Deja Food

Hot Cross Buns

19th century, 20th century, Bread, Yeast

More interesting than toast, not as rich as cake, what’s not to love about a bun? The buns traditionally served towards then end of Lent are… well now, here’s the thing. They go by many names. Most people might think, as the title above implies, that they’re Hot Cross Buns, but that’s not strictly accurate. “Hot Cross Buns!” was originally the cry of the street vendors who sold Cross Buns – hot. Recipes also appear under the name “Good Friday Buns” and “Easter Buns”.

Interestingly, Cross Buns weren’t originally fruited, only spiced – and thanks to an edict from Queen Elizabeth I, could only be sold on Good Friday, Christmas and for funerals.

“That no baker or other person or persons shall at any time or times hereafter, make,
utter or sell by retail within or without their houses, unto any the queen’s subjects,
any spice cakes, buns, bisket or other spice bread (being bread out of size, and not by
law allowed), except it be at burials, or upon the Friday before Easter, or at Christmas;
upon pain of forfeiture of all such spice bread to the poor.”
John Powell, The Assyse of Breade, 1595

Fruit gradually crept into recipes from about the middle of the 19th century, presumably as industrialization and improved transport links brought foodstuffs from far flung places to the UK cheaper and quicker, all to make for a really indulgent treat after the privations of Lent.

This recipe comes from a very favourite author of mine: Frederick T. Vine. Doyen of numerous professional books for the baker and confectioner. This is his own personal recipe, scaled down from a recipe in which quantities such as pounds and quarts were bandied about, and a full batch of which would produce almost 650 penny buns. The quantities below will make about 12 x 100g buns, more if you drop the weight down to 85 grams. This might seem a large amount, but they can be gifted to friends and family, or easily frozen to enjoy at a later date.

The buns are enriched with milk, butter and egg and are packed with bags of fruit and spice. The original recipe also includes malt extract, which gives a wonderfully rich flavour, but isn’t usually something you find in the supermarket, so you can improvise by adding some powdered Ovaltine to the mixing liquid if you have difficulty sourcing it. You can omit it altogether if liked.

The original recipe suggested using flavouring essences of lemon and ‘spice’. I happened to have some lemon flavouring, but no ‘spice’, so I used regular ground spices. Reading an inordinately large number of baking books as I do, I’ve noticed that the use of essences is very prevalent in commercial baking mixtures. The reason seems to be that regular ground spices darken the dough, which is assumed to be unappealing to the customer. This opinion contrasts greatly with the fact that, for example, in modern times the appearance of the seeds in vanilla-flavoured items today are celebrated – how things change! Personally, I like the authentic appearance of the dark flecks of spice, not to mention the flavour. Feel free to go with your own blend of spices, but I really like the punchiness of the quantities below. After all, no-one likes a bland spice bun – if you’re promised spice, you want to be able to taste it.

These buns have a sweetened, tinted glaze to be painted on after they are baked. It uses gelatine to give shine without the stickiness. If you’re not keen on using gelatine and don’t mind a little stickiness with your shine, then omit the gelatine, swap the water for milk and warm to dissolve the sugar.

Hot Cross Buns

I’ve gone for a mixture of spices, but it is traditional to only use allspice. If you’d prefer this flavouring, I suggest just 1½tsp ground allspice, as it is quite potent.

I’ve switched around the method a little to make for a more straightforward approach.

180ml water
90g unsalted butter, cubed
15g malt extract OR 2tbs Ovaltine
180ml milk
30ml of beaten egg, from1 large egg
135g soft brown sugar
½tsp salt
1 sachet fast-acting yeast
30g mixed orange/lemon peel, finely sliced/chopped
180g currants
1/2tsp lemon flavouring OR zest of 1 lemon
1tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp ground mace
½tsp ground allspice
½tsp ground mixed spice
500g strong white flour

Pre-bake Glaze
30ml beaten egg(from above)
30ml milk

Post-Bake Glaze
1 sheet gelatine (or vegetarian equivalent)
100ml cold water
2tbs caster sugar
1tsp treacle

Heat the water, butter and malt/Ovaltine until steaming and the butter melted, then add the (cold) milk. This should bring the temperature down to just warm.
Whisk in the egg, sugar, salt, lemon flavouring if using, and yeast.
Pour the warm mixture into a bowl.
Sift together the flour and spices and add to the bowl.
Knead into a soft and supple dough, about 10 mins.
Knead in the currants, zest if using, and peel, cover with plastic, and set to rise. Because of the enriched nature of this dough, this will take slightly longer than usual, about 1½ hours.
When the dough is risen, turn out onto a floured work surface and pat to deflate.
Weigh off the dough into 100g pieces, and then roll and shape each into a smooth ball.
Line a deep-sided baking tin with parchment.
Place the balls of dough into the pan, pressing with the flat of the had as you do so, to flatten them into discs about 2cm thick. Place these ‘cakes’ about 1cm apart from one another. This will mean they touch as they prove, giving a soft ‘kissing crust’ on each side and a rounded sqare shape.
Cut a cross into each bun using a dough cutter or similar. NB Take care not to cut all the way through, just deep enough so that the dough will stay apart during baking, preserving the cross.
Cover lightly with a cloth to rise for 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan. This is a slightly hotter temperature than usual for buns (180°C, 160°C Fan), because the sides of the tin will block direct heat, and the buns will therefore need cooking a little longer.
Pre-bake Glaze: Whisk the remaining egg with the milk and brush over the tops of the buns.
Bake for 20 minutes until risen and browned. Turn the tin around after 10 minutes to ensure even baking.
While the buns are baking, prepare the gelatine glaze. Soak the gelatine sheet in the water until softened. Heat gently to dissolve the gelatine, then stir in the treacle and sugar. Continue stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
When the buns are baked, remove from the oven and brush over with the glaze.
Cover lightly with a cloth and allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes. The cloth will keep the steam close, making for a soft crust.
After 15 minutes uncover the buns and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. If you leave them to cool completely in the tin, they’re prone to sogginess.
To serve: Cut in half and toast both sides. When toasted, spread with salted butter. For added decadence, add some slices of vintage cheddar cheese. The contrasts between the hot spicy bread, the fruit, the richness of the butter and the sharp, cool and creamy tang of the cheese is sublime.

