Horehound Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Make the horehound tea
Steep the horehound in boiling water to make a pint of horehound tea.
Once the tea is cold, pour it into a preserving pan with the crushed sugar.
Cook and set
Heat the mixture over a clear fire and boil until it reaches the 'blown' stage.
Remove from heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar thickens and begins to set.
Pour the mixture onto a slightly oiled marble slab, about ¼ inch thick.
Shape the cake using a cutter or mark it in squares for easy breaking.
Allow to cool completely, then store in jars or canisters away from air.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Crushed loaf sugar
- Forms the bulk of the cake and sets into a firm, brittle candy as it cools.
- Horehound
- Gives the cake its distinctive bitter, herbal flavour through the infused tea.
The step that matters
Boil to the 'blown' stage. Sugar must reach the right temperature to set firm when cooled. Too little boiling leaves the cake soft and sticky, while overheating makes it hard to pour and prone to burning.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.