Category: 19th century

New College Puddings

Pudding, 17th century, 18th century, 19th century

New College Puddings is a recipe that has been around for centuries. It’s been on my radar for years, and when indexing recipes in manuscripts, it made frequent appearances. I was aware of the recipe basics – breadcrumbs, dried fruit, suet, fried – I acknowledged them, but never really paid much attention beyond wondering whether ‘new college puddings’ was just an updated version of a mysterious older recipe for ‘college puddings’. And the answer?

After some sleuthing, I discovered that they are named for New College, Oxford, founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, as The College of St Mary of Winchester in Oxford. It became known as ‘New College’ in order to distinguish it from the other college dedicated to St Mary (Oriel College), which had been founded in 1326. So the recipe was actually ‘NEW COLLEGE puddings’ rather than ‘NEW college puddings’. It’s funny to think that an almost-650 year-old institution was, at one time, considered the Johnny-come-lately, modern upstart. Disappointingly, searching the modern New College website brings up precisely zero references to puddings.

Moving on…

For a long time, the earliest recipe for New College Puddings was in the “The Compleat Housewife” by E___ S___ (thought to be by Eliza Smith, but the book originally only ever had the author’s initials, until she passed away that is, whereupon the publishers had free reign to make up any old tosh, which they did). Below is the recipe from the 1728 Second Edition.

New College Puddings recipe from “The Compleat Housewife” by E.S., second edition, 1728.

Later in the century, Hannah Glasse included a recipe for Oxford Puddings (see below) in her 1747 “The Art of Cookery”, which is essentially the same recipe, except these puddings are served with a butter/wine sauce, whereas E.S.’s included sack in the mixture itself.

Recipe for An Oxford Pudding from Hannah Glasse’s “The Art of Cookery” (1747) p102

Both recipes consist of dry crumbs, suet, currants, sugar, nutmeg, with eggs to bind the mixture together, which is then shaped and fried in butter. Interestingly, the Glasse recipe is entitled “An Oxford Pudding” (singular) when it is very clearly made up of a number of small puddings, suggesting that this should more accurately be called “A pudding from Oxford”, thus tying in with the original E.S. recipe.

In the 21st century, an earlier recipe of impeccable provenance has emerged as a number of handwritten manuscripts have come to light. Radolphus (Ralph) Ayres was head cook at New College, Oxford in the early eighteenth century (approx. 1714-1725) and kept a manuscript of the many recipes he used. There are at least four known copies of this manuscript collection, which includes New College Puddings. His serving suggestion is to present them surrounding a wobbly, creamy Quaking Pudding.

Recipe for New College Puddings, Ralph Ayres Manuscript dated 1722. Images: Bellmans Auctioneers.

In addition, the manuscripts at the Wellcome Collection contain over 50 New College Pudding recipes, and when you add in recipes printed in books as well, there’s close to 100 recipes to choose from. For over three centuries this recipe was included in all the popular cookery books of the age, but their popularity waned in the 20th century, as more exotic sweet options became available.

This is a shame, since they are a wonderful example of making something delicious and satisfying  from almost nothing. Stale breadcrumbs, suet and dried fruit, a bit of sugar, an egg or two and suddenly it’s a hearty, warm and comforting winter treat. Minor details have changed over time – little additions to improve the taste or changes in cooking methods. With the cold winter days fast approaching, and high food prices forcing our hand with affordable food choices – whatever your situation, there is a New College Pudding recipe for you!

New College Puddings have all the warmth, comfort and flavour of a steamed pudding, but without the hours and hours of boiling/steaming. Using breadcrumbs instead of flour means that the cooking time can be drastically reduced and the only ingredient that actually needs any cooking is the egg. The mixture can be fried, baked and/or steamed and no cooking method requires more than 30 minutes. The texture and flavour is a cross between a steamed pudding and Christmas cake, and if that sounds like something you’d enjoy, you’re not going to be disappointed.

I’ve selected four subtly-different recipes for you to try, ranging from the earliest recipe I could find, to the most elaborate. Whichever one you choose – and I do hope you’ll choose at least one – you’re in for a tasty and comforting treat.

A College Pudding – 17thC

17thC College Puddings, from MS8097, Wellcome Collection

This is the earliest recipe I could find, definitely pre-1700, and its also one of the simplest. This quantity makes just 6 puddings – ideal for trying out to see if you like the style. There is no seasoning spice in this recipe, and, for me, it is noticeable by its absence. You might want to add 1tsp mixed spice just to get into the the steamed pudding mood.

