MAB – Page 13 – Deja Food

18thC English French Bread

Bread is a curious topic to go a-hunting in the recipe archives because there are relatively so few recipes. Considering how central it was for such a large part of the population, the proportion of recorded recipes is surprisingly low.

The reason for this might be similar to that often cited as being behind Marco Polo’s failure to mention paper money in his account of travels in China: familiarity. It is a theory that Polo was so familiar with its usage after his many years in the country, and since his memoirs were written so long after his return, he completely forgot the surprise and wonder that the concept paper money would have for his readers. Perhaps the ability to make bread was so fundamental, so ingrained, few thought to write down the recipes since it was a skill everyone possessed.

It was also, however, a specialised craft, requiring both skill and equipment to produce on a large-scale, not to mention the unsociable hours and back-breaking work mixing huge quantities of dough without machinery. As such, as hard, manual labour, it was firmly in the province of the labouring classes, however skilled.

The more well-to-do, whose recipes have survived in household manuscript books, seem to have been partial to French bread, and it has been interesting to note the numbers of recipes for French bread consistently exceeding those for anything English. A large proportion of them are variations on this recipe, using egg whites as part of the liquid component.

French Bread recipe dating from 1703, MS7788 in the Wellcome Collection

I chose this 1703 recipe because of its simplicity – other recipes use whole eggs/butter/milk/cream, and I wanted to see whether the egg-whites had a noticeable effect on the flavour and texture of the loaf without any other distractions. The answer is yes – it is certainly different to a bread made without egg-whites. There’s no way to tell whether this is a genuine approximation of the French bread of the time, but I suspect that it wouldn’t have been too far removed from the sourdough bread enjoying a resurgence today.

Traditional sourdough, baked in a wood-fired oven, is a wonderful thing – insanely crusty with a great ‘chew’. It’s not to everyone’s tastes, though – which is where this loaf might gain favour. After baking, the crisp crust softens as it cools, making it easy to slice without the dangers of crust fragments ricocheting off at alarming speeds that comes with cutting a traditional sourdough. The crumb is open and springy with enough of a chew to make it very satisfying. From the photo above, it would appear that the centre of the loaf actually has a more open texture than the edges. It can be relished spread with just a little butter – and how long is it since you can say you honestly enjoyed a slice of white bread and butter?

I’ve obviously scaled this recipe down from the original and have made just one change: salt. True to my own code of conduct when working with old recipes, I did bake it ‘as written’ in the first instance, and while it had the great crust and texture described above, the flavour was lacking. Finally, I find it amusing to note that 300 years after it was jotted down, this recipe still takes just 30 minutes to bake.

18th Century English French Bread

450g strong white bread flour
1 sachet fast-action yeast
1tsp salt
50ml egg-white whisked with 300ml warm water
Additional warm water (maybe)

Mix the flour, yeast and salt in a bowl.
Whisk together the eggwhites and the warm water and add to the dry ingredients.
Mix thoroughly, adding more water if required (unlikely), to form a rather soft dough.
Knead for 10 minutes.
Cover lightly with plastic and set in a warm place to rise for 1 hour. If your kitchen is on the cool side, you can turn the oven to 160°C, 140°C Fan for 2 minutes, then switch it off and put in your dough to prove.
Tip out the risen dough and pat gently to deflate.
Shape the dough into a smooth ball and transfer to a greased 1kg loaf tin. The dough should half-fill the tin. If you’d prefer a taller loaf, use a smaller or longer shape.
Set aside to rise for 30 minutes. On cold days I put the loaf into the small top oven while the main oven below warms up.
Preheat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
Bake for 30 minutes, turning the loaf around after 20 minutes to help colour it evenly.
Cool on a wire rack.
Slice when cold.

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

20th century, Sweet Pastry

This pastry has been scaled down from a recipe I found in a Victorian/Edwardian commercial bakers’ book. It’s an all-butter (and therefore vegetarian) pastry and includes a small proportion of cornflour. This makes the pastry extra crispy, which isn’t always easy with an all-butter pastry. It also gives it a really smooth, almost silken, dry feel which makes it very easy to handle.

