Mrs Beeton's Coconut Cakes

Winter brings out the baker in me. There is something
about a warm oven and the smell of baking that seems
so nice on a winter's day. I have been wanting to try
one of Mrs Beeton's recipes for some time. And I've been
reading her biography, so now seems like the perfect time.

COCOA~NUT BISCUITS OR CAKES
Ingredients: ~10oz of sifted sugar,3 eggs, 6oz grated cocoa~nut.
Mode.~Whisk the eggs until they are very light; add the sugar
gradually; then stir in the cocoa~nut. Roll a tablespoon of the
paste at a time in your hands in the form of a pyramid; place
pyramids on paper, put the paper on tins, bake the biscuits in
rather her a cool oven until they are just coloured light brown.
Time. About 1/4 hour. Seasonable at any time.

I used shredded coconut, and increased the amount, to make

a cake rather than a biscuit. I had the oven at about 180 degrees,

which is hotter than "rather a cool oven" but did the trick.

I also took the liberty of sprinkling a bit of coconut on top of each

cake, before it went into the oven.

And why the choice of coconut cakes you ask?

"Pretty baskets of work stood about in different places: and

books, not cared for on account of their binding solely, lay on one

table, as if recently put down. Behind the door was another

table, decked out for tea, with a white table~cloth, on which

flourished the cocoa~nut cakes, and a basket piled with

oranges and ruddy American apples, heaped on leaves.

It appeared to Mr Thornton that all these graceful cares were

habitual to the family; and especially a piece of Margaret."

Elizabeth Gaskell, North And South, 1854.

My cakes really were quite nice....although I am sure they would

not be up to Dixon's standard!