17thC College Puddings from MS8097, Wellcome Collection

85g stale breadcrumbs
60g currants
50g dried suet (Atora brand in the UK, vegetarian or beef)
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp mixed spice (optional)
2-3 tbs packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 large yolk
2tbs milk

milk to mix
butter for frying
caster sugar for sprinkling

  • Put all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir together.
  • Whisk the egg and yolk together, and add 2tbs milk.
  • Stir the wet ingredients into the dry. Add more milk if required. The mixture needs to be moist enough to hold together if pressed, but still hold its shape.
  • Rest for 15 minutes, to allow the liquid to be absorbed. If it’s still a little dry, add milk 1tbs at a time, until suitably moistened.
  • Shape your puddings. I used my silicone mould of cylinders, but I appreciate that not everyone has as much kitchen stuff as I do, so an alternative method would be to
    • divide the mixture into six.
    • Form each roughly into a sausage shape.
    • Wrap/roll each portion in plastic wrap.
    • Twist the ends tightly, shaping the mix into a smooth cylinder.
  • Chill the shaped mixture for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.
  • When ready to cook, remove the chilled puddings from their moulds.
  • Melt a generous lump of butter (about 50g) in a non-stick pan. Several of the recipes I’ve read advocate for huge quantities of fat – up to and including a pound of butter (but also suet, dripping and lard) – and for the pan to be constantly shaken to ensure the puddings don’t stick. Non-stick pans are our modern convenience for this.
  • Fry the puddings over medium-low heat (5 on an induction hob) until browned on all sides.
  • Remove the browned puddings from the pan and drain on paper towels.
  • Sprinkle a little caster sugar over the puddings and serve hot.

New College Puddings – c1798

New College Puddings recipe c1798, from MS960, Wellcome Collection

These puddings might be considered the next level in that there is a move to the overwhelmingly most popular/traditional shape, that of an egg. Other recipes I have read specify a turkey egg in size, which is roughly as broad as the palm of your hand, so a little more substantial in size. We also have the addition of spice in the form of nutmeg, and either some rosewater or sack to moisten the mix.

Finally, the dish is complemented with a wine and butter sauce. I chose to thicken the sauce with arrowroot, to give it a bit of body. You could substitute cornflour, but arrowroot is great for sauces as it thickens and clears, and also retains liquidity when cold, so the sauce pours well both hot and cold (in contrast to cornflour, which thickens a sauce when hot, but tends to set solid when cold). Arrowroot also thickens at a much lower temperature, well below boiling, and will actually lose its thickening qualities if it does boil, so you need to keep an eye on it.

For the puddings
75g dry breadcrumbs
60g dried suet
75g currants
½ tsp salt
30g soft dark brown sugar
1tsp ground nutmeg
1 large egg
1tbs rosewater or sherry/mead/ginger wine/Madeira/any favourite fortified wine
2-3tbs single cream,

Sauce:
60g unsalted butter
2-3 tbs packed soft dark brown sugar
120ml sherry/mead/ginger wine/Madeira/any favourite fortified wine
2tsp arrowroot
1tbs water

water to dilute (optional)

  • Put all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir together.
  • Whisk the egg, alcohol and milk together.
  • Stir the wet ingredients into the dry. Add more milk if required. The mixture needs to be moist enough to hold together if pressed, but still hold its shape.
  • Rest for 15 minutes, to allow the liquid to be absorbed. If it’s still a little dry, add milk 1tbs at a time, until suitably moistened.
  • Shape your puddings.
    • Divide the mixture into 4 and place each portion onto some plastic wrap.
    • Wrap the plastic around the mixture and press together into an oval shape.
    • Set aside in the fridge until required
  • Make your sauce:
    • Melt the butter in a pan.
    • Add the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
    • Mix the arrowroot with the water until smooth, then add the wine.
    • Pour the liquids into the sugar/butter mix.
    • Stir together over medium heat until the sauce loses it’s milkiness and thickens.
    • Taste your sauce and add water if liked. Since the sauce thickens below boiling point, a lot of the alcohol from the booze will still be present, so water it down if it’s all a bit much.
    • Set aside until required.
  • Fry your puddings:
    • Melt 50g butter in a non-stick pan.
    • Remove the plastic wrap from your puddings and place them in the pan.
    • Fry gently on medium-low heat (5 on an induction hob) until browned on both sides and hot in the middle.
    • Place puddings on/in a serving dish and sprinkle with caster sugar.
  • Reheat your sauce and pour over the puddings, or pour into a dish/jug and serve alongside.

