Cookie recipe from 1868

I’m working on re-charting some patterns from an 1868 French magazine called ‘La mode illustrée’, at the end of the weekly edition there are some recipes and I thought it would be fun to give them a try.

Typical of the time period the instructions are rather vague, and leave a bit to the discretion of the lady of the house and the cooking facilities she had. Most household still used wood burners which could be unpredictable, gas stoves would not make it into most homes before the 1880’s, but it would be another 40-50 years before electric stoves would become the centerpiece of the modern kitchen.

Here is the direct translation of the recipe:

 “Tea cakes – 50 grams of nice flour, 50 grams of sugar, one egg, of which the white will be beat into snow. Grease a paper which you will put on a metal plaque, place the dough dumplings which you will have shaped as a circle or oval, cook it in the oven of stove or under a country oven.

So I gave it a try like this:

Makes 6 cookies

- Beat the white of the egg until stiff

- Cream 50g of sugar and the egg yolk

- Add 50 g of flour

- Fold in egg white

- Drop on cooking sheet and bake at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes (or until the corners start to get brown)

- Cool on cooking rack and store in an airtight container.

I tried this recipe three times. In one batch added a little bit of vanilla sugar, while another I baked at 160 degrees for about 18-20 minutes; the results were the same as when I baked them at 180 degrees.

If you try this recipe or a variation let me know how yours turned out. 

Tea cakes (cookies) from an 1868 recipe

The original recipe - In French