Twelfth Night Cakes

18th century, Cakes, Small Cakes

Twelfth Cakes, circa 1800 (left) from a manuscript recipe book, and James Jenks' 1768 recipe (right). — Twelfth Cakes, circa 1800 (left) from a manuscript recipe book, and James Jenks’ 1768 recipe (right).

The biggest party of the festive season used to be the evening of January 5th, the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas (Christmas Day being the first day), at which the Twelfth Night Cake made its appearance. Baked into the cake were a dried bean and dried pea, and when the cake was sliced and distributed amongst guests whoever discovered these in their slices were declared the King (bean) and Queen (pea) of the festivities. Quite how they managed to contrive that the correct gender found the appropriate bean/pea is not clear – unless two cakes were always served.

In times past, my home county of Herefordshire, being a very agricultural region, also has several rural traditions.

The Lighting the Twelfth Night Bonfires (twelve small fires in a circle and one larger one in the middle) in a wheat field and toasting the coming season with cider.
Wassailing the apple trees: Forming a procession to the apple orchard and arranging pieces of toast from the wassail bowl (or cake, if one had been baked) in the branches and pouring the contents of the wassail bowl onto the roots of the tree, to encourage a good apple harvest.
Baking a cake with a hole in the middle and on Twelfth Night, placing it on the horns of a cow in the byre. The cow was then tickled until he tossed his head. If the cake was thrown backwards, it belonged to the mistress/dairymaid, and if forwards, to the bailiff/cowherd.

The Twelfth Night Cake was an extremely popular celebratory treat for centuries, but its popularity declined from the middle of the nineteenth century. A lot of people on the internet point the finger of blame at Queen Victoria, even going so far as to accuse her of banning the festivities circa 1860-1870. No evidence is offered to support this argument, and indeed I have been unable to find any myself, but if I missed something, do please get in touch and let me know.

Despite its popularity, recipes for Twelfth Cake are relatively few. Indeed, it has long been claimed that John Mollard’s 1801 recipe is the earliest one in print. Well, I do love a challenge, and the two recipes I have for you here do indeed date from the eighteenth century, albeit by a rather oblique route.

The first can be found in James Jenks’ The Complete Cook (1768).

As can be seen above, the recipe is actually called A Rich Cake, but has the helpful note “This is called a twelfth cake at London” underneath.

The second recipe I found in a handwritten manuscript at the Welcome Collection.

Twelfth Cake recipe from MS1074, Wellcome Collection, circa 1800

I appreciate that with an estimated date of 1800, this recipe is only just squeaking in to the 18th century, but I would argue, that it was unlikely to have been invented at the time of it’s entry into the manuscript, and thus has origins firmly in the preceding decades.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Twelfth Cakes are party cakes. They are made for celebrations, to be shared with numerous people, and consequently the quantities of both of these recipes are huge. I managed to scale them down considerably and chose to bake them in mini loaf/cake tins for the photo at the top of this page. This way, everyone can have their own miniature Twelfth Cake, and should you wish to annoint a King and Queen of the Revels, you can solve the tricky problem of ensuring the recipients are of the correct gender by adding the bean and the pea to cakes of different shapes.

James Jenks’ recipe is very heavily fruited and spiced and, whilst being a stickler for accurate scaling of recipes, I have had to reduce the proportion of both mace and clove in the recipe, as the original quantities of these spices tended to clonk you around the head flavourwise, and overpower the rest of the ingredients. The candied peel, nuts and alcohol all provide lots of interest and topped with a billowy royal icing, although both recipes are delicious, they are my personal favourite of the two. If this sparks your interest, Jenks’ book includes a further three rich cakes which could also be served as Twelfth Cakes.

The manuscript recipe is a paler and much milder affair. If lots of dried fruit and spice is not your idea of an enjoyable mouthful, then this might be the Twelfth Cake for you. Think of this as a sedate morning-coffee type of cake, as opposed to the full-on party-in-the-mouth that is James Jenks’ offering.

I chose to bake these in silicone moulds, as this protects the sides of the cake and prevents burning of the fruit. Metal tins might need a little less baking.

James Jenks Twelfth Cakes, 1768

Makes 8 small cakes

100g unsalted butter
50g caster sugar
2 large eggs – separated
2 tsp brandy
2 tsp cream sherry
1½ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground mace
¼ tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
70g plain flour
50g chopped almonds
115g currants
20g candied orange peel, sliced very thin
20g candied lemon peel, sliced very thin
20g candied citron peel, sliced very thin

Heat the oven to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
Grease and line your chosen baking tins with parchment.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Whisk in the egg yolks, brandy and sherry.
Sift together the flour and spices and fold into the mixture.
Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into the batter, 1/3 at a time.
Fold through the fruit and nuts.
Spoon into the moulds. A standard ice-cream scoop is helpful here.
Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the tins/moulds around and bake for a further 10 minutes for a total of 25 minutes.
Allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Icing
100g icing sugar
25g egg-white

Heat the oven to 170°C, 150°C Fan.
Whisk the sugar and egg-white together for 5-10 minutes, until the mixture is thickened.
Spread as liked on your Twelfth Cakes.
Set the cakes into the oven and turn off the heat.
Remove after 15 minutes, when the icing has set.
Set aside to cool.

Twelfth Cakes circa 1800

Makes 8-10 small cakes

100g salt butter
115g powdered sugar
2 tsp brandy
3 large eggs
1 tsp ground cinnamon
170g plain flour
170g currants

Heat the oven to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
Grease and line your chosen baking tins with parchment.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Whisk in the eggs, one by one.
Add the brandy.
Sift together the flour and cinnamon and fold into the mixture.
Fold through the fruit and nuts.
Spoon into the moulds. A standard ice-cream scoop is helpful here.
Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the tins around and bake for a further 10 minutes for a total of 25 minutes.
Allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Icing
100g icing sugar
25g egg-white

Heat the oven to 170°C, 150°C Fan.
Whisk the sugar and egg-white together for 5-10 minutes, until the mixture is thickened.
Spread as liked on your Twelfth Cakes.
Set the cakes into the oven and turn off the heat.
Remove after 15 minutes, when the icing has set.
Set aside to cool.

Chestnut Apple Pie

17th century, 18th century, Pastry, Pudding

Lady Grisel Baillie was a Scottish noblewoman who lived in the 17th/18th century. She was married to a Scottish MP, and became known to social historians for the meticulously detailed account books she kept, which offer a glimpse into the cost of living during that time, including food and drink, servants wages, travel costs and entertainment. Lady Grisel was also something of a foodie, as she noted down many a menu from various dinners she and her husband attended.

