Crisp Ginger Cakes

In the original manuscript for Elizabeth Ellicott Lea’s Domestic Cookery—in the possession of one of her descendants—there is considerable marginalia about sources of recipes, dates of testing, and the little alterations she made to recipes based on family practice. In her grandmother’s recipe for crisp gingerbread, she calls for ginger, cloves, and coarsely ground anise. The recipe, however, is in all other respects the same as Eliza Smith’s, so I h