Sweet Things.

I am in Oxford for the Symposium, you still (I hope) receiving these (very) little stories courtesy of Bloggers post-ahead feature.

Today I am drawing from the Barossa Cookery Book, published in aid of the Tanunda Soldiers Memorial Hall, no date but the drawing look very 1920’s. The Barossa Valley is in the state of South Australia – famous for its great wines (it has some of the oldest Shiraz vineyards in the world) and with its German migrant heritage still obvious in its cuisine.

Almost all of this book is given over to baking – there are only a few pages at the beginning with meat, fish etc. Browsing it made me realise that I have not included near enough sweets (candies, lollies, confectionary) in the nearly three years of this blog.

Butter Scotch.
One lb. sugar, 1 ½ oz. butter, ¼ cup cold water. Melt butter in saucepan, add water and sugar, boil 20 mins but do not stir.

Almond Toffee.
Two cups sugar, ¾ cup water, 1 eggspoon cream of tartar, ¼ lb.blanched almonds. Put sugar and water into a greased pot. When boiling, add cream of tartar and almonds. Boil till toffee cracks when dropped into cold water. Pour into a greased toffee tin and leave to set. To be kept in air-tight tin.

Peppermint Creams.
Break into a bowl the white of one egg, add to it an equal quantity of cold water, then stir in enough icing sugar to make a firm paste. Flavour with peppermint essence. Roll out, cut into rounds or any fancy shapes and place on waxed paper to dry.