Baked New College Puddings – 1840s

Baked New College Puddings, 1840s, MS4066 Wellcome Collection

These puddings are pretty similar to the above recipe, but have been adapted to being baked in the oven in buttered teacups. Nowadays we have a plethora of baking tins and moulds to choose from, so these are easily the most ‘hands-off’ puddings of the four.

Baked New College Puddings, 1840s, MS4066 Wellcome Collection

New College Puddings
120g breadcrumbs
60g currants,
30g raisins,
30g flaked almonds,
60g dried suet
30g candied orange or lemon peel, chopped fine
3-4tbs packed soft dark brown sugar
100ml double cream
2 tbs brandy
2 large eggs

4 individual pudding tins/large ramekins
butter for buttering the moulds
caster sugar for sprinkling

  • Butter your moulds generously and set aside.
  • Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
  • Whisk the eggs, cream and brandy together and stir through the rest of the ingredients. Don’t worry about having the mixture wet enough to stick together – the shape of the moulds will do all the work. It is enough just to have the crumb moist.
  • Divide the mixture into four and spoon into your pudding moulds/ramekins. Avoid pressing the mixture down, as it will make the resulting pudding dense and heavy. Cover each mould with foil, to retain moisture while baking.
  • Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan.
  • Arrange the moulds on a baking tin and bake for 30 minutes, turning the tin around halfway through, to ensure even baking.
  • Remove the puddings and allow to cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto plates/serving dish.
  • Sprinkle with caster sugar and serve.

Boiled and Fried Georgian New College Puddings – 1820s

Georgian New College Puddings, 18820s, MS1839, Wellcome Collection

There’s nothing very surprising with these puddings as regards ingredients, other than perhaps all the extra flavourings, but I was taken with both the quantities – the original recipe was for 16 small puddings – and the suggested improved cooking method of half boiling (steaming) followed by frying. These puddings are served with a butter-wine sauce, exactly the same as the sauce above, but this time made with white sugar.

Georgian New College Puddings, 1820s, MS1839, Wellcome Collection

It was very straightforward to scale down this recipe and make just four puddings, but they turned out to be, relative to the other New College Puddings – enormous. The same egg shape mentioned in other recipes, just much larger. I’ve deliberately used the same flatware in each of the photos to give some idea of scale, so you can see that I was unable to get even three on the serving plate without stacking them. Having made these, I think the reason for suggesting boiling (steaming) first, before frying, is two-fold: to heat the puddings through and also to help the puddings hold together better. Steaming cooks the egg, which holds the fruit and breadcrumbs together, and frying gives the outside a delicious crisp and buttery finish. I steamed the puddings in plastic wrap before removing it and frying.

Georgian New College Puddings

You don’t HAVE to make four puddings – use the mixture to make smaller ones (either 6 or 8), depending on what you are serving beforehand, as well as your guests’ appetites.

For the puddings
115g currants
115g currants
225g breadcrumbs
100g soft dark brown sugar
1½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 large egg
2tbs sherry/Madeira/Marsala or other fortified wine
60ml single cream, plus more to moisten

100g butter to fry
caster sugar for sprinkling

Sauce
60g unsalted butter
2-3 tbs white caster/granulated sugar
120ml sherry/mead/ginger wine/Madeira/any favourite fortified wine
2tsp arrowroot
1tbs water

water to dilute (optional)

  • Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
  • Whisk the egg, wine and cream together and stir through the rest of the ingredients.
  • Divide the mixture into four and spoon onto squares of plastic wrap.
  • Twist the plastic wrap around the filling and shape into an oval.
  • Place the shaped puddings into a steamer pan, with the plastic wrap ‘seal’ underneath. Cover the pan with a lid.
  • Bring a saucepan of water to a boil and place the covered steamer pan on top. Steam for 20 minutes.
  • While your puddings are steaming, make the sauce.
    • Melt the butter in a pan.
    • Add the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
    • Mix the arrowroot with the water until smooth, then add the wine.
    • Pour the liquids into the sugar/butter mix.
    • Stir together over medium heat until the sauce loses it’s milky appearance and thickens.
    • Taste your sauce and add water if liked. Since the sauce thickens below boiling point, a lot of the alcohol will be retained, so water it down if it’s all a bit much. Set aside until required
  • Remove the steamer pan from over the hot water and set aside for 5 minutes to cool a little.
  • In a large frying pan, melt the butter.
  • Unwrap each pudding and place into the pan. Fry a golden brown on each side.
  • Remove the puddings from the pan and drain on kitchen paper.
  • Reheat the sauce and pour into a mall serving jug.
  • Transfer the puddings to your serving dish and sprinkle with caster sugar.
  • Serve the puddings with the sauce alongside.

