare.


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SAUCE TARTARE
Put the yolks of two eggs in a bowl with salt, pepper, the juice of a lemon, and one teaspoonful of dry mustard. Stir with a wooden spoon, and add by degrees-- in very small quantities, and stirring continuously-- a tablespoonful of vinegar; then, a few drops at a time, some good oil, stirring rapidly all the time, until your sauce thicken, and a half a pint of oil has been absorbed. Chop one pickle and a tablespoonful of capers, also chop a green onion and a few taragon leaves, and mix with your sauce.


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POTATOES A la MAITRE d'HOTEL
Wash eight potatoes, and boil them in cold water with a pinch of salt. When thoroughly done, peel them cut them in thin round slices; put them--with three ounces of butter, a pinch of salt, pepper and a nutmeg, the juice of a lemon, and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley--in a saucepan on the fire, and, when very hot, serve.


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SWEETBREAD PATES
Boil four sweetbreads, and let them become cold; then chop them very fine, add about ten mushrooms, also chopped fine. Mix with these a quarter pound of butter, half a pint of milk, a little flour, pepper, salt, and a little grated nutmeg. Put upon the fire, stir until it begins to thicken, then put in puff-paste that has been prepared, and bake until light brown.


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PEAS
Open a can of peas, soak in clear water for half an hour, then put upon the fire in clean water, let them boil up hard, drain well and serve with butter, pepper and salt.


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ROAST TURKEY
Clean and prepare a medium sized turkey for roasting. Cut two onions in pieces, and put them in a saucepan with two ounces of butter, and color them slightly. Grate a pound of bread into fine crumbs, add the bread to your onions, the turkey's heart and liver chopped very fine, quarter of a pound of butter, salt, pepper, a pinch of thyme, and mix all well together. Stuff the turkey with this mixture, sew up the opening through which you have introduced the stuffing, and put it to roast, with a little butter on top and a wineglassful of water; roast an hour and a half; strain your liquor in the pan, pour over your turkey, and serve.


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CRANBERRY SAUCE
Take one quart of cranberries, pick and wash carefully, put upon the fire with half a teacupful of water, let them stew until thoroughly broken up, then strain and add one pound and a quarter of sugar; put into a mould and turn out when cold.


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ROMAN PUNCH
Put in a saucepan on the fire three-quarters of a pound of sugar with three pints of water, boil ten minutes, then put aside to become cold. Put in a freezer, and when nearly frozen, stir into it rapidly a gill of rum and the juice of four lemons. Serve in small glasses.


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RICE CROQUETTES
Take one cupful of rice, wash and boil it, and let it get thoroughly cold. Beat up with it one egg, a teaspoonful of sugar and the same of melted butter, salt and a little nutmeg. Work this mixture into the rice, stirring until all is well mixed and the lumps worked out. Make, with floured hands, into oblong rolls about three inches in length, and half an inch in diamenter. Coat these thickly with flour, and set them in a cold place until needed. Fry a few at a time in hot lard, rolling them over as they begin to brown to preserve their shape. As each is taken from the fire, put into a colander to drain and dry.


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PARISIAN SALAD
Cut in small pieces six cold boiled potatoes, the same quantity of beets, and also of boiled celery--both cold. Mix the yolks of four hard boiled eggs with two tablespoonfuls of anchovy sauce, press through a sieve; add, little by little, four tablespoonfuls of oil, one tablespoonful of mustard, two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a few taragon leaves chopped fine, two pinches of salt, two of pepper, and the whites of four hard boiled eggs, cut in pieces, mix all well together, and serve.


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CRACKERS AND CHEESE
Place on separate dishes, and serve with the salad.


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NESSELRODE PUDDING
Remove the shells from two dozen French chestnuts, which put in a saucepan with a little water, then peel off the skin, and put the chestnuts in a saucepan on the fire with a pint of water and one pound of sugar. Boil them until very soft, then press them through a sieve; the put them in a saucepan with one pint of cream, in which you mix the yolks of four eggs. Just before boiling put your mixture through a sieve, add an ounce of stoned raisins, an ounce of currants, two sherryglasses of sherry wine, and freeze it like ice-cream. When frozen, cut four candied apricots, four candied green gages, half an ounce of citron in small pieces, three ounces of candied cherries; mix them thoroughly into the pudding, which is put into a mould, a thick piece of paper on top, and the cover securely shut down upon it. Put some cracked ice, mixed with two handfuls of rock salt, into a bowl, in the middle of which put your mould, covering it entirely with ice and salt; let it remain two hours, then turn it out of the mould, first dipping it into warm water.


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MACAROONS
Put half a pound of almonds in boiling water, remove the skins, then put the almonds in cold water, then put them in the oven to dry. Pound them to a paste, adding the white of an egg; then add a pound and a half of powdered sugar, again pound well, adding the whites of two eggs. Spread on a pan a sheet of white paper, pour the mixture into little rounds somewhat smaller than a fifty cent piece, place them on top of the paper in your pan, about an inch and a half apart. Put them in a gentle oven for twelve minutes, the door of the oven shut; at the end of that time, if they are well colored, remove them from the oven, let them become cold, turn the paper upside down, moisten it with a little water and remove the macaroons.


