Recipes from a Victorian Cookbook

To Make Tea and Coffee. -Rinse the kettle and fill it from the tap (not the boiler). When it boils make your tea and coffee. Warm the teapot: allow one teaspoonful to each person and one for the pot. After filling the teapot, let it stand five minutes. Broken-leaf good tea is better than cheap tea; it does not take so much of it to make a good cup of tea. Warm your coffeepot. One ounce or one tablespoonful of ground coffee will make a pint. Pour on it one and a quarter pint of boiling water; let it stand five minutes ; clear by pouring in a little cold water and letting it stand a few minutes. This coffee could have a little more water added after the first pint had been poured off for the children. Neither tea nor coffee are good if made with water that has remained in the kettle for many hours.


Batter and Black Cap Puddings.- Eight ounces of flour, half a teaspoonful of baking powder, two eggs, a pint of milk. Mix the flour with the baking powder and a pinch of salt. Break the eggs into a cup, beat them lightly with a little of the milk, mix them by degrees quite smoothly into the flour so that there are no lumps, add the rest of the milk, grease a basin, pour the pudding in through a strainer, flour the cloth thickly after dipping it in boiling water, tie it securely, and boil gently for an hour and a half. Black cap pudding is made by throwing in a quarter of a pound of currants after the batter is in the basin.

Victorian London - Publications - Etiquette and Advice Manuals - The Scholars' Handbook of Household Management and Cookery, by W.B. Tegetmeier, 1876