60g cornflour
225g plain flour
140g butter
1 large egg
85g icing sugar
ice-cold water

Put all the ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Gradually add the water, one tablespoon at a time, until the mixture comes together in a ball.
Knead smooth, then roll out.
Cover with plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

Hard Sauce

18th century, Sauces

100g unsalted butter – softened
150g caster sugar
120ml cream sherry, or any favourite alcohol

Whisk the softened butter until extremely light and fluffy. This is easiest with a stand mixer and paddle attachment, but electric mixer is fine.
Add the caster sugar and continue whisking until even paler and fluffier.
Gradually add the sherry a tablespoon at a time until fully incorporated. The mixture should look like thick whipped cream.
You can either use as is, or do the following for a pourable sauce.
- Spoon the mixture into a small pan and put over the lowest heat possible.
- Allow the mixture to melt, and DO NOT stir. It will slowly form a creamy sauce the consistency of double cream.
- Pour into a jug and serve at once.

Spiced Strawberry Tart

16th century, 17th century, Pudding, Sweet Pastry

Jane Parker, 1651 adapted from The Good Huswife’s Jewell, 1587

I was drawn to this recipe because it involved spicing strawberries and baking them in pastry, both details being so different from how we tend to use strawberries today. Originally, I was delighted to find the recipe in Jane Parker’s manuscript recipe book¹ but some months later, when I found an earlier version in a cookery book from the previous century, it became at once both more interesting and more delightful. Thomas Dawson’s recipe for strawberry tart², was published in the middle of the reign of Elizabeth I, and is, in all honesty, a little sparse on the level of detail to which our 21^st century eyes are accustomed when it comes to recipes. Indeed, it is so brief I can quote it in full below:

To make a tart of strawberries

Wash your strawberries and put them into your Tarte and season them with sugar, cinnamon, and ginger and put in a little red wine into them.

No quantities, cooking times, or even mention of a pastry recipe. It would appear Jane Parker also thought a little extra detail was required, and her recipe is as follows:

Jane Parker's Recipe — Source: MS3769, Wellcome Library Collection

Whilst there’s still no pastry recipe, we do have more detail in terms of presentation: the tart should be shallow, the pastry lid should have diamond cutouts, baking time of 15 minutes and a sprinkling of spiced sugar over the baked tart. These additional details, to my mind, highlight the fact that, even if she didn’t actually make the tart herself, Jane Parker definitely got the recipe from someone who had, as these details are precisely the kind of personal touches an experienced cook would note down for future reference.

After centuries of refinement, the strawberries we now use are impressively large but much milder in flavour than those that would have been used for this originally Elizabethan tart. If you can find sufficient wild strawberries either to mix with your ordinary strawberries or, decadently, to use on their own, their deep aromatic flavour, together with the wine and spices, will make for a much more robust flavour to this unusual Tudor tart.

Spiced Strawberry Tart

1 batch of Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

600g fresh strawberries
3 tbs caster sugar
1tbs cornflour
1tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp coarse ground black pepper
60ml red wine or port
Milk for glazing
1tbs caster sugar
1tsb ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6.
Roll out the shortcrust pastry thinly. The thinner the pastry, the less time it will need in the oven and the freshness of the strawberries will be all the better for it.
Cut out four lids for your tarts. Cut them generously so that there is sufficient pastry to form a seal with the pastry lining the tins. Use a small diamond cutter or any small shape, to cut a lattice into the lids. Be careful not to cut too close to the edge, otherwise they will be tricky to attach to the rest of the pastry.
Gather the trimmings and re-roll the pastry.
Grease and line four individual pie tins with the pastry. Let any excess pastry hang over the sides for now.
Prepare the strawberries: Remove the stalks and cut into small pieces, either 4 or 8, depending on the size of the strawberries.
Put the cut strawberries into a bowl and sprinkle over the red wine. Toss gently to coat.
Mix the sugar, cornflour and spices together. Sprinkle over the strawberries and toss gently to mix.
Divide the strawberry filling amongst the tins and smooth over.
Moisten the edges of the pastry and place the lids over each tart. Press firmly to seal, then trim and crimp the edges
Brush the tops with milk and bake for 12-15 minutes until the pastry is cooked and lightly golden.
Mix the remaining caster sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle over the hot pies.
Cool on a wire rack.

¹ MS3769, Wellcome Library.
² The Good Huswife’s Jewell, 1587

Nectar Rice Pudding

20th century, Pudding

I received an email from a friend this week, being very complimentary about this rice pudding recipe I’d given her. She wrote “This is so yummy on a chilly winter day in Melbourne!” I made a mental note to put it on the blog in the autumn, but then I got up this morning and looked out the window at the clouds and the cold and the rain and decided that you all needed this recipe today.