Extracts of Lady Grisel’s household books were published by the Scottish Historical Society in 1911 and over the years I have dipped into this book many times, and have been somewhat frustrated that menus are recorded, but not recipes. She definitely had a recipe book, because the Scottish Historical Society lists it amongst her papers:

“Lady Grisell left three ‘Day Books’ folio size, the first running from 1692 to 1718 inclusive, and containing 442 pages ; the second from 1719 to 1742 inclusive, and containing 354 pages, and the third from 1742 to the date of her death (6th December 1746), continued by her daughter, Lady Murray. She also left books containing the accounts of expenses in connection with their journeys to Bath and to the Continent ; Books containing Inventories of Bottles, etc. ; a Book of Receipts ; a Book of Bills of Fare ; Books relating to estate management during the years 1742, 1743 and 1744, and many other Account and Memoranda Books.”

A few years ago, I revisited a manuscript at the Folger Library to study a recipe for Stilton Cheese that had caught my eye, (the results of which can be found in Petits Propos Culinaires 114, June 2019), and in the course of my research, discovered that the manuscript in which it appeared was the long-lost recipe book of Lady Grisel Baillie! The manuscript had been purchased by the Folger Library in June, 1959 from the London bookseller Francis Edwards, Ltd. for the princely sum of £35.00. More intriguing is what happened to it during the preceding 48 years, from 1911, when its existence was noted by the Scottish Historical Society, and its purchase and trans-Atlantic voyage in 1959, and why the current Mellerstain estate owners didn’t know where it was. Very mysterious!

The point of this extended preamble is that this recipe comes from that self-same, long-lost recipe book. It has been on my radar for a while, because it is a sweet pie with chestnuts, and when I spotted nets of fresh chestnuts in the shops this week, I was enthused to have a stab at it.

A Cheston Pye, from the cookbook of Lady Grisel Baillie, Folger Digital Image Collection, Ms W.a.111, p289, circa 1706.

Which also brings me to the word of the day: scald. Both apples and chestnuts are scalded in this recipe, and after much hunting about reading other usages, the best definition I can come up with is: cooked gently in their skins. When scalded, the apple skin will peel off by itself freely, leaving the partially cooked flesh intact. I suspect this was done to prevent wastage, preserve flavour and minimise juice. Similarly, the chestnuts are scalded in order to soften them and to loosen both the skin and the pith surrounding the nut. This all sounds simple, but, from experience, left unsupervised, things can get a little tricky. It doesn’t take much for the water in which the apples are scalding to become too hot, thereby causing the apples to burst, and then you have to retrieve your apple pulp from the ‘soup’ in the saucepan. Scald the chestnuts for too long, and then you will have difficulty extracting them whole. This isn’t too much of a disaster, as the crumbled pieces are perfect for this dish, but if you were wanting them for another use – candying, for example – the wastage in broken nuts can get quite high.

Why you should make this pie

Well, it’s absolutely delicious, that’s why! It’s unusual, in that it is a sweet pie with chestnuts, and thus something of a novelty in modern recipes. During the long, slow baking, the pastry crisps up beautifully, and the chestnuts and candied lemon soak up some of the apple juice and become soft. The texture of the apples and the chestnuts is much more interesting that a regular apple pie and the contrast between the filling and the two different types of pastry is a delight. This pie embodies autumn in a deliciously comforting way, you’ll be elbowing your way back to the nets of chestnuts to make it again. Perfect for the upcoming holiday season!

Sliced of Chestnut Apple Pie — Slices of Chestnut Apple Pie: The pie slices very neatly when cold, and the chestnuts and candied lemon peel are shown.

Chestnut and Apple Pie

These quantities are for a 20cm diameter pie. You can obviously use as many or as few chestnuts as you like. You can, of course, shorten the prep time by using stewed apple and ready-cooked chestnuts. The only caveat to this I would add is that the ready-cooked chestnuts you can buy tend to be a little dark, whereas if you scald them yourself, they come out very similar in colour to the apple pulp.

If you’re making this from scratch, prepare the apples and chestnuts a day or so ahead, and then assemble the pie when required. The cooked apples and chestnuts will keep in the fridge several days.

Filling
4 Bramley Apples (or 600g unsweetened stewed apple)
1 x 400g net of raw chestnuts (or 300g cooked chestnuts)
30g candied lemon peel
30g unsalted butter
3-4tbs caster sugar
3tbs cornflour
zest of 1/2 a lemon (optional)

1 x box of ready rolled puff pastry
egg-white for glazing

Base Pastry
225g plain flour
60g cornflour
140g unsalted butter
ice cold water

Put the flours and butter into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
With the machine running, gradually add the cold water a tablespoon at a time until the mixture comes together in a ball.
Tip the mixture onto a floured surface, knead smooth.
Roll out the pastry to the desired thickness (5mm) and line a greased, 20cm pie tin. Ease the pastry into the corners of the tin, rather than stretch it, and allow the excess to hang over the edges of the tin.
Place in the fridge to chill until required.

To scald the apples

Put the apples, whole, into a saucepan and add just enough water to cover.
Lay a saucer upside-down on top of the apples, to keep them submerged.
Put the saucepan on a gentle heat (I use 5 on a 1-9 scale) and allow the apples to barely simmer for 30 minutes. Keep an eye on them, and if the skin starts to split, remove from the heat and the water immediately.
Lift the scalded apples out of the pan and set aside to cool.
When cool enough to handle, peel away the skin and then scoop all the flesh from the core.
Mash the apple pulp with a fork. You don’t need to make it puree-smooth, just get rid of the larger lumps.
Mix the sugar and cornflour together and then add to the apple pulp and mix thoroughly.
Taste the apple pulp and add more sugar to taste.
Set the apple pulp aside until required.

To scald the chestnuts

Using a sharp knife, cut a slit ito each nut, being sure to pierce bith the hard outer shell and the soft skin underneath.
Put the nuts into a saucepan and cover with cold water.
Set pan on a gentle heat, and simmer the chestnuts for 30 minutes.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool in the water.
Remove the chestnuts one at a time and peel away the softened shell and skin. Don’t worry if the nut doesn’t come out whole, as pieces are perfect for this recipe. Don’t drain the chestnuts, because the shells will harden quickly once out of the water, and make peeling them difficult.
Crumble the chestnuts into pieces – not too small – and store in a covered container in the fridge until required.

To assemble the pie.

