Victorian-lit-pastry-filter: What would a Christminster Cake look like in reality?

August 5, 2009 8:26 AM

In Jude the Obscure, Jude turns to creating and selling Christminster Cakes, pastry representations of Chrstminster, Hardy’s stand-in for Oxford. What would one of these cakes actually look like? How can I make one?

Would these be three-dimensional, Ace of Cakes style cakes, or would they be more two-dimensional, with an image drawn on top?

Pertinent text: “Why did you choose to sell gingerbreads?"
"That's a pure accident. He was brought up to the baking business, and it occurred to him to try his hand at these, which he can make without coming out of doors. We call them Christminster cakes. They are a great success."
"I never saw any like 'em. Why, they are windows and towers, and pinnacles! And upon my word they are very nice." She had helped herself, and was unceremoniously munching one of the cakes.
"Yes. They are reminiscences of the Christminster Colleges. Traceried windows, and cloisters, you see. It was a whim of his to do them in pastry."
"Still harping on Christminster--even in his cakes!" laughed Arabella.

posted by Doug to food & drink (9 comments total)

The traceried windows makes me think of stained glass window gingerbread:
http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/610262
http://blog.asmartmouth.com/2008/12/01/stained-glass-gingerbread/
(the second link the recipie is made far too complicated, but it has good pictures for what they look like baked)

But the text seems contradictory; the description is of something like a Christmas gingerbread house, but the way she casually picks up and eats one means it must be smaller.
posted by Coobeastie at 8:36 AM on August 5

I'm at work, but at home I have a medieval cookbook that describes making houses out of pastry. That there would be smaller Victorian houses from pastry or gingerbread is not unbelievable. Mostly it seems like it was pastry/cookie material, and bases or decorations of sugar or almond paste and colors based on availability and cost.
posted by cobaltnine at 9:14 AM on August 5

I wonder if "Why, they are windows and towers, and pinnacles!" means that each cake is a piece of architecture, rather than the whole? If each cake was a whole house, wouldn't she have said "there are"?
If each cake is a different piece of iconic architecture, the whole thing becomes much easier to visualize.
posted by Billegible at 12:34 PM on August 5 [1 favorite]

I'm not claiming any expertise here, so take everything I say with a grain of salt!

My guess is that me these 'cakes', which, if I remember the book properly, are being sold at a fair, were probably made in a mold. I'm picturing a flat-backed, cookie-like thing.

Shaped gingerbread was associated with fairs as far back as the Middle Ages, and it was common throughout Europe to make these fancy treats by pressing gingerbread dough into a mold. This page talks about medieval monks using 'large and elaborately carved "cookie boards" to impress a 'pattern onto a stiff rolled dough' to make gingerbread for religious festivals. This page, which reproduces information from something called 'The Gingerbread Book' mentions gingerbread with the image of a town's patron saint stamped on it being sold at fairs in Shakespeare's day.

It's important to note, too, that the buyers of gingerbread 'fairings' were low-income people. This Victorian book, called 'The Complete Biscuit and Gingerbread Baker's Assistant' suggests that it was common for Victorian men of the 'lower and middle orders' to buy gingerbread at fairs for their girlfriends, and for kids to spend 'their last penny' on fair gingerbread. I think Jude and Sue would need to make a lot of gingerbread Christminsters quickly and easily, which would suggest a fast method like a mold, rather than painstakingly putting together lots of little gingerbread houses.

As to where Jude could have gotten such molds, he might conceivably have learned something about them as a child, because he 'grew up in the baking business'. Or, he could just be applying the carving skills he learned as a mason to a different, less exalted medium.

And, as coobeastie says, the fact that Arabella picks up and eats the cakes suggests something small and manageable - a molded cake fits the bill in this regard, too. Alternatively, they could have been made with cutters, with the detail added with icing, but a mold seems like a better way to do it. And a molded cake could still be embellished further with icing.
posted by eatyourcellphone at 1:49 PM on August 5

Er, it's not really clear, but in that second-last paragraph, I was trying to say Jude would have the skills to make molds himself.
posted by eatyourcellphone at 1:51 PM on August 5

I can't speak as to its accuracy, but in the 1996 movie version (with Christopher Eccleston as Jude and Kate Winslet as Sue), they appear to have made a small molded cake with some icing.

Here's a screencap showing their cakes up close. This screencap shows Jude handing one to Arabella, so that you can get an idea of the scale.
posted by lysimache at 4:10 PM on August 5

The passage you quote suggests that there are several different shapes-- towers, pinnacles, traceried windows, suggesting individual architectural details rather than a HUGE gingerbread construction representing the whole university.

If I made a "Christminster cake," it would be a jam sandwich cookie of this sort. For a stained glass window, I'd have a bottom cookie shaped like a Gothic arch, a layer of red jam, and a top cookie with window-shaped cut-outs; traceries could be done in icing. Towers and pinnacles could be done along the same principle: two cookies with the same shape, the top one with a few window-shaped cut-outs showing a layer of brightly coloured jam in between.

eatyourcellphone's suggestion of a molded cookie is probably more historically accurate, though.
...damn...now I really want cookies.
posted by Pallas Athena at 4:16 PM on August 5

I know that is probably bad form to mark every answer as best, but I do think all these answers are amazing. I think the stained glass idea is wonderful. I think Billegible's theory is probably correct. eatyourcellphone is also probably right that they were molded (and the links provided were very interesting). I think the molded, distinct features of the university is probably the way it would be done, and is actually borne out by the movie stills lysimache posted. I think Pallas Athena's plan makes a lot of sense, and I think I will go that route. Thank you all so much.
posted by Doug at 10:24 PM on August 5

You have to send some of these cookies to everyone you favorited. ;D
posted by Billegible at 11:08 PM on August 5