Adapted from May Byron’s wartime Pudding Book (1917) it is an absolute delight in a number of ways. It’s a variation of the traditional, some would say nursery, pudding, but these variations elevate it much higher than its list of ingredients might at first imply. For a start, the method is markedly different from the traditional, first boiling the rice in water followed by a slow simmer on the stove top, then just a brief 20 minutes in the oven. Cooking time is practically halved, compared to the traditional method requiring 2 hours baking and the result is astonishingly soft and creamy. The best part of this recipe, however, is the flavourings. Against just a suspicion of vanilla, the mandarin peel imparts a light and fragrant note, which is in turn enhanced by the aromatic honey and flakes of coconut. The whole dish is lifted out of the nursery and into something altogether more elegant and refined, whilst still retaining it’s simplicity.

Very definitely a grown-up treat for a gloomy, rainy Sunday in June.

Nectar Rice Pudding

120g pudding rice
580ml whole milk
75g granulated sugar
1 large or 2 medium mandarin oranges
½ tsp vanilla extract
280ml double cream
4 large yolks
70ml aromatic honey – acacia, orange blossom, heather, etc
2tbs unsweetened dessicated coconut

Bring some water to the boil and add the rice.
Cook for five minutes, then drain well in a sieve.
Put the rice, milk, and sugar in a thick-bottomed, lidded pan.
Peel the mandarins.
Eat the mandarins.
Put the peel into the pan with the rice.
Add the vanilla.
Cover the pan and put over the lowest heat available.
Simmer softly for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
Mix the cream, yolks and honey together.
Preheat the oven to 140°C/120°C Fan.
After the 40 minutes is up, remove the mandarin peel and discard.
Pour in the cream and honey mixture. Stir briskly whilst pouring to ensure the eggs don’t cook immediately and curdle.
Stir the mixture over the heat until the mixture almost simmers, then pour into a deep oven-proof bowl. To achieve the perfect consistency after baking, the mixture should be about 5cm deep in the dish.
Sprinkle the coconut over the surface.
Bake for 20 minutes until just wobbling in the middle, and golden brown and bubbling on top.
Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes.
Serve warm.

Old English Bread Pudding

17th century, Pudding

Mary Bent, circa 1670

I adore everything about this recipe. For a start, it epitomises the very British traits of not only being a hot pudding, but also having been created from almost nothing. The ingredients are modest, the flavouring minimal, yet these simple, little puddings are a real delight. Even more so when you realise that these were already being looked upon with nostalgic fondness when Mary Bent recorded this recipe in the middle of the seventeenth century. Where modern bread puddings tend towards the solid and the fruited, this 350 year old recipe is light and delicate as a souffle.

Original Recipe — Source: MS1127, Wellcome Library Collection

Old English Bread Pudding

125g fresh breadcrumbs
300ml milk
2 large yolks
1 large egg
2tbs caster sugar
1/4tsp salt
freshly grated nutmeg

Warm the milk until just below boiling then pour over the breadcrumbs and allow to soak for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan/gas 3.
Whisk the egg and yolks and pour into the breadcrumb mixture. Add the sugar, salt and grate the nutmeg.
Stir everything together until a smooth mixture.
Generously butter four pudding basins and pour the breadcrumb mixture evenly amongst them.
Arrange the basins on a lipped baking sheet.
Bake for 45 minutes, turning the baking sheet around after 20 minutes to ensure even browning.
When cooked, allow the puddings to rest for a couple of minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the pudding bowls and turn out.
Serve with a few fresh berries and whipped cream or Hard Sauce .

Sugarless Biscuits

18th century, Biscuits

I don’t mean to boast (which means I’m going to), but I’m very pleased with this recipe, which I found in a book from 1767 entitled “Primitive cookery; or the kitchen garden display’d”. In the curious attribution style of the day, the frontispiece declares the book “Printed for J.Williams at No. 38, Fleet Street”, which leaves the authorship somewhat undetermined – possibly J.Williams or he might have been the publisher, or even the printer himself.

