10 Old-Timey Sweets for Your Valentine 

There’s no doubt about it: On February 14, the bar for romantic gestures is higher than on any other day. If the special person in your life has a discerning sweet tooth—and especially if they’re a history buff—consider recreating a dessert or cake from days gone by. Here are 10 old-timey examples of sugary nibbles that could score you some major brownie points.

1. Kisses 
2. Strawberry Cream
3. Love Cake 
4. Queen Cake
5. Fudge Hearts
6. Gooseberry Fool 
7. Macaroons 
8. Éclairs 
9. Praline Pecans 
10. Candied Violets

Kisses 

While Hershey’s is the brand most famous for producing this type of sweet chocolate treat, historians say the term was used as long ago as the 1820s to refer to a small wrapped candy. Eliza Leslie’s cookbook from 1832, Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats, proffers a recipe with just four ingredients (and no chocolate): sugar, egg whites, lemon extract, and currant jelly. To start, beat the egg whites, then gradually beat in a pound of sifted sugar along with the lemon extract. Lay wet parchment paper in a tin pan and drop teaspoonfuls of “stiff currant jelly” at equal distances. Over the jelly, drop enough egg white mixture “so as to make the kisses of a round smooth shape,” Leslie writes. Bake in a cool oven just long enough to develop some color. To finish, press the bottoms of two cooled kisses together “so as to form one ball or oval.”

Strawberry Cream

This recipe from “Aunt Babette’s” Cook Book: Foreign and Domestic Receipts for the Household, published in 1889, calls for “the yelks of ten eggs, three-quarters of a pound of pulverized sugar, and a wineglassful of red wine.” Stir these ingredients for 10 minutes before adding a pint of strawberry juice (obtained by pressing a quart of ripe strawberries through a sieve). Then, set the mixture over a fire (or stovetop) and stir until it boils. Finally, beat the whites of the eggs into a stiff froth and fold into the cream. “Aunt Babette” recommends serving this treat cold in parfait glasses.

Love Cake 

This traditional Sri Lankan recipe emerged in colonial Ceylon with elements from Portuguese and Dutch settlers’ cuisines. It is usually baked at Christmas, but given its name, you might want to try your hand at one a couple of months late. It starts with toasting semolina (coarsely ground durum wheat flour) until fragrant, mixing it with butter, and then combining with a mixture of beaten egg yolks and sugar. Add chopped cashews and bits of candied melon to end up with a thick, sticky batter. Spices, almond essence, rose water, and beaten egg whites are then folded in before it’s baked in a greased pan for around an hour at 300°F. 

Queen Cake

Treat your valentine like royalty with this recipe from Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell’s A New System of Domestic Cookery, published in 1807. You’ll need to mix a pound each of flour, sifted sugar, and currants, then “wash” a pound of butter in rosewater and beat these four ingredients together. Then, beat the yolks and whites of eight eggs separately and add to the butter mixture. Rundell suggests beating “the whole an hour, ” but modern cooks can probably use a stand mixer to achieve the same results with less arm strain. When the batter is ready, fill small cake tins halfway, “sift a little fine sugar over, just as you put into the oven,” and bake for about 20 minutes.

Fudge Hearts

Want to surprise your sweetheart with homemade fudge? Maria Parloa’s 1909 book Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes has you covered. This recipe calls for boiling a third of a cup each of condensed milk and water with two cups of granulated sugar, before adding a quarter cup of butter and 1.5 squares of chocolate. Once the mixture cools, stir in a teaspoon of vanilla extract as the finishing touch. “Beat the candy until it thickens and begins to sugar,” Parloa writes, and then pour into a pan lined with paper to harden. Cut into pieces with a heart-shaped cookie cutter or sharp knife.

Gooseberry Fool 

Fool desserts, usually composed of sweetened custard and fruit, date back to at least the 17th century. This gooseberry version from “Aunt Babette’s” Cook Book is fairly simple to make. You’ll need to stew a quart of berries with 1.5 cups of sugar, then add a tablespoon of butter. Make a custard with “the well-beaten yelks of six eggs,” then layer it with the berries in a glass dish, with meringues on top if you’d like.

Macaroons 

Before the modern macaroon/macaron divide, it’s likely that these words both came from the Sicilian maccarruni. Want to try making your own version for your sweetheart? To create Rundell’s recipe from A New System of Domestic Cookery, you’ll need to blanche four ounces of almonds, pound them into a paste with orange flower water, and then whisk four egg whites to a froth in a separate bowl. Blend the egg whites with a pound of sifted sugar until thick, fold together with the almonds, and then drop onto sheets of parchment paper.

Éclairs 

The name of this popular sweet (previously called “petite duchesse”) dates to the 1860s and means “lightning” in French. A recipe from Good Things to Eat, as Suggested by Rufus, which was published by the chef Rufus Estes in 1911, suggests a version topped with coffee-flavored icing. You should boil a cup of hot water with a half cup of butter and a half teaspoon of salt to start. The moment it bubbles, whisk in 1.5 cups of sifted pastry flour and stir for five minutes before adding five whole eggs, one at a time. The dough should be dropped onto a buttered baking pan in 4-inch-long pieces and baked until puffed. Once cooled, they can be filled with cream and drizzled with coffee icing.

Praline Pecans 

In the 1904 book Cooking in Old Créole Days, author Célestine Eustis instructs bakers on making this super-sweet treat that was sold on street corners in New Orleans. Simmer a half-cup of water with two cups of brown sugar until it candies, then stir in a cup of pecans until the sugar syrup adheres to the nuts, watching it constantly to avoid burning. Pour into individual patties on parchment paper to dry and harden. “The same thing can be done with peanuts,” Eustis suggests. 

Candied Violets

Flowers are the classic Valentine’s Day gift, so what could be more romantic than a confection made from them? This recipe from Rufus Estes’s Good Things to Eat suggests picking actual violets in the early morning “while the dew is still on them” and laying them out on a wire rack until dry but not crisp. Next, make a syrup by boiling a half pint of water and half pound of sugar together. While holding each violet by the stem, dip the flower into the hot syrup, then leave them to dry again on the rack for several hours. (They may require a second dipping.) Finally, each one should be glazed by dipping into melted fondant and then dusting with powdered sugar. Estes advises that “rose leaves may be candied in the same way.”

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