Rout cakes - part 2

In my last post I wrote about rout cakes in Jane Austen's Emma (1815) and Vanity Fair by Thackeray (1847-48).  Rout cakes were small rich cakes, flavoured with dried fruit and alcohol, which were commonly eaten at large parties and evening assemblies.

The earliest printed recipe for rout cakes that I could track down dates from 1806, from Mrs Rundell's A New System of Domestic Cookery.  However, George Gascoigne advertised his new shop in the Leeds Intelligencer of Monday 6th July, 1795, noting that amongst the desserts he served up were ‘rout cakes’.

Rout cakes 1

Mrs Elton was a little shocked at the want of two drawing rooms, at the poor attempt at

rout cakes, and there being no ice in the Highbury card parties.  (Jane Austen, Emma)

Mrs Elton is one of Jane Austen's dislikeable female characters.  She arrives half-way through the novel as the new wife of the vicar of Highbury, Mr Elton.  Mortified to have been rejected by the novel's protagonist Emma Woodhouse, and offended that she had been trying to create a match between him and her friend, Harriet Smith, of dubious social origins, Mr Elton leaves Highbury for Bath.  When he returns he is engaged and, as he makes clear to his parishioners - knowing that the gossip will spread and reach the ears of the woman who has turned him down - 'he had not thrown himself away - he had gained a woman of 10,000 pounds or thereabouts'.