That mystery aside, the frontispiece also contains some wonderful claims, viz “RECEIPTS for preparing a great Variety of cheap, healthful and palatable Dishes without Fish, Flesh or Fowl; WITH A BILL of FARE of Seventy Dishes that will not cost above Two-Pence each”. The low cost and the vegetarian nature of the dishes was doubly interesting, since vegetarianism didn’t really take off in Britain until the nineteenth century. Alas, it wasn’t quite the groundbreaking publication I thought, as I found meat and meat products scattered liberally throughout, and although the seventy tupenny dishes are meatless, they consist mostly of dishes along the lines of “[insert the name of a vegetable] boiled and bread and butter”. Still, it’s not all plain fare, as the following meal suggestion illustrates: “Bread and half a pint of canary, makes an excellent meal.” With half a pint of sherry (canary) inside you, you wouldn’t really care that you only had bread to eat. And for tuppence? Bargain!

ANYHOO…..

These biscuits are listed in the book as Parsnip Cakes – the word ‘cake’ having a much more versatile usage in the eighteenth century, and more inclined to refer to shape, rather than some delightful teatime confection. Parsnips provide both bulk and a very gentle sweetness. Sliced, dried in the oven and then ground in a spice grinder, the parsnip ‘flour’ is then mixed with an equal quantity of flour, a little spice, and formed into a dough by mixing with double cream. Rolled out to a thinness of 5mm and baked in a cool oven, the resultant biscuits are crisp, crunchy and similar to a close-textured digestive biscuit. The flavour of parsnip is detectable, especially if, in the drying they have also browned a little and the sugars caramelised, but it’s not overpowering. More nutty than vegetable. In terms of sweetness, they sit bang on the fence between sweet and savoury – sweet enough to satisfy a sugar craving, savoury enough to eat with cheese.

It’s this versatility which got me thinking of ways in which it could be adapted, and after experimentation, came up with the following:

Spices. You can vary the spices and tip the biscuits more towards sweet or savoury as you prefer.
- Sweet spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves.
- Savoury spices: garam masala, cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, curry powder.
- Neutral spices that could go either way: aniseed, fennel, fenugreek, caraway, cardamom, Chinese five spice.
- Herbs: thyme, rosemary, sage, garlic powder, onion powder, chives, etc.
Flours. This is where these biscuits are most versatile.The flour you match with the parsnip powder doesn’t have to be limited to plain white. The biscuits in the picture above have been made with stoneground wholemeal with aniseed (top) and medium oatmeal, with a little salt (bottom). Here are just a few further suggestions:
- brown
- wholemeal
- medium oatmeal
- barley
- rice
- plain white
- white + cornflour
- brown + rye
- malted
Usage. The dough can also be used as a pastry, with different results coming from the different flours used. Mixing the parsnip flour with brown flour or oatmeal would make a fantastic crust for something like a cauliflower cheese tart. I haven’t tried it for turnovers/handpies, but I suspect you’d need to use bread flour and to work it quite well in order to prevent it cracking when trying to fold it.

Sugarless Biscuits

The recipe for mixing the actual biscuits requires only a fraction of your parsnip flour, thereby allowing you to make several batches from this one quantity. That said, this made only about 200g of parsnip flour in total.

4 large parsnips
50g flour of choice
½-1tsp spice/herb/flavouring of choice
50-70ml double cream

¼ tsp salt (for savoury biscuits and/or when using oatmeal)

Peel the parsnips and slice thinly – a mandolin is ideal.
Arrange the slices on parchment-lined baking sheets and put into the oven.
Turn the oven on low, 120°C/100°C Fan.
Since the slices are so thin, they won’t take very long to dry at all. Check after 15 minutes. If they have curled into flower shapes, remove from the oven and allow to cool. If they aren’t completely crisp when cold, you can easily dry them a little longer. It’s better to dry them in two stages, than to let them go a little too long and allow them to take on colour – unless that’s what you’re after, of course.
When the parsnips slices are crisp and cold, grind them to powder in a spice grinder, or pound them in a pestle and mortar. If you’re using them for savoury biscuits, you can get away with having it a little coarser – like semolina or polenta. For sweet biscuits, you’ll probably need to sieve out the larger pieces and re-grind.
Preheat the oven to 140°C/120°C Fan
To make the biscuits:
- Put 50g parsnip flour in the bowl of a food processor.
- Add 50g of your chosen flour.
- Add your chosen spices and salt, if required.
- Blitz for a few seconds to mix.
- With the motor running, gradually pour in the double cream. Depending on the flour you are using, the quantity of cream required to bring the dough together will vary. Add just enough until the dough comes together in a ball, or at least resembles damp breadcrumbs.
- Tip out and press together into a ball.
- Roll out between sheets of cling film plastic (to avoid sticking) to about 5mm and cut into biscuits. I made rectangles of 2.5cm x 5cm, but any shape will do.
- Lay the biscuits onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and prick the middles neatly with a fork.
- Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the baking sheet around and bake for a further 10 minutes.
- Transfer to a wire rack and return to the oven for a final 5 minutes in order to ensure the undersides are dried and crisp.
- Allow to cool on the wire rack before storing in an airtight container.

