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Receipts of Pastry and Cookery
- Year
- 1720
- Era
- 18th century
- Origin
- England · Europe
- Language
- English
- Category
- English pre-1800
Receipts of Pastry and Cookery is among the earliest English cookery books produced entirely from engraved plates, with both text and illustrations cut rather than typeset. Issued under the name of Edward Kidder, a noted London pastry master who taught cookery to gentlewomen, it preserves the curriculum of his schools, including diagrams of pie and tart shapes. Surviving copies are scarce, and variant states reflect its piecemeal manuscript-like production.
Cooking from this book
Lumber Pie
Signature dishA signature confection of Kidder's engraved manual is the Lumber Pie, a richly spiced raised pie of forcemeat balls bound with suet, fruit, and sack, baked within a standing crust. It typifies the elaborate Georgian pastry work the master taught his pupils, blending sweet and savoury in a style already growing old-fashioned by 1720. Its inclusion captures the transitional moment between Restoration excess and the lighter cookery that would follow.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.