Heat the oven to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
Slice the candied lemon peel into thin slivers. If you don’t have whole pieces, diced is fine, just make sure they’re not too big.
Divide the butter into three. Keep chilled until required.
Remove the pie tin from the fridge and trim the excess pastry. Leave about a 2cm overhang from the edge of the tin.
Fill the pie
- Add a layer of apple pulp.
- Add half the chestnuts in a layer
- Add half the lemon peel
- Dot over 1 portion of the butter in thin slices.
- Add a layer of apple pulp.
- Add half the chestnuts in a layer
- Add half the lemon peel
- Dot over 1 portion of the butter in thin slices.
- Add a layer of apple pulp.
- Dot over the last portion of the butter in thin slices.
- Grate over the zest of half a lemon (optional). I like the lemony zing, but it can be omitted if you prefer.
Unroll the puff pastry and smooth out with a few strokes of the rolling pin.
Wet the edges of the shortcrust pastry with water.
Lay the puff pastry over the top of the pie and press the edges together gently.
Trim the puff pastry to the size of the shortcrust pastry.
Crimp the pastry edges as shown in the top photograph.
Cut out decorations for the top of the pie from the puff pastry offcuts and lay them on the pastry lid. I did a few apples and chestnuts.
Brush the top of the pie with eggwhite.
Bake the pie for 60 minutes. Turn the pie around after 30 minutes to ensure even colouring.
After a further 20 minutes, if your puff pastry isn’t quite cooked through, turn the heat up to 220°C, 200°C Fan for the last 10 minutes.
Remove the pie from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
Remove the pie from the tin and allow to cool until just warm.
Serve with double cream.

Querkles

19th century, Biscuits

These biscuits are great to have to hand in the cupboard for enjoying with cheese or jam, with butter, or serve them completely unadorned with drinks for toothsome and low-fat snacking – they may look plain, but they’re very moreish.

When I was writing last week’s post about Almacks, I thought to myself: I can add a link to those nice cracker biscuits – and then I couldn’t find them on the blog at all. The pictures eventually turned up in a folder on my laptop almost two years old, because it appears that I’d taken the photos but forgotten to actually write the post ! And so here we are.

These unusually-named biscuits come from the classic Victorian “Biscuits for Bakers” (1896) by Frederick T. Vine. Mr Vine has no idea where the name came from but assures us that “As the above seems rather catchy and the biscuits are something of a novelty, we will let it stand.”

Making your own savoury biscuits might seem a bit of a chore, especially when opening a packet is so much easier, but it’s always good to have a recipe to hand for short notice situations.

OK, now I think on it, I must confess I’m at a bit of a loss as to what kind of situation might warrant being deemed a biscuit emergency, so ANYHOO….

Another reason for making your own, of course, is because you have complete control over size, shape, texture and flavour of your biscuits. For crackers this is extremely simple, for it takes no more than the addition of a spoonful of dried herbs or a sprinkling of sea salt flakes to make a batch individual. The size is only limited by what biscuit cutters you possess. I’ve used a set of mini cutters to make the crackers in the picture above, each roughly the same size, but with differing shapes, which, in my opinion adds to the appeal. I’ll admit the biscuits shown in the picture are very small, about 3cm in diameter, but this means they can be popped into your mouth whole, thereby avoiding the danger lurking in larger biscuits, of shattering into pieces and dropping crumbs all down your front; I’m looking at you, Carr’s Water Biscuits and Bath Olivers.

The method for these biscuits is unusual in that, once baked, they are split open and returned to the oven so that the insides may dry and bcome toasted. Again, it is up to you how long you leave them and at what temperature, so the texture and colour can be suited to your needs.

SHOPS CLOSED ON EASTER SUNDAY! Finally thought of a biscuit memergency.

Querkles

225g wholemeal brown flour
7g butter
15g sugar
1tsp cream of tartar*
½tsp bicarbonate of soda*
½tsp salt

milk to mix

Heat the oven to 170°C, 150°C Fan.
Put all of the dry ingredients into a food processor and blitz until well mixed.
Slowly add milk to mix until the mixture comes together in a paste.
Tip out onto a floured surface and knead smooth.
Roll out as for pastry, to a thickness of 5mm.
Cut your biscuits with whatever cutters you prefer. The top of a small glass can also serve.
Lay the biscuits on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and bake for 10-12 minutes if small, 15-18 minutes if larger, until the surface is cooked, but not brown. NB If making small biscuits, work in small batches to help reduce breakage when splitting – see below.
Remove from the oven and with the point of a sharp knife, cut around the edges of the biscuits and split them in two. NB You should work quickly, because if the biscuits cool, then they will break rather than split apart.
Lay the biscuit halves insides-upwards and return to the oven for 15-20 minutes until crisp and browned to your taste.
Allow to cool completely, then store in an airtight container.

TOP TIP If, when cooled, your biscuits aren’t crisp, just put them back into the oven until they are. I suggest a much lower heat (100°C, 80°C Fan) for longer (20-30 minutes) in order to really dry them out. Fun Fact: Victorian bakers used drying ovens or provers to get that crispness to their biscuits without having to brown them further in the heat of the main ovens.

* Or instead of these two, 2 tsp baking powder.

Almacks

18th century, 19th century, Preserves, Pudding, Tracklements

Almacks (also Almack’s and Almack) is one of many recipes that have originated from people copying dishes they have enjoyed whilst eating out. Almack’s was a Georgian/Regency London club where the great and the good could socialise during ‘the season’, Pontacks is another such establishment, now equally long gone, whose reputation remains only in the names of recipes they have inspired.

By the end of the 18th century, being presented at the Royal court was deemed old fashioned for the up and coming ladies in society, so Almacks provided a setting whereby socialising and marriage alliances could be conducted amongst the ‘Ton’. As an example of the importance of Almack’s in the social life of the capital, when Lady Caroline Lamb published ‘Glenarvon’, with a thinly-fictionalised Lord Byron as the main character, Sarah Villiers, Lady Jersey, was so incensed at the way she had been satirised, she barred Lady Caroline from Almacks in 1816, thereby making her a social outcast *gasps and clutches pearls*. Although Lady Caroline eventually managed to regain membership three years later, thanks mainly to the assistance of her cousin, Emily Lamb (Countess Cowper), her reputation never recovered.