Bara Brith

19th century, 20th century, Yeast

This week it’s the classic Welsh speckled bread Bara Brith. Nowadays, this is usually made using baking powder as the leavener, but personally I prefer the more traditional yeast.

And bonus! There’s two recipes for you to choose from!

When looking at an old recipe, I usually study the range of recipes available and select the one that, to my imagination, sounds the nicest. If there is a tie, then I will make both and decide which makes the cut by taste. This time, however, it was too difficult to decide, so I chose not to choose and leave that decision to you.

Both recipes have their strongpoints, not least from their provenance and pedigree.

On the left of the photo above, we have the recipe from Walter Banfield’s classic book “Manna”: A Comprehensive Treatise on Bread Manufacture (1937), a book admired by Elizabeth David and breathtaking in its breadth and scope. It is based on additions made to ordinary white bread dough after its first proving. The large quantity of fruit and peel contrast brightly against the white of the dough and make for a very sturdy slice that will keep moist for a long time.

On the right of the photo, a possibly more authentic Bara Breith from Mrs E.B.Jones, who, for many years, ran the Powys Temperance Hotel on Market Square, Llanrhaeadr-Ym-Mochnant in the first half of the 20th century. The recipe was collected by Dorothy Hartley and included in her iconic book Food in England, first published in 1954. As can be seen from the picture, this recipe isn’t as heavily fruited as the first one, but it has the added interest of being made from half wheat flour and half oat flour (finely ground oatmeal). Against expectation, the crumb is very light, making it a much more delicate slice.

I love the richness of the fruit in the bread dough version, but also really enjoy the delicate flavours of Mrs Jones’ version. I suggest you make both and decide for yourself.

Both loaves will keep well wrapped in parchment and foil, in a cake tin. Both are best enjoyed sliced and buttered, with a hot cup of something in front of a roaring fire.

Mrs Jones’ Bara Brieth

Don’t feel the need to order oat flour especially for this recipe, you can make your own by blitzing rolled oats in a spice grinder, or just use medium oatmeal for a more robust texture.

60g candied orange peel – diced
100g currants
70g sultanas
225g strong white flour
225g oat flour or medium oatmeal
115g lard
115g Demerara sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 large egg
1 tsp mixed spice
1tsp soft brown sugar
30g fresh yeast

Put the peel and the fruit into a bowl and pour over boiling water. Set aside to plump for about 30 minutes.
After 15 minutes, cream the yeast and the soft brown sugar together.
Put the flours and the lard into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Tip into the bowl you will be using for mixing and add the Demerara sugar, spice and salt
Drain the fruit, retaining the water, and use it to mix the dough. Keep the fruit warm in a low oven while the dough is kneaded.
Add the yeast to the flour mixture with the egg, lightly whisked. Use the (by now just) warm fruit-soaking water to mix everything to a soft dough.
Knead for 10 minutes.
Mix in the warm fruit, cover with plastic and allow to rise until doubled in size. Due to the richness of the ingredients, this may take anything between 1 and 2 hours.
Grease a large loaf tin.
When the dough has risen, tip it out and pat down to deflate. Form into a loaf shape and lay into the prepared tin.
Cover lightly and allow to rise for about 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 170°C, 150°C Fan.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Turn the tin around 180 degrees and lay a sheet of foil lightly over the top, to prevent the loaf browning too much.
Bake for a further 25-30 minutes.
Remove from the tin and if the bottom doesn’t sound hollow, return to the oven for 5-10 minutes to crisp up. You can place the loaf directly onto the oven bars.
Cool on a wire rack.

