Five-Strand Cable Twist, c.1855

"The twist is continued below by a five strand cable twist..."
Harper's, February 1855.

Here's the other five-strand plait I've found: a five-strand cable twist. To be fair, the only reference I've seen to this twist is in the Harper's illustration above.  Except for the instructions, which call for three strands, I've found no other references to cable twists/plaits/braids which say how many to use. This leads me to suspect that three-strand cable twists are the default, but the evidence isn't concrete.  At least one source uses "rope" for the two-strand version, but there may be come overlap between cable and rope twists.

To review, the three-strand cable plait is slight variation on a basic flat three strand braid: the right-hand strand goes over the center, but instead of staying there, it loops around the center strand and goes back to the right side; the left likewise goes around the center and back home. 

Transforming that into a five strand, the key attributes seem to be:

• Center strand (probably) stays put
• The moving strand returns to its general area
• Strands need to advance

First method attempted: Far left strand goes over less-far-left and center, around the center and into the less-far-left position. The center strand stays in the center, while the former less-far-left strand advances to the far-left position. Repeat with the right. Then the left again. This is the most straightforward and most similar to the 3-strand, so it's my preferred option.

The active strand going over its neighbor and the center strand.

Continue advancing: over 2 and back under the center,
then repeat from the other side.

This five-strand cable plait is round, but looks 
an awful lot like the three-strand version.

Second hypothetical method: As the first, but with the moving strand goes over the three middle strands instead of just two. That's over three, around the far two, and back to the position next to where it started. This one was really hard to keep the strands separated, and ends up being a more complicated way to achieve the same effect as the first one.

I can't tell them apart, but #2 was a lot more annoying to make.

Third hypothetical method: borrowing a little more from the weaving of the flat 5-strand plait: take the moving strand over the nearest strand, then under and around the center strand, and ending between the center and the starting position. This does give an interesting woven effect, but I'm seeing much of a 'cable'.

The first method looks like a cable,
but the third just looks like the flat 5-strand braid.

When all is said and done, I think the first method (moving strand goes over neighbor and around the center, repeat from other side), is the easiest method that actually produces a cable-plait. I'm not seeing much benefit to using the five strands rather than three, but it is possible.

To recap with ribbons:

Historical Food Fortnightly, Season 5

Let's do this! As always, feel free to make your foods as funny/punny/literal/contrived as you desire. All eras are welcome to participate, though the spirit of the event tends toward using recipes from the 1960s or before. In past years, we've had everything from reconstructed 2nd century Roman dishes to 20th century Jello recipes.

