Cut up three quarters of a pound of butter into a jill and a half or three wine glasses of rich unskimmed milk, (cream will be still better,) and get the pan on a stove or near the fire, till the butter becomes soft enough to stir all through the milk with a knife; but do not let it get so hot as to boil of itself. Then set it away in a cold place. Sift into separate pans, a half pound and a quarter of a pound of the finest flour; and having beaten four eggs as light as possible, mix them with the milk and butter, and then pour the whole into the pan that contains the half pound of flour. Having previously prepared two grated nutmegs, and a table- spoonful of powdered cinnamon and mace, stir them into the mixture; adding six drops of extract of roses, or a large table-spoonful of rose water. Add a wine glass and a half of the best fresh yeast from a brewery. If you cannot procure yeast of the very best quality, an attempt to make these buns will most probably prove a failure, as the variety of other ingredients will prevent them from rising unless the yeast is as strong as possible. Before you put it in, skim off the thin liquid or beer from the top, and then stir up the bottom. After you have put in the yeast, add the sugar; stirring it well in, a very little at a time. If too much sugar is put in at once, the buns will be heavy. Lastly, sprinkle in the quarter of a pound of flour that was sifted separately; and stir the whole very hard. Put the mixture into a square pan well buttered, and (having covered it with a cloth) place it in a corner of the hearth to rise, which will require, perhaps, about five hours; therefore these buns should always be made early in the day. Do not bake it till the batter has risen to twice its original quantity, and is covered on the top with bubbles; then set the pan into a moderate oven, and bake it about twenty minutes. Let it get cool in the pan; then, cut it into squares, and either ice them, (flavouring the icing with essence of lemon or extract of roses,) or sift grated loaf-sugar thickly over them. These buns (like all other cakes made with yeast) should be eaten the day they are baked; as when stale, they fall and become hard. In mixing them, you may stir in at the last half a pound of raisins, stoned, chopped and floured; or half a pound of currants. If you use fruit, put in half a wine glass more of the yeast.
Take a peice of Bacon not very fat, but sweet and safe from being rusty, a peice of fresh beefe, a couple of hoggs Eares, and foure feet if they can be had, and if not, some quantity of sheeps feet, (Calves feet are not proper) a joynt of Mutton, the Leg, Rack, or Loyne, a Hen, halfe a dozen pigeons, a bundle of Parsley, Leeks, and Mint, a clove of Garlick when you will, a small quantity of Pepper, Cloves, and Saffron, so mingled that not one of them over-rule, the Pepper and Cloves must be beaten as fine as possible may be, and the Saffron must be first dryed, and then crumble in powder and dissolved apart in two or three spoonfuls of broth, but both the Spices and the Saffron may be kept apart till immediately before they be used, which must not be, till within a quarter of a houre before the Olio be taken off from the fire; a pottle of hard dry pease, when they have first steept in water some dayes, a pint of boyl'd Chesnuts: particular care must be had that the pot wherein the Olio is made, be very sweet; Earthen I thinke is the best, and judgement is to be had carefully both in the size of the Pot, and in the quantity of the Water at the first, that so the Broth may grow afterwards to be neither too much nor too little, nor too grosse, nor too thin; thy meat must be long in boyling, but the fire not too fierce, the Bacon, the Beef, the Pease, the Chesnuts, the Hogs Eares may be put in at the first. I am utterly against those confused Olios into which men put almost all kinds of meats and Roots, and especially against putting of Oyle, for it corrupts the Broath, instead of adding goodnesse to it. To do well, the Broth is rather to be drunk out of a Porringer then to be eaten with a spoon, though you add some smal slices of bread to it, you wil like it the worse. The Sauce for thy meat must be as much fine Sugar beaten smal to powder, with a little Mustard, as can be made to drink the Sugar up, and you wil find it to be excellent, but if you make it not faithfully and justly according to this prescript, but shall neither put Mace, or Rosemary, or Tyme to the Herbs as the manner is of some, it will prove very much the worse.