Walter Banfield’s Bara Brith

450g strong white flour
½ tsp salt
1tsp soft brown sugar
30g fresh yeast
warm water to mix

115g lard in small cubes
5g mixed spice
65g Demerara sugar
1 large egg
300g currants
90g sultanas
90g raisins
60g candied orange peel – diced
50g plain flour

Cream the sugar and yeast together with a tablespoon of the flour and a little warm water and set aside to work
Mix with the rest of the ingredients into a soft dough.
Cover with plastic and set aside to rise for 1 hour.
After 30 minutes, spread the fruit (not the peel) out on a baking sheet lined with parchment and put into the oven on its lowest setting, just to warm through.
Grease a large loaf tin.
When the dough has risen to twice its original size, add in the finely cubed lard, spice, egg and sugar and knead smooth.
Add the warmed fruit and peel and mix thoroughly.
Sprinkle over the flour and mix thoroughly.
Shape into a large loaf and place into the prepared tin.
Allow a long second rise, of 1-2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 170°C, 150°C Fan.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Turn the tin around 180 degrees and lay a sheet of foil lightly over the top, to prevent the loaf browning too much.
Bake for a further 25-30 minutes.
Remove from the tin and if the bottom doesn’t sound hollow, return to the oven for 5-10 minutes to crisp up. You can place the loaf directly onto the oven bars.
Cool on a wire rack.

Luxury Bath Buns

20th century, Yeast

Here’s a variation of a recipe in MY BOOK which I have adapted from one of my favourite vintage recipe books, snappily entitled “Morning and Hot-Plate Goods including Scones, Buns, Teabread, etc” by John Boyd.

It is a book for professional bakers, in that the recipes inside involve ingredients measured in pounds rather than ounces, but it is compact nevertheless, with a jaunty yellow cover and both line and photographic illustrations throughout. It is undated, but after a quick search of t’internet, the mid 1940s seems a good guesstimate of age.

The book claims that this is the original recipe of those buns in the 18th century that caused everyone ‘taking the waters’ in Bath to put on so much weight, allegedly forcing Dr Oliver to invent the altogether much less fun Bath Oliver biscuit for people to nibble on instead. The dough is a deep, golden colour from all the butter and eggs, and dotted with crunchy sugar and orange peel. Don’t be alarmed at the quantity of nutmeg, it looks a lot, but it’s not overpowering at all – skimp on it at your peril.

These buns are definitely an indulgence – a delicious, DELICIOUS indulgence, but the freezer is your friend and thus these treats can be spread over a few weeks, rather than having to consume them all in one sitting, however tempting that may be.

Since my book came out, I’ve picked up a couple of snippets of additional information about Bath Buns. Despite their rich ingredients, their appearance wasn’t supposed to be a smooth, spherical ball of dough, rather they were deliberately of a rough and craggy exterior, which, I must admit, is a great contrast to their soft, luxurious interiors. The iconic sugar nib topping remains.

Some recipes suggest using a pair of spoons to portion out the soft dough, but thanks to a quick flick through MANNA by Walter Banfield, I discovered an altogether easier method (see below).

The recipe calls for fresh yeast – my latest fad – but feel free to substitute rapid-rise yeast if preferred.

Luxury Bath Buns

Makes 16-ish

450g strong white flour
4 large eggs
225g unsalted butter
30g granulated sugar
30g fresh yeast
60ml milk
2 whole nutmegs – grated
225g sugar nibs
2oz candied orange peel – finely chopped
3 drops lemon essence (original) or the zest of a lemon (my suggestion)