Carrot Soup

19th century, soup

One of the main attractions of old recipes is the lack of messing about that goes on. For the most part, what you see is what you get. The ingredients are largely  wholesome and unadulterated. Flavours are clear and crisp and very reminiscent of a much simpler time.

However some recipes that sound simple in my indexed spreadsheet, turn out to be surprisingly complicated when I come to look them up.

Take this recipe for pottage, for example. Back in the early part of the year, I thought a recipe for the humble dish of pottage might be just the thing for the blog during Lent – tasty, but abstemious and possibly even pious. I was going to look so good adapting this recipe. Many, many Lenten brownie points were going to be headed my way.  I selected one of many recipes entitled just ‘pottage’ that appears in an anonymous manuscript from the late 17th century, and bustled off, as much as one can when reading a PDF document, to see what it was all about.

Recipe to make Pottage, MS7892, 1675-1725, Wellcome Collection

Turns out, it is quite the Palaver, possibly even bordering Malarkey! We have beef, we have mutton, we have veal, we have a range of unspecified poultry and we also have bacon. And this is just to make the broth! Then we need to add seasoning and greens, specifically spinach, lettuce, sorrel, young beets, asparagus tops and artichoke bottoms. And while all that is going on, we have a quick side-quest to prepare the serving dish and rustle up garnishes by dicing up the meat that was boiled, making and slicing fresh meatballs. and boiling and slicing cabbage lettuces. *mops brow* I’m exhausted just from typing that all out!

I’m also quite amused by the apparent ‘three stages of pottage’ handwriting styles. It’s almost as if we too have been on something of a journey with the recipe writer, who starts out using a calm and flourishing hand in the beginning, with just a couple of smudges, where it’s all ‘throw it in a pot’ – simple, straightforward. When I first re-read the recipe, I actually thought it ended after the first paragraph, and was rather puzzled that my notes said it was a very detailed recipe. Because then we enter what is obviously a manic phase, where greenery is having to be prepped and shredded and simmered. The handwriting style is all over the place. Perhaps it all got too much for the cook and she delegated to an underling when the frenzy of pottage-making took a bit of a turn. The final section, on the second page, is much more sedate and calm: the neat handwriting has returned and you just know that, even though there is quite a bit of detail in finishing off the dish, this part of the account has been written in a much less frenzied atmosphere, after the author has almost certainly had a bit of a lie-down in a dark room and possibly a stiff drink to calm the frazzled nerves. All in all a veritable pottage saga! Who knew cooking soup could be such a rollercoaster!

All of which is in complete contrast to the recipe we’re actually doing today, namely Carrot Soup.

Recipe for Carrot Soup, 1829, MS4645, Wellcome Collection

Helpfully including details such as provenance (Sarah Mathews) and a date of 1829, this late-Georgian recipe is the epitome of simplicity: vegetables in a pan, add stock, cook, puree, garnish, serve. Bish, bash, bosh. Done.

It is also, however, slightly sneaky in that it includes lots of vegetables that give body to the soup and round out the flavour but are undetectable in the final serving. There’s no need for flour thickening – great for anyone with a sensitivity to gluten – and just some slight adjustment with the finishing can easily make this vegetarian soup vegan by swapping out the butter for a suitable alternative

Carrot Soup

This is a scaled-down version of the above recipe, which makes four generous meal-sized servings. You can add more vegetables if you like – another similar recipe I found suggested adding 2 leeks, which I didn’t have, but I did have a bunch of spring onions that needed using up, so in they went. The garnish is a mixture of a swirl of cream and diced celery tossed in sage butter.

