"soft baked"; and "no great kicks"

[George Thompson]

>From a transcript of testimony in a bigamy case:
Mr. Wilson. -- Did you not consider him to be crazy when you married him.
Witness. -- No I did not.  I think it now a proof of being crazy for him to run after so many women.
Mr. Wilson. -- And so do I.  He was a boss baker when you married him, Phoebe, was he not?
Witness. -- Yes he was, and was doing very well at Williamsburgh.
***
Mr. Wilson __ And you really mean to say when he took you for a wife, that you did not believe his own dough to be soft baked?
The witness made no reply, and the second wife (who instituted the prosecution) was called upon the stand.
[She admits that she knew when she married him that he was already married, and that she herself had a husband who might or might not be still alive.]
Mr. Wilson. -- And so you wanted another husband, and got married to this poor fellow, and now you want to get him into difficulty among you.  You need not be quarrelling in this way about him, for he's no great kicks that I can see.
[the Judge: why are we bothering with this?  Acquitted.]
New York Transcript, April 13, 1836, p. 2, col. 3

I'm familiar with "half-baked", but would apply it to an idea or a plan, not a person.  "Soft-baked" seems not to be in the OED.

"no great kicks" relates to the OED's II,4: "the fashion, the newest style", HDAS's 1a, "fashion, style mode", from the very late 17th C, but neither has this expression, and they have only
1787 G. COLMAN Inkle & Yarico III. i, I march'd the lobby, twirled my stick..The girls all cry'd ‘He's quite the kick’.
as an example of "kick" applied to a person.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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