[Sca-cooks] Digby's Cakes

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Glenda Robinson wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I also find that I can't quite get the amount of currants in, but only by a
> couple of handsfull. Did you prick the biscuits as per the recipe, as that
> makes the dough rise a lot more, and the finished biscuits can hold more
> currants.
>
> I translate 'ice' in a different sense to our modern icing, by dusting them
> with sugar. I haven't found (or know anyone that has) any references to what
> they actually meant by icing, which doesn't help any of us :-(

In general, the icing is a glazing of sugar reheated in the oven to fuse
it. This can be done by either dusting the cake with a thickish layer of
finely-beaten sugar, or in other cases by spreading a sort of paste
(kind of a super-saturated, uncooked syrup) of sugar and water,
rosewater  or other perfume-ey distilled water, on the cake when it is
very nearly done. Then you put the cake back in the oven until the icing
melts and covers the cake with a thin, crunchy (at least when cool)
layer of candy.

I think the problem with researching this topic is that instructions for
icing a cake tend to be within a cake recipe, while there are few, or
perhap no, recipes specifically for icing a cake, at least in the
sources I've looked at.

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98