Customer Reviews

Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes and Sweetmeats, by Miss Leslie

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Miss Leslie's book was originally written in the 1830's, a few years after that famous work by Mrs Beaton. Miss Leslie's work is excellent. The recipes are very precise in terms of ingredients (there is even a very handy reference section to let you know how many cups in a gill and how many table spoons in a cup etc.

What I like best about this book is the advice sections - we have lost much of the art of baking and cooking simply because our ovens are too easy - Miss Leslie has a great number of tips and tricks for doing things - baking large biscuits in earthenware for instance is excellent - as well as little tips like making sure you score a cake's icing with a small sharp knife before cutting to ensure it doesn't crack.

there are some ingredients which were clearly common in this age which are not nearly so well used now, like rose-water. But there are some ingredients I still don't know - Pearl-ash for instance - and although I know isginglass I have never used it.

Still this is a truly lovely little book to have on your shelf - and another especially nice book to give this christmas to someone you love.

I found the information in this book to be fascinating, and Miss Leslie's written voice to be clear. It is full of wonderful recipes, with interesting and useful tips if your are baking on a wood stove. However, the formatting in the Contents section is pretty non-existent, making it a bit difficult to find any specific type of recipes.

However the info is valuable, and so it is worth the effort to persevere!

If you are interested in archaic cookbooks, then you will find this a good read. The recipes are detailed enough to be adapted for the modern kitchen, and could serve as inspiration.