Almacks provided refreshments to its member and this thick fruit ‘cheese’ would have been ideal as it has great keeping qualities and is easy to serve at short notice. It can be eaten a number of ways: as a sweet, with cream or as a savoury, with biscuits and cheese. It is also versatile in its preparation as it can be varied by type of apple, pear and plum, thus giving it subtle changes in flavour with each batch. It is an ideal way to use up gluts of fruit, or to waste-not-want-not with windfalls.

Almack recipe (1785-1825) from MS1827, Wellcome Collection.

This is the earliest recipe I have found, coming from a household manuscript dated 1785-1825. The quantities are huge, even allowing for a loss of volume during the cooking. A peck of apples is roughly 6 kg, so it calls for a total of 18kg of prepared fruit, although it’s probably going to be closer to 20 kg by the time you factor in weight loss due to peeling/coring/chopping.

Almack recipe, (1800-1822) from MS1830, Wellcome Collection

This is a recipe with slightly more reasonable quantities – 3 quarts of each fruit = 7.5kg, but in the end I thought the recipe from Elizabeth Pease (below) was both the simplest and most reasonable in terms of batch size.

Elizabeth Pease’s recipe for Almacks (1802-1871) in MS3824, Wellcome Collection.

Admittedly, it does take a few things for granted such as expecting readers to know the method and how to prepare the fruit, but I’ll be filling you in on those in the recipe below.

So how much Almacks you make is really up to you and what you have to hand. As a guide, I used 750g of prepared apples and pears and 800g damsons (to allow for the stones) and it made 8 generous portions as seen in the photo above, and about 400g in a box for more casual use. The damsons add a real tang to the paste, and the low quantity of sugar means it sits right on the edge between sweet and savoury. Serve (small) portions with a drizzle of cream and a biscuit (ratafias, macaroons, etc) for crunch as a dessert, or with your favourite cheese and crackers.

Almacks

I’ve reduced the quantities, so you can make a small batch to try, but you can scale it up quite easily if you have it in mind to pot and gift it for Christmas.

500g peeled, cored and chopped apples
500g peeled, cored and chopped pears
500g plums/damsons, stones removed if possible
500g demerera sugar.

Cook the fruit. You want it soft enough so that it can be sieved easily. This can be done a couple of ways:
- layer the fruit and sugar into a large casserole (preferably ceramic or enamelled) and put it in the oven, uncovered, at 150°C, 130°C Fan for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring every 15 minutes to make sure the fruit floating on top of the juice doesn’t dry out.
- Put the fruit and sugar into a slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours. This method generates more juice, as it won’t evaporate as much as it does in the oven, but it has the advantage of being able to be left unattended for an extended period of time.
Sieve the cooked fruit until nothing is left but skin and (possibly) damson pits.
Simmer the puree in a preserving pan until no excess liquid is visible when you draw a spoon across the pan, and it’s just fruit puree. This will take rather a long time, if you used the slow-cooker method, due to the extra juice.
You MUST stir the pan, otherwise the puree will burn. Towards the end, it will turn into fruit LAVA< so have a towel cover your arm handy, to avoid the hot splashes.
When your puree is ready, spoon it into moulds or hot, sterilised jars as you would for jam. Silicone moulds are great, especially if you’re making Almacks to serve at a special meal – although you don’t need a special occasion to serve some delicious fruit cheese in a pretty shape. The flexibility of the silicone makes it very simple to turn out the paste, once cold.

Incomprehensible Pudding

18th century, Pudding

When browsing handwritten manuscripts, my eye is always drawn to recipes with unusual titles. Whether it’s someone’s name, or a location, or as in this case, an odd title.

Incomprehensible Recipe — Incomprehensible Pudding Recipe, circa 1785, MS2242, Wellcome Collection.

To be honest, after reading it, I wasn’t sure why this pudding is incomprehensible. There are only a few ingredients – none of them unusual, and a straightforward method.

Then I made it and it turned out so light and delicate, it was a real surprise. At first glance, it seems like a custard, but the addition of the apple pulp, especially if you can get Bramley cooking apples, makes it almost frothy. With the use of clarified butter (where only the fat is used, and not the dairy solids), you could arguably denote this dairy-free.

It makes the perfect dessert in that it appears decadent, but can be enjoyed without the heaviness associated with a lot of puddings.

The original recipe called for puff pastry round the edge of the dish, which is something that has puzzled me for years, as it appears in many pudding recipes of this time. I can’t work out if it is for decoration only, or for consumption. I decided not to include pastry, because the high temperature required to cook it properly is at odds with the gentle heat needed to just set the custard.

I also opted for individual servings, so aimed for a shorter cooking time, because in typical 18th century style, the original cooking instructions are short and vague: “an hour will bake it”. Sometimes custard-style puddings are baked in a water bath, and in testing I did try baking it both ways, and for this serving size the difference was so slight I’m going to suggest no water bath. If you wanted to make a large serving, then yes, use a water bath to ensure the mixture cooks without curdling.

I’ve scaled the recipe down to a single serving size. You can scale it up as required.

The puddings in the photo are served plain, but you could also opt to sprinkle them with sugar and blowtorch/grill them to caramelise the top.

Incomprehensible Pudding for One

120g unsweetened apple pulp

1 large egg

20g liquid clarified butter

20g caster sugar

extra caster sugar or brulée sugar

Heat the oven to 150°C, 130°C Fan.
Whisk the egg and sugar until pale and frothy.
Add the apple and butter and mix until smooth.
Pour mixture into a shallow dish and bake for 20 minutes until almost set (slightly wobbly in the centre).
Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature.
(Optional) Sprinkle with caster sugar (or brulée sugar) and brulee with either blowtorch or grill.

Oaten Biscuits

19th century, Biscuits

The recipes this week come from a classic Victorian book “Biscuits for Bakers” (1896) by Frederick T. Vine. They are essentially two versions of the same biscuit, one sweet, one plain. The method and baking time for both is the same, with the only difference being some of the ingredients: more sugar and butter in the sweet version (above left), different mix of flours, less sugar/butter and the use of lard in the plain version (above right).

Since the recipes are from a book for commercial bakers, the quantities given are huge and the instructions rather scant. For example, instruction to ‘bake in a warm oven’ is very much open to interpretation, forcing me to, in the end, just guess as 150°C Fan.

