How To Make Rout Cakes
I am proud to publish this edited extract from THE REGENCY COOK by Paul Couchman, a graduate of my writing course. Paul set out to rediscover long-forgotten recipes from the early 1800s.
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Come to Spitalfields and spend a winter weekend with me in an eighteenth century weaver’s house in Fournier St, enjoy delicious lunches and eat cakes baked to historic recipes, and learn how to write your own blog.
From their earliest beginnings, a rout meant the more people the better. In 1792 hundreds of invitations to a rout were sent by a hostess to people she did not even know. ‘The more people, the more éclat to the thing’ reported the Waterford Herald. Another report talks of guests ‘received at the door by the mistress of the house who smiles at every newcomer with a look of acquaintance.’
Five hundred people were invited by the Duchess of Wellington in 1820 for her rout at Apsley House where she threw open the library, saloon, picture gallery and even the china room. But the poor Marchioness of Landsdowne only managed to get three hundred fashionable guests to her house in Landsdowne Sq in the same year.
A Georgian satirical ‘recipe’ for a rout questions how many of these guests were true ‘fashionables’ – ‘Take all the ladies and gentlemen you can get, place them in a room with low fire, stir them well..the more you put the better, and the more substantial your rout will be.’ It even gave guidance to what to do if undesirables turned up – ‘Fill your room quite full and let scum rise of itself.’
Sometimes the rooms became so overcrowded and there was no room for guests to sit for conversation or a game of cards, or even space to move about. Indeed so cramped and disorderly that some people felt it necessary to remove their furniture. In 1810, an American visitor to London described how ‘the house…is frequently stripped from top to bottom…all but the ornamental furniture is carried out of sight.’
After fifteen minutes of crushing boredom, the American visitor tells us how the guests all rushed out to wait for their coaches and then, after half an hour of waiting outside, moved on to the next rout. But routs could last longer. In the Receipt Book of Mary Whiting Sewell, we learn of routs that lasted two or three hours. Whether long or short, contemporary reports tell us that many people hated attending the rout, some said they only went because one evening’s rout provided enough gossip for the rest of the year.
Music, conversation about books and art, occasionally cards and certainly eating happened at a rout. The menu for a successful rout included sliced beef or ham, seed cakes, sweetmeats and wine. But at the rout, most importantly for us, rout cakes were eaten. They are tiny rich sweet cakes made for routs and are mentioned in contemporary sources, and frequently referred to in eighteenth and nineteenth century literature.
Austen’s Emma was ‘a little shocked at the want of two drawing rooms, at the poor attempt at rout-cakes, and there being no ice in the Highbury card parties. Mrs Bates, Mrs Perry, Mrs Goddard and others, were a good deal behind hand in knowledge of the world, but she would soon shew them how every thing ought to be arranged.’
And in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair Joseph Sedley ‘managed a couple of plates full of strawberries and cream, and twenty-four little rout cakes that were lying neglected in a plate near him.’
‘To make rout drop-cakes, mix two pounds of flour with 1 pound of butter, one pound of sugar, and one pound of currants, cleaned and dried. Moisten it into a stiff paste with two eggs, a large spoonful of orange-flower water, as much rose water, sweet wine and brandy. Drop the paste on a tin plate floured, and a short time will bake them.’ – from the Cook & Housekeeper’s Dictionary, Mary Eaton, 1822.
RECIPE
Makes 12-14 individual small cakes
Ingredients
150g (5oz) plain flour
A pinch of salt
50g (1¾oz) butter at room temperature
50g (1¾oz) caster sugar
1 small egg
40g (1½oz) currants
1 teaspoon orange flower water
1 teaspoon rose water
1 teaspoon sweet wine
1 teaspoon brandy
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan (350F/320F fan/gas mark 4).
2. Grease and line a baking tray.
3. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl.
4. Rub in the butter using the tips of your fingers to make a crumbly mixture. Then stir in the sugar.
5. Beat the whole egg in a small bowl and stir in the orange flower water, the rose water, the sweet wine and the brandy.
6. Gradually mix the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients to make a smooth dough.
7. Finally, stir in the currants.
8. Spoon small heaps of the mixture onto the baking tray and bake for 16-18 minutes until golden brown.
9. When cool dust with sieved icing sugar.
If you prefer, you can bake the sponge as one piece by spreading the mixture evenly to fill the baking tray. When the sponge has cooled down, you can then cut out, and perhaps decorate, individual cakes with a shaped cutter of your choice. Decorating with hundreds and thousands would be apt. Sugar sprinkles date back to at least the late eighteenth-century, if not earlier when they were called ‘nonpareils.’
A really excellent and intriguing piece. I am always keen to read what previous generations regarded as a good cake. I’m planning to make them this weekend for the grandchildren, perhaps minus the brandy.
Forgive me if I veer away from the rout, and concentrate on the fashion statement by the young woman on the right? The feminine “ideal” at the time featured bounteous curves and rounded
figures. And although the sketch of m’lady above MAY be a bit extreme, it is true that evening wear during the Regency period was replete with plunging necklines, filmy revealing fabrics, and requisite corsets or corsetted petticoats. In order to keep one’s feminine bounties in place, a
“busk” was inserted between the breasts; producing the desired result of a lovely creamy “shelf”.
Ta da! Busks were sometimes hand-carved and decorated by a ladies’ sweetheart. And while a gentleman may keep his fervent thoughts “close to the vest”, a lady of the period would keep her sweetheart near to her heart. Viva la difference!
I believe it was Mrs. Elton who harboured those officious thoughts in Emma – not Emma herself (she meddled in other ways of course) 🙂
Fascinating! Thanks so much. I was familiar with the word, but had never heard about those ridiculous parties before. I look forward to trying the recipe.