1. July 1-14: Start Strong. Start the new season with something "strong"--strongly flavored, associated with strength, or even full of strong spirits.
2. July 15-28. Breakfast. Make a breakfast dish.
3. July 29- Aug 11: Keep it Simple. Make a dish that uses few ingredients or simple techniques.
4. Aug 11-25: First Fruits. Make something with fruit: fruit-flavored, fruit-shaped, or using the "first fruits" of your local harvest.
5. Aug 26- Sept 8:  Save it for Later. Try to preserve a food for later use, or make a dish with preserved ingredients.
6. Sept 9-24: Luncheon. Make a mid-day meal from your preferred era.
7. Sept 23-Oct 6: Offal-ly Good. Make a dish with offal or using parts of an ingredient that you normally wouldn't cook with. Watermelon rinds, seed pods, or anything edible-but-unexpected is on the table.  
8. Oct 7-20: Literary Food. Make a dish mentioned in a novel, story or song.
9. Oct 21-Nov 3: Fear factor. Try using an ingredient or technique that intimidates you. 
10. Nov 4-17: Let Them Eat Cake. Make a cake, or cakes, or anything involving "cake".
11. Nov 18-Dec 1: Comfort Foods. Make a dish that you are comfortable with, or that is comforting to eat. 
12. Dec 2-15: Get Saucy! Make a sauce or relish/topping/dressing or your choice.
13. Dec 16-29: Party Time. Make a festive food, or something suitable for company.
14. Dec 30- Jan 12. Topsy-Turvy. Make a dish that is somehow unusual or reverses the normal order of things. 
15. Jan 13-26: "T" Time. Make a light dish or confection suitable for tea. Or anything with the letter "T".
16. Jan 27-Feb 9: Soup-er Bowl. Make a soup or other dish served by the bowl.
17. Feb 10-23: Heartfelt. Make a historic version of something you love, or anything with "heart".
18. Feb 24-March 9: The More Things Change. Make a dish or use an ingredient that was common in your historic era, but is unpopular or hard-to-find today.
19. Mar 10-23: Foreign Food. Make a dish that is somehow "foreign" to your cooking experience.
20. Mar 24- Apr 6: Beverages: Make something to drink.
21. April 7-20: Dinner is Served. Prepare a dish for dinner or another evening refreshment.
22. Apr 21- May 4: Stars. Make a "star" dish to catch the eye. Or something star-shaped, inspired by the heavens, etc.
23. May 5-18: Dessert. Make a dessert.
24. May 19-June 1: The Tiffany Problem. Try making a dish that's older than you'd expect; something that seems like it should be an anachronism, but isn't.
25. June 2-15: Picnic. Make a food to be eaten outside or on the go.
26. June 16-30: Reflection. Give yourself a second chance at any previous challenge or at a dish you've made before. Fix something that went wrong, or try a new variation of an old favorite. 

Excellent Rolls, 1861

I've made these before, but never wrote them up properly. So, to make my future life easier, here's Beeton's "excellent rolls".

EXCELLENT ROLLS.

1723. INGREDIENTS – To every lb. of flour allow 1 oz. of butter, 1/4 pint of milk, 1 large teaspoonful of yeast, a little salt.

Mode.—Warm the butter in the milk, add to it the yeast and salt, and mix these ingredients well together. Put the flour into a pan, stir in the above ingredients, and let the dough rise, covered in a warm place. Knead it well, make it into rolls, let them rise again for a few minutes, and bake in a quick oven. Richer rolls may be made by adding 1 or 2 eggs and a larger proportion of butter, and their appearance improved by brushing the tops over with yolk of egg or a little milk.

Time—1 lb. of flour, divided into 6 rolls, from 15 to 20 minutes.

--Beeton's Book of Household Management, 1861

I followed the procedure as above, letting the dough rise for an hour before shaping, and another 5-10 minutes after (shaping + second rise = time to pre-heat oven). I used 4 cups of all-purpose flour ~ 1 pound; 1 oz (unsalted) butter, 1 1/2 cup skim milk, 1 tsp active dry yeast, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1 egg. I initially used the called-for 1/2 cup milk, but it was nowhere near enough liquid so I ended up adding another full cup it was meant to be 1/2 cup. This made a wetter dough than I wanted, but it baked up just fine. Mostly, it was just harder to shape nicely.

The texture turned out fine despite the extra milk, and the flavor was rich as always. It was ever so slightly bland, so next time I would use more salt--3/4 tsp or even a whole teaspoon per pound. Or at least use salted butter.

The wet dough was a little hard to shape,
but otherwise these are indeed 'excellent' rolls.

Talc White Cakes, 1834/1865

TALC WHITE 

Venice talc in very fine powder, 1 oz. Distilled white vinegar, 2 oz. The talc and vinegar are put together for a fortnight, being shaken and stirred from time to time. The liquid is then removed by filteration and the deposit washed in distilled water until no very perceptible smell emanates from the mass which must now be mixed in a mortar with one drachm of spermaceti. This ointment must then be dried in a place where dust will not soil it. This substance is used by means of being rubbed in a few drops of oil when enough powder will be dissolved to whiten the face. This white does not impede tranispiration but it is liable to show a slight and not very natural polish. However, its great advantage lies in the fact that it is perfectly innoxious. 

