As detailed in my last post, The History Girls were recently invited to take part in Archives@Dusk – an open evening for North Yorkshire Records Office. The recipes I was asked to reproduce both included ginger and regular readers know this is one of my favourite spices. As I have covered the story of ginger previously I simply share this eighteenth century recipe for you to try. As is common with many recipes from household manuscripts of this period the proportions are huge – so I have made one or two tweaks in order to make it more realistic for a modern bake.
Makes approximately 100 small biscuits.
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4
Pour 225g black treacle and 100ml of single cream into an oven proof dish and place in a luke warm oven.
Rub together 225g and 675g plain flour together until a breadcrumb texture forms. Stir in half an ounce of ground ginger and 225g of white caster sugar.
Remove the warmed treacle/cream mixture and pour over the dry ingredients. Stir well and bring together into a stiff paste.
Lay a large piece of greaseproof paper onto your worktop and roll out a section of the paste to about the thickness of a one pound coin. Cut to desired size. Bake on a greased baking tray for 12 – 14 minutes. Leave to cool slightly before transferring onto a cooling rack.
I hope that you enjoy the biscuits – let me know what you think on the facebook page or on twitter.
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