I chose these recipes for several reasons. Firstly, I love an oat biscuit – who, in their right mind, doesn’t? Secondly, the comment that different mixtures resulted in differing suggested selling price points, with the sweet biscuit selling for 10d a pound, and the plain 8d per pound, so I was keen to see whether the sweet biscuits tasted 2d per pound better (spoiler alert, they did and they didn’t). Lastly, I wanted to use some gadgets – my vintage pastry wheels (aka jagging irons) pictured below, and the lettering stamp set I’d bought last year and not yet used.

One of my pet peeves is wastage, and the rectangular shapes of these biscuits meant that I could cut them out with absolute minimum wastage. There’s nothing wrong with re-rolling – see previous post about Empty Pudding – but you run the risk of the re-rolled items baking mis-shapen, due to poor combining of scraps, or becoming tough, due to over-mixing.

So what are they like? Well, the sweet version is like a sweet digestive – sweeter than the best-selling modern brand, but not overly sweet, and crisp and crumbly. I love the texture, but they are a little sweet for my tastes. Further experimentation with a finer grade of oatmeal and less sugar might refine this satisfactorily. I tried stamping ‘Rich Oaten’ on them, but the slight spreading due to the increased quantities of butter/sugar meant the lettering veered towards the blobby, although they did become more browned during baking. The plain version held the lettering much better, and using the cutting wheel made for a very pleasing contrast between the flour-dusted top of the biscuit and the darker, unfloured cut sides. These biscuits are much more crisp and less crumbly, and although they were perfectly enjoyable plain, they really shine when eaten with a little salted butter, cheese or both.

During experimentation, it became clear that the optimum baking time for these biscuits is much longer than average, at 30 minutes. This is due to the need to ensure that they dry out completely, which in turn gives and maintains their crispness.

Oaten Biscuits

As mentioned above, the method and baking are the same for both types of biscuits, so just pick whichever style you prefer, and follow the method below.

Confession time: I was so engrossed in the lettering, I forgot to brush the biscuits for the photo with milk before baking. I quite like the results, but if you would like a browner biscuit, brush with milk.

Plain Oaten		Rich Oaten
medium oatmeal	170g	medium oatmeal	170g
wholemeal flour	115g	wholemeal flour	56g
plain flour	85g	plain flour	56g
caster sugar	56g	caster sugar	85g
butter	28g	butter	100g
lard	28g	cream of tartar	1½tsp
cream of tartar	1½tsp	bicarbonate of soda	¾tsp
bicarbonate of soda	¾tsp	salt	½tsp
salt	½tsp	milk	to mix
milk	to mix

Put the dry ingredients and fat(s) into a food processor and blitz to combine.
With the motor running, add milk a little at a time, until the mixture comes together in a ball.
Tip out the dough and knead a few times until smooth.
Roll out thinly – about 5mm – and dock (poke holes) all over, either with a docker or the end of a skewer or similar.
Cut out the biscuits. Rich Oaten are rectangles 3cm x 7cm, Plain Oaten are 5cm x 5cm squares.
If you have stamp letting to name the biscuits, use it now.
Chill the biscuits in the fridge for 30 minutes to help them keep their shape.
Heat the oven to 190°C, 150°C Fan.
Arrange the chilled biscuits on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with milk if liked.
Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the baking sheet around and bake for another 10 minutes. Finally, flip the biscuits over so the bottoms can bake well and bake for 10 minutes, for a total of 30 minutes.
Cool on a wire rack.
When cold, store in an airtight container.

Empty Pudding

19th century, 20th century, Pastry, Pudding, Sweet Pastry

Sometimes I stumble across a hidden gem of a recipe when I am supposed to be hunting out something else. Thus it is with this recipe that I found in a nondescript Edwardian cook book¹.

There are several things that drew me to this recipe. Firstly, the name, which is curious, and after following the recipe, is also extremely accurate. Secondly, the ingredients list. It is incredibly short. Just three ingredients. Which I find rather exciting – the possibility of creating something out of practically nothing is great fun. Especially since, in this case, the recipe has been costed at 9d, nine old pence, less than a shilling for, what appears to be, pudding for four. More so if it is delicious. Which this is. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This recipe so caught my attention, I don’t even remember what recipe I was searching for in the first place, so I was keen to read on and discover the secrets within. Alas, the fourth thing that drew me to this recipe is the confusing way it is written.

As can seen above, the instructions call for one to:

Make pastry
Put zest & juice in the pudding basin
When basin is lined with pastry, add sugar.
Seal a pastry lid on top.

This didn’t seem right at all: juice trapped between the basin and the pastry would steam in the heat of the oven and prevent the pastry from becoming crisp, surely? Why use puff pastry if you didn’t want it crisp? How can you seal the pastry and prevent the steam escaping if the thing making the steam (the lemon juice) isn’t inside? This last instruction was, for me, the key, or rather the ‘permission’ to break my number one rule with old recipes and NOT bake it as written in the first place, and put the zest and juice inside the pastry.

And it worked wonderfully. I baked my puddings in individual-sized metal pudding bowls, to shorten the cooking time.

And here’s how they turned out. Beautiful, golden pastry and a puffed and crispy lid. Inside, the lemon zest and juice combined with the sugar to make an incredibly zingy lemon syrup, which really packs a punch.

The heat from the oven creates steam from the lemon juice inside the pudding, which in turn helps fluff the puff pastry into soft, delicate layers. The contrast of flavours and textures is amazing.

But there’s more.

Because not all of my puddings turned out perfectly. Two of them sprung a leak during baking, as can be seen here (arranged upside down).

But here’s the thing: it’s not a disaster! The zest and juice still combined with the sugar to make a syrup, which, after the leak, coated the outsides of the pastry and made an amazing lemon caramel. Not all the liquid leaked out, so the insides still benefitted from steam, and puffed out fantastically. The photo at the top shows the insides of one of the ‘leaky’ puddings. These are also brilliant, as the lemon caramel hardens in the best traditions of creme brulee, and gives even more flavourful contrasts with the crisp pastry and soft interior. I might even like this variation more than the original. So if your puddings bake perfectly, or whether they spring a leak, it really is a win:win situation!

An extravagance: I used two blocks of puff pastry for just 4 puddings, because I wanted to use freshly-rolled pastry for the lids and the linings, in order to get the best ‘puff’ during baking. On reflection, this might have been unnecessary, as the basins do such a good job of ensuring the pastry puffs inwards whilst keeping the outsides smooth. Certainly, the lids were spectacular, so I’m going to recommend cutting lids from freshly-rolled pastry, and then re-roll the trimmings for the basin linings, which means you could probably get everything from a single block of puff pastry. I haven’t tested this, so I recommend having the second block of pastry on standby, just in case.