1 large egg for glazing

Heat some water in a small pan.
Crack the eggs into a bowl and add the milk.
Whisk together, then put the bowl over the simmering water and whisk until the mixture is warmed, but no hotter than blood-temperature (dip a clean finger in to test).
Whisk in the yeast and 50g from the flour and set aside to rise for 30 minutes.
While this is working, in another bowl, gently warm the butter over the simmering water until soft. Add the granulated sugar, nutmeg and lemon essence/zest and whisk to combine.
Combine the two mixtures after the yeast has been working for 30 minutes and stir into the remaining flour.
Knead well for 10 minutes. It is an extremely soft dough, but please resist the temptation to add any more flour as this would compromise the texture of the finished buns (I use a stand mixer & a dough hook).
Adding the nibs and peel: Here you have a choice. You can add in 150g of the nibs at the end of the kneading, then set it to rise, OR you can add in 150g of the sugar after the first rise. Adding the sugar straight after the kneading will mean it leeches moisture from the dough and starts to dissolve as the dough rises, leading to less of a crunch in the bite of the finished bun. Add 150g of sugar nibs after the first rise, and they are still relatively large and crunchy, even after baking. The rest of the nibs will be scattered over the top of the buns, so their crunchiness needs to be factored into your decision as well. The peel can be added at either time, but I generally add it after the kneading to allow its aroma to permeate the dough.
Cover the bowl with cling film and leave to rise for 1 hour.
Tip out the dough and pat down.
Add the sugar/peel if not already done so.
Portion the dough into pieces weighing 150g. Form these pieces into neat balls, then gradually stretch the ball of dough between your hands until it pulls in half – pretty much like those diagrams of cells dividing. Place the buns with the torn side upwards onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. In the recipe in my book, the buns were placed atop a sugar cube soaked in lemon juice. As the buns cooked, the sugar and lemon juice melted together to give a deliciously crunchy coating to the base of each bun. These buns are so rich from the butter and the sugar nibs, this isn’t necessary, however the parchment is a must to ensure they don’t stick.
Whisk the egg with a little water and glaze the buns, then allow to rise for 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C Fan.
Glaze the buns again, then top with the remaining sugar nibs
Bake for 15-20 minutes, turning the tins around after 10 minutes to ensure even browning.
Remove from the oven and leave on the tins. Cover the hot buns with clean tea towels to keep the crust soft as they cool.
Enjoy warm.

Sea Foam Fudge

20th century, Sweeties

This is another fantastic textured fudge recipe, but in a whole different way to the Condensed Milk Fudge.

It is made with whisked egg-whites and a hot sugar syrup, beaten to grain the sugar. The result is a dazzlingly white, almost marshmallow appearance. The magic, however, happens when you take a bite. Just like it’s namesake, Sea Foam Fudge melts away like a whisper.

It is positively ethereal. Which is why it needs a jolly great handful of cranberries, apricots and a few chopped nuts for zing and colour and a bit of texture. Some Yuletide flotsam, to be carried into your mouth on a cushion of sea foam, if you will. Or not. I tend to get a bit carried away with my extended metaphors.

ANYHOO….

In the US I believe this is called Divinity and lacks the fruit, but also veers dangerously (for my not-very-sweet-tooth) towards the soft and nougat-y.

As with meringues, this will absorb moisture if left uncovered, so pack into a ziplock bag for personal indulgence, or shiny, crackly cellophane if gifting as presents.

This comes from a delightful book in my collection – Sweet-Making For All by Helen Jerome, originally published in 1924. Just as with Ms Nell Heaton, I have great confidence in Ms Jerome’s recipes, which are always clear and straightforward. If you come across any of their books, I can highly recommend them.

Sea Foam

450g white granulated sugar
60g golden syrup or glucose[1]
180ml water
2 large egg whites
50g chopped nuts – pistachios are colourful, almonds keep things pale
50g chopped dried apricots
50g chopped cranberries – dried or candied

1tsp vanilla extract or 1tbs rum

Line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment.
Put the sugar, syrup and water into a pan and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved.
Bring to a boil and continue to heat until the syrup reaches 130°C. Do not stir.
When the temperature of the syrup reaches 120°C, start whisking the egg-whites until stiff. The temperature of the sugar syrup will rise relatively quickly, so keep an eye on each. Or get a glamorous assistant to help.
Still whisking, pour the hot syrup slowly into the whisked egg-whites, as if making Italian meringue, and continue beating until the mixture begins to thicken and lose its gloss. Add the flavouring whilst whisking.
When the mixture has lost its high sheen and thickened slightly add the fruit and nuts and continue beating until the mixture has thickened further and becomes cloud-like. NB This might happen suddenly, so be prepared.
Smooth your Sea Foam into the tin. Alternatively, roll lightly into logs about 2cm in diameter Try not to squash out the air you’ve just whisked in as you do so. Wearing latex gloves or dusting your hands with cornflour, or both – will help.
Cover lightly and allow to cool completely. If you can enclose your tin in a large ziplock bag to protect from humidity, so much the better.
When cold, cut into squares and/or dip into tempered chocolate. Store in an airtight container.

[1] The glucose will keep the fudge startlingly white, the golden syrup will add a very pale golden hue.