--The Handbook for Ladies' Maids (1865) 

As with the white paint of 30 years before, this recipe uses starts with talc steeped in vinegar for two weeks. I find it interesting that the later recipe calls for spermaceti to form the cakes (and explains the use of oil to apply the color), where earlier recipe doesn't even specify what liquid should be used when the powder is "wetted and formed into cakes". I assume plain water, but would not be surprised if it used rosewater. Or Hungary water. Or orange-flower water.

Anyway, as given, the 1865 recipe calls for a 8:16:1 ratio of talc powder, vinegar, and spermaceti wax. I set the talc and vinegar two weeks back (50ml of talc, 100 vinegar), and once thoroughly rinsed and dried, I added ~6ml of spermaceti flakes (a scant 1 1/4 tsp), mixed them thoroughly in a mortar and pestle, and promptly got...a white powder.

Not quite cake-like.

In retrospect, the recipe doesn't really specify whether the spermaceti wax should be mixed in solid or melted first. I recall thinking that pounding the mixture in the mortar would make the talc powder adhere to the wax, though the "must then be dried" language does suggest that a liquid is involved at this stage. Since it calls for spermaceti and not "sperm oil", I expect that the solid wax is the right material (and the liquid oil is unlikely to dry into nice cakes), though I strongly suspect that the wax should be melted before incorporating it into the talc.

A little less powdery...

Before wasting two weeks' waiting work, I decided to try melting the spermaceti in the mixture by heating it in a water bath. This appears to have melted the spermaceti, as the powdery mixture started forming into small clumps.

Forming it into cakes. The rose molds come in handy again.

I tried three different methods for forming the talc into cakes. The first was pressing the powder into a small mold. This worked fairly well. The talc/spermaceti mixture formed a very fragile cake, so on the second attempt I added a drop of water to the mixture, which gave a slightly more robust molded cake. I used this same water-moistened talc to press round cakes in my smallest biscuit cutters. I set them on a piece of wax paper, then poured the talc in through the top, and compacted the talc with my fingers. The talc formed cakes easily in this way, though easing the whole cake out of the cutter without it crumbling takes time and care. 

Making the cakes at least 1/4" thick seems to help.

For the cake that broke apart, I added another drop of water and re-formed it in a shallow tin. The instructions don't mention using such containers, though it seems a practical approach (both for storing the cake away from dust or abrasion and for convenience in shaping the cake.)

Unfortunately, after all that work, I can't seem to use the paint itself. I hoped that it would work like a solid mascara: a drop of liquid is applied, it is rubbed into the bar to liberate some coloring agent, and then the liquid is brushed on as desired. I used sweet almond oil at first, then salad oil (olive oil), and finally water, without success. The sweet almond oil had no effect, the salad oil tinted the smaller molded cake yellow, and the water liberated some pigment, but mostly in small grains. I tried rubbing the cake with my finger, and with a small piece of sponge: the latter turned white where applied to the cake, but neither did more than smear oil with crumbs of white onto my skin. 

I suspect that the way I initially mixed the talc with the solid spermaceti might be responsible for the behavior of the cakes. I will need to try this again with melted spermaceti, to see if the texture and usefulness improves. It would be convenient to have solid white cakes instead of loose powder flying around, but so far the powder appears more effective.

Kitchen Garden, June 1819

JUNE 

Transplant cauliflower plants, and water them well. Plant out thyme, and other savoury herbs. Sow turnips and brocoli, [sic] and plant out celery in trenches for blanching; also endive. Destroy snails, slugs, &c. 

---Modern Domestic Cookery, and Useful Receipt Book (London, 1819)

Original: Late 16th Century Embroidered Smock

I love the embroidery on this smock, and am very pleased at the many close-up photographs showing details of the embroidery and the decorative seams along the gussets.

Italian Smock, late 16th Century, in The Met.