Empty Pudding

Serves 4

2 blocks puff pastry
2 lemons
4tbs caster sugar
butter for greasing
milk and caster sugar for glazing

Butter your pudding bowls generously. If your puddings spring a leak, you want to ensure you can still get them out of the bowls.
Roll out your pastry and cut 4 lids. Make sure the pastry is a little larger than the diameter of your pudding bowls, to ensure there is enough to make a firm seal.
Cut pastry to line your pudding bowls. Make sure the pastry overhangs the bowls a lttle to make a firm seal. Re-roll the trimmings if necessary.
Put the zest of half a lemon into each pastry-lined bowl.
Put the juice of half a lemon into each pastry-lined bowl.
Put 1tbs caster sugar into each pastry-lined bowl.
Moisten the edges of the pastry lids and attach to the rim of the bowls by pressing down firmly.
Chill the bowls in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to allow the pastry to relax and firm up.
Preheat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
Place the chilled bowls on a baking sheet and crimp the edges between finger and thumb.
Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with a little caster sugar.
Bake for 20 minutes, then turn the baking tray around and bake for a further 10-15 minutes. NB Puff pastry takes a surprisingly long time to be properly cooked, so when in doubt, cook a little longer. You can also return them to the oven for extra browning when turned out. See below.
Remove from the oven and turn out as follows.
- Ease a knife around the edge of the pastry to loosen it from the sides of the bowl.
- Gently test whether you can lift out an un-leaky pudding.
- If you suspect your pudding has leaked, turn your pudding out upside down.
- Depending on your pastry colour, you might want to return your puddings to the oven for some extra colouring. If your pudding has leaked, I would definitely recommend returning them to the oven (still upside down) to harden the lemon syrup/caramel mixture until glossy and brown.
Serve with custard, cream or as they come.

¹ A little book of cookery by Dora Luck, 1905, Sands & Compy., London ; Edinburgh.

Buttered Oranges

17th century, Preserves, Pudding

For the past several years I have been making a searchable index of the digitised household books held at The Wellcome Library. In doing so, I’ve read over 300 manuscripts and logged more than 32,000 food and drink recipes and have a ‘To Do list of interesting recipes as long as my arm.

‘Buttering’ was exceedingly popular in times past, and was applied to numerous dishes: crab, chickens, rolls, loaves, turnips, rice, salmon… For the most part, this consists of a healthy slathering of butter over the dish in question. Buttered Oranges, however, stands apart, since it’s not a pairing that seems obvious. So it was that this year, in the midst of a Seville orange flurry of kitchen activity, I grabbed a net of sweet oranges and determined that Buttered Oranges would be promoted to the top of the To Do list with immediate effect.

Buttered Orange recipe, circa 1750, MS1357, Wellcome Library Collection

I re-read all of the recipes from the collection that I could find, and they were all pretty similar. I selected this one because of the novel presentation suggestion, which is to serve the buttered oranges in candied orange peels. Completely optional, of course, but it does make for an eye-catching dessert.

Which hopefully makes up for what might possibly be a bit of a let-down, because it turns out that Buttered Oranges is pretty much what we today would call a fruit curd: juice and zest, sweetened and thickened with eggs with a generous, but not excessive, quantity of butter melted in.

After experimentation, I found the best way to present this dessert was to make each element separately and then assemble before serving. I felt the original recipe’s instruction to bake the filled oranges until set was a little too risky and prone to mishap to risk all the preparation, but don’t let that deter you from trying it for yourself – I would just advise against a spur of the moment decision during an important social occasion.

Preparing the peels

I chose blood oranges to serve the curd in, as they were a beautiful colour and relatively small, thus being perfect for serving elegant portions of this rich dessert.

1 orange per person
1kg caster sugar
1 litre water

Before you start, you should make a decision on how you will be preparing the peels. The original recipe says to zest the oranges, slice off the top, hollow out the flesh, then simmer in water until tender, then finish in syrup. This gives the skins a pale, almost pastel colouring, which is delightful, and means the whole of the orange is put to good use but also makes them rather fragile during the cooking. One solution would be to tie them lightly in muslin or cheesecloth, to protect them, or alternately, use un-zested oranges, which will have a darker colour, but are also much more robust and less likely to split during the cooking. The results of both are illustrated in the photograph at the top, the zested peels on the right, the un-zested on the left. If you choose to use un-zested oranges, then you will need twice as many oranges overall.

If you’re zesting the oranges, do that now and reserve the zest for later.
Slice a lid off the top of each orange, and scoop out the insides using a combination of sharp knife and teaspoon. Reserve the flesh and juice for later.
Make sure there’s no orange flesh or fibres left inside.
Place the hollowed oranges and their lids into a saucepan of cold water, making sure the water fills the cavities.
Slowly bring the water to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer until tender. This will take about 1.5-2 hours.
Change the water and scrub the pan every 30 minutes to remove the bitter oil.
When the peels are tender enough to be pierced by a toothpick, make a syrup by dissolving the sugar in the water over a low heat.
Add the peels and allow to simmer gently until the peel appears translucent.
Remove from the heat. The peels can remain in the syrup until required.

Buttered Oranges

As already mentioned, this is a variation of Orange Curd, so if you already have a favourite recipe, then by all means use that instead.

2 large eggs
the zest and juice from at least 4 oranges
the juice of 1 lemon
Sugar to taste
50g unsalted butter

Add the strained juices and zest to the eggs and whisk thoroughly.
Add the butter and whisk over a gentle heat until thickened.
Add sugar to taste.
To serve, you can either pour the curd into your oranges warm, or fill them and allow them to cool before serving.
I recommend serving some kind of biscuit or shortbread alongside to dip!

Banyon Toat Pie

18th century, Pastry, Pudding, Sweet Pastry

This recipe is bonkers: bonkers name, bonkers method. I’ve spent ages trying to work out what, in the 18th century world of erratic spelling, the name is supposed to be, and drawn a blank¹. I’ve pondered many an hour over the pancake-ception involved in the filling, and been baffled. It’s a true one-off. I’ve never read anything like it – and I’ve read a LOT of recipes. Finally, ealier this month, I decided to grab the bull by the horns and just make it, and see how things go. The result, after a little tweaking, is insanely delicious, so I thought I would share in time for Pancake Day (February 16th), so you can enjoy the deliciousness yourself.

