Baking in Regency England

In the novel I’m currently working on, one of my genteel heroines, finding herself in reduced circumstances, is trying her hand at baking to help make ends meet. To write these scenes, I perused a few cookery books from previous centuries, looking for some relative easy recipes for her to try.

Regency cook: Number One Royal Crescent, Bath

Here is the easiest cake recipe I could find in the 1780 edition of The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse:

Beat together for an hour with your hand…? There ain’t nothin’ easy about that! I don’t know about you, but that makes me thankful for an electric mixer.

Or how about this “Spunge cake” recipe from Modern Domestic Cookery and Useful Receipt Book by Elizabeth Hammond, 1819:

After beating the whites by hand until a very stiff froth, then you had to beat the remaining ingredients for another forty minutes. Any bakers out there want to give this a try? I’m guessing cooks then had very strong arms.

Number One Royal Crescent

Then you had to know how to gauge and regulate the temperature in a wood-burning oven like these. A quick oven? A hot oven? A slow oven? This makes me thankful for the dial on my modern appliance.

Do you like to bake? Which modern kitchen convenience are you most thankful for?