hardbake

English

Alternative forms

hard bake, hard-bake

Etymology

From hard +‎ bake.

Noun

hardbake (countable and uncountable, plural hardbakes)

1. A hard confection made of boiled brown sugar or molasses with almonds, flavoured with orange or lemon juice, similar to a nougat.
   • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 27, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:

     a washerwoman, who exposes hard-bake for sale in her parlor-window

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     They both had a taste for painting theatrical characters; for hard bake and raspberry tarts; for sliding and skating in the Regent's Park and the Serpentine, when the weather permitted; for going to the play, whither they were often conducted, by Mr. Osborne's orders, by Rowson, Master George's appointed body-servant, with whom they sat in great comfort in the pit.

   • 1908, William Schwenck Gilbert, The Pinafore Picture Book, Chapter 1:

     Harmless improving books were provided for the crew to read, and vanilla ices, sugar-plums, hardbake and raspberry jam were served out every day with a liberal hand.

References

• “hardbake”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.