Banyon Toat Pye (1700-1735), MS1797, Wellcome Collection

Aside from the already-mentioned bonkers title, the method of this pie is very unusual: make some pancakes, mash them up, mix in yolks, cream and sherry, fry this mixture as thin pancakes, then layer them in puff pastry with candied peel, dried fruit, sugar and butter. When baked, pour a sherry/lemon custard (caudle) through the holes in the lid.

The adding-the-sauce-after-baking was an acceptable approach for pies at this time. Usually the pastry served mostly as a container for the contents and to keep in steam and moisture, and an interesting sauce was added at the end.

It was the pancakes-made-from-pancakes that really intrigued. And so I set to with a vengeance, and initially, it all went swimmingly. Unfortunately, the second batch of batter proved a giant stumbling block. The recipe called for it to be made into thin pancakes, but even using single cream, it was more like bread sauce. Trying to dilute the batter with more cream meant it just wouldn’t hold together. Batch after batch was scrapped, which meant I then had to re-make the first batch and pancakes before working on the second. I must confess, I got a little tetchy, telling myself: it’s a pancake batter! How can I mess up a pancake!?

Eventually, I came up with a compromise, and made just a single, standard pancake batter, but with the flavourings and enrichment that had been used in the second batch. This did indeed make wonderfully thin pancakes, which were delicious in their own right.

Once this hurdle had been successfully leapt, the rest of the recipe was almost straightforward. The pancakes are layered in a puff pastry case, with each layer being sprinkled with sugar, spices, dots of butter, candied peel and dried fruit. A cut-pastry top, 40 minutes in the oven and the addition of the caudle sauce finished it off quite easily, and I must admit, being rather impatient to taste the result.

Well, gentle reader, you’ll be pleased to discover that it is bonkers. DELICIOUSLY bonkers! The pancake layers keep the filling evenly spread, but are light and delicately flavoured with no hint of ‘stodge’. The spiced filling mixture is reminiscent of mince pies, and rich-tasting and thanks to the sharpness of the sour cherries/barberries neither heavy nor cloying. The sauce/caudle really brings the zing, with the sherry and lemon-juice adding freshness and richness. I commented on Twitter after the first trial that it was ridiculously delicious, and I stand by that claim. I literally had to hold my daughter at bay until I had photographed the smaller pies, as she is so taken with them!

Now that I have sorted out the pancake problem, it’s a very straight-forward recipe: much more an assembly rather than anything complicated. If you’re short of time, you could even opt to buy the pancakes rather than make them, although that would mean on missing out on their delicate flavour.

There are no quantities given in the original recipe for the filling, so you can be as generous or as careful as you like. The quantities below make for a flavourful, rich pie without overdoing it, but for special occasions, you could really layer them thickly.

Banyon Toat Pie

This can make whatever size and shape of pie(s) you like. One large (20cm) pie will serve 8 generously. Due to the richness, a smaller, 10cm pie can be shared between two. The instructions and quantities below are for one large pie, but, as mentioned above, can be scaled up or down easily.

For the pancakes
50g plain flour
1 large egg
1 large yolk
100ml milk
50ml cream sherry

butter for frying

1 x 500g block of puff pastry

Filling
40g candied citron peel, diced small
40g candied orange peel, diced small
40g candied lemon peel, diced small
40g dried sour cherries or barberries
40g butter
4tbs caster sugar
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground nutmeg

Caudle
2 large egg yolks
juice 1 lemon, strained
50ml cream sherry
15g butter
2tbs caster sugar
2tsp cream sherry to finish

Egg white and caster sugar for glazing

Whisk together the pancake ingredients and make four thin pancakes. Use a 1/4 cup measure to ensure the batter equally. Lay the cooked pancakes on kitchen paper and leave to cool.
Grease your pie tin(s) and line with thinly (5mm) rolled puff pastry. Leave a generous edge overlapping the sides of the tins, to help secure the lid. Cut a lid a little larger than your pie. Chill the lid in the fridge.
Pile the pancakes on top of one another, and place your lined pie tin on top. Cut around the base of the tin, to make four pie-sized pancakes. Eat the pancake offcuts and enjoy!
Layer the pie contents as follows. For each layer:
- Place a pancake.
- Sprinkle 1tbs caster sugar.
- Sprinkle ¼tsp ground cinnamon.
- Sprinkle ¼tsp ground nutmeg.
- Sprinkle 10g candied citron peel.
- Sprinkle 10g candied lemon peel.
- Sprinkle 10g candied orange peel.
- Sprinkle 10g sour cherries or barberries.
- Cut 10g butter into tiny pieces and dot over.
- Repeat for all 4 layers.
Heat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
Remove the pastry lid from the fridge.
Cut holes in the lid. You can do this by using a lattice wheel, or by cutting a lattice by hand. Alternatively, use small pastry cutters or even the wide end of a piping nozzle, to cut random holes in the pastry.
Moisten the pie edge with water and carefully lay the lid over the filling. Press the edges together firmly, to seal, and then trim the excess with a sharp edge (I use my metal bench scraper).
Whisk an egg-white to froth and brush it over the pastry lid. Sprinkle with caster sugar.
Bake for 35-40 minutes until the pastry is crisped and brown. Turn the pie around midway through cooking, to ensure even colouring. When fully baked, it will be easy to lift the edge of the pie and check that the base is also browned. If you’re making mini pies in 10cm tins, cooking time is 25 minutes, turning the tray around after 15 minutes.
While the pie is baking, make the caudle, You can do this after the pie has been turned, so that it is ready to go when the pie is fully baked.
Whisk the ingredients (except the final 2tsp sherry) in a pan over medium-low heat until the sugar has dissolved and the sauce has thickened. It should be of the consistency of single cream. If you think it looks too thin, whisk in an extra yolk. Taste, and add more sugar if needed. When ready to add to the pie, add the remaining sherry.
Remove the pie from the tin to a wire cooling rack. Spoon/pour the caudle into the pie through the holes in the pastry lid. Gently shake the pie to help distribute the caudle.
Allow the pie to cool for 15 minutes before enjoying.
Best served warm. Delicious by itself, if you wanted to ‘gild the lily’, you could serve it alongside some unsweetened whipped cream.

¹ Of course, a week after publishing this post, I worked out that ‘Banyan Toat’ was a variation in spelling of ‘Banniet Tort’. a recipe published in Charles Carter’s “The Complete Practical Cook”, 1730.