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FRUIT
Arrange grapes, apples, bananas and oranges upon fancy dishes, with gayly colored leaves and ivy branches around them.


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COFFEE
Take one quart of boiling water, one even cupful of freshly ground coffee, wet with half a cupful of cold water, white and shell of one egg. Stir into the wet coffee the white and shell, the latter broken up small. Put the mixture into the coffee pot, shake up and down six or seven times hard, to insure thorough incorporation of the ingredients, and pour in the boiling water. Boil steadily twelve minutes, pour in half a cupful of cold water, and remove instantly to the side to settle. Leave it there five minutes; lift and pour off gently the clear coffee. Serve in small cups, and put no sugar in the coffee. Lay, instead, a lump in each saucer, to be used as the drinker likes.


19th C. CAKE RECIPES
from Godey's Lady's Book, 1860.
LEMON CAKE
Beat six eggs, the yolks and whites separately, till in a solid froth; add to the yolks the grated rind of a fine lemon and six ounces of sugar dried and sifted; beat this a quarter of an hour; shake in with the left hand six ounces of dried flour; then add the whites of the eggs and the juice of the lemon; when these are well beaten in, put it immediately into tins, and bake it about an hour in a moderately hot oven.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LEMON GINGERBREAD
Grate the rinds of two or three lemons, and add the juice to a glass of brandy; then mix the grated lemon in one pound of flour, make a hole in the flour, pour in half a pound of treacle, half a pound of butter melted, the lemon-juice, and brandy, and mix all up together with half an ounce of ground ginger and quarter of an ounce of Cayenne pepper.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SEED CAKE
Beat one pound of butter to a cream, adding gradually a quarter of a pound of sifted sugar, beating both together; have ready the yolks of eighteen eggs, and the whites of ten, beaten separately; mix in the whites first, and then the yolks, and beat the whole for ten minutes; add two grated nutmegs, one pound and a half of flour, and mix them very gradually with the other ingredients; when the oven is ready, beat in three ounces of picked caraway-seeds. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUEEN CAKE
Mix one pound of dried flour, the same of sifted sugar and of washed currants; wash one pound of butter in rose water, beat it well, then mix with it eight eggs, yolks and whites beaten separately, and put in the dry ingredients by degrees; beat the whole an hour; butter little tins, teacups, or saucers, filling them only half full; sift a little fine sugar over just as you put them into the oven. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMPERIAL GINGERBREAD
Rub six ounces of butter into three-quarters of a pound of flour; then mix six ounces of treacle with a pint of cream carefully, lest it should turn the cream; mix in a quarter of a pound of double-refined sugar, half an ounce of powdered ginger, and one ounce of caraway-seeds; stir the whole well together into a paste, cut it into shapes, and stick cut candied orange or lemon-peel on the top. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SOFT CRULLERS
Sift three-quarters of a pound of flour, and powder half a pound of loaf-sugar; heat a pint of water in a round-bottomed saucepan, and when quite warm, mix the flour with it gradually; set half a pound of fresh butter over the fire in a small vessel; and when it begins to melt, stir it gradually into the flour and water; then add by degrees the powdered sugar and half a grated nutmeg. Take the saucepan off the fire, and beat the contents with a wooden spaddle or spatula, till they are thoroughly mixed; then beat six eggs very light, and stir them gradually into the mixture. Beat the whole very hard, till it becomes a thick batter. Flour a pasteboard very well, and lay out the batter upon it in rings (the best way is to pass it through a screw funnel). Have ready, on the fire, a pot of boiling lard of the very best quality; put in the crullers, removing them from the board by carefully taking them up, one at a time, on a broad-bladed knife. Boil but few at a time. They must be a fine brown. Lift them out on a perforated skimmer, draining the lard from them back into the pot; lay them on a large dish, and sift powdered white sugar over them. Soft crullers cannot be made in warm weather. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A GOOD POUND CAKE
Beat one pound of butter to a cream, and mix with it the whites and yolks of eight eggs beaten apart. Have ready, warm by the fire, one pound of flour, and the same of sifted sugar; mix them and a few cloves, a little nutmeg and cinnamon, in fine powder together; then by degrees work the dry ingredients into butter and eggs. When well beaten, add a glass of wine and some caraways. It must be beaten a full hour. Butter a pan, and bake it an hour in a quick oven. The above proportions, leaving out four ounces of the butter, and the same of sugar, make a less luscious cake, and to most tastes a more pleasant one.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHRISTMAS CAKE
To two pounds of flour well sifted unite
Of loaf-sugar ounces sixteen;
Two pounds of fresh butter, with eighteen fine eggs,
And four pounds of currants washed clean;
Eight ounces of almonds well blanched and cut small,
The same weight of citron sliced;
Of orange and lemon-peel candied one pound,
And a gill of pale brandy uniced;
A large nutmeg grated; exact half an ounce
Of allspice, but only a quarter
Of mace, coriander, and ginger well ground,
Or pounded to dust in a mortar.
An important addition is cinnamon, which
is better increased than diminished;
The fourth of an ounce is sufficient.
Now this
May be baked four good hours till finished. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------