500-600g carrots
2 onions
1 turnip (and/or small swede)
1 small celeriac
(optional) 2 leeks/bunch of spring onions
60g butter
1 litre vegetable stock (1 litre of water + 2 stock cubes)

To finish
150ml cream
3 sticks celery
60g butter
10-12 sage leaves (optional)
coarse-ground black pepper

  • Peel and chop all the vegetables to roughly the same size – I used my trusty mandolin slicer fitted with the wide/large blade.
  • Put the vegetables in a pot with the butter and cook gently until softened.
  • Add the vegetable stock and cover.
  • Simmer until all the vegetables are tender. (about 30 minutes, depending on how large the pieces are).
  • Use a stick blender or liquidiser to puree the soup smooth. For extra smoothness, pass the soup through a sieve.
  • Rinse the pan, pour the pureed soup back in and heat gently.
  • To Garnish
    • While the vegetables are cooking, cut each of the celery sticks into 3 pieces and add to a pan with enough water to cover.
    • Simmer for 20-25 minutes until tender. Drain.
    • Using a sharp knife, cut the cooked celery lengthwise into strips about 1cm wide, then across making 1cm cubes.
    • Melt the butter in a pan and toss in the sage leaves. Fry until just crisped.
    • Add the cubed celery and heat through.
  • Serve the heated soup with a swirl of cream and a spoonful of the celery/sage butter. Finish with a sprinkling of black pepper.

 

Manchets

19th century, 20th century

Another two-for-one recipe for you this week, based on traditional regional recipes: Guildford Manchets and Lardy Buns, both from the county of Surrey.

Both of these recipes come from Elizabeth David’s classic English Bread and Yeast Cookery (1980). I’ve grouped them together because, with one slight difference, they are made the same way. Also, I like how they are related to two other recipes I’ve already published, from other countries.

According to Mrs David, the recipe for Guildford Manchets originates from “The Surrey Cookbook”, a collection of recipes gathered and published by the Women’s Institute in 1932. The Lardy Buns are listed immediately following, and so the inference is that these too come from Surrey. Whilst it is conceivable that these recipes stretch back into the 19th century, I think it would be a mistake to claim they are medieval in origin, just because they are called ‘manchets’. Yes, there were, of course, medieval manchets, but I’m not entirely sure these are them. I am reminded of the furore that occurred back in 2020 when an American researcher claimed the Cornish pasty was actually ‘invented’ in Devon – the audacity! – merely because he had found the word ‘pasty’ in a 17thC document in the Devon archives.  (Sidebar: I almost got a detached retina from the degree of eye-roll that bit of guff precipitated, especially given the fact that, for starters, the National Archives at Kew hold a document from 1296 that mentions “Simon Le Pasteymaker”.)

ANYHOO…

Both buns are made in the same way, by rolling in additional fat to plain bread dough, the only difference being that Guildford Manchets are made with a combination of lard and butter, and Lardy Buns are made solely with lard. The method is similar to that used to make flaky pastry: rolling out the dough, dotting over the fat, then folding and re-rolling, repeated three or four times. In times past, housewives could buy plain dough from the local baker, and use it for their own needs. It’s a shame that nowadays, the only non-standard purchase we are able to make from a bakery is fresh yeast.

Guildford Manchets

These two recipes are similar to two other traditional recipes I’ve already published. The Guildford Manchets bear a close resemblance to the Kouignettes, the small versions of Kouign Amann, except for the type of fat used and the lack of sugar. Whilst the ones I made for the photo are rolled round, a simpler method would be to cut the rolled dough into squares, fold the corners into the middle, and bake them in small foil baking tins. In Mrs David’s version of Lardy Buns, the use of cutters and the cross-hatching on the top make them very similar to Hungarian Pogácsa, minus the fresh dill. Lardy Buns are still made today, in a small village bakery in Surrey: “Celebration Cakes” in Cranleigh. They make them their own by poking two holes in the top, instead of using the cross-hatching. To my mind, it makes the baked buns look like the snouts of pigs (very cute and very appropriate, given the use of lard in their making).

Lardy Buns

In terms of flavour, the Lardy Buns are definitely on the savoury side, and pairs well with meats and cheeses. Fantastic for ‘breakfast sandwiches’, if that’s something you like. The insides, whilst bready-y, are layered and soft, and the outsides are crispy, like the crust of a pork pie.

The Guildford Manchets have a much richer flavour, thanks to the butter, and are crisp, but also slightly softer overall. More towards a flaky pastry texture. They are equally suited to both sweet and savoury toppings/fillings.

I’m going to combine the methods for both recipes. Best started the night before, the recipe below makes about a dozen (12) of each item. Re-rolling the offcuts from the Lardy Rolls won’t give you the same polished finish, but they will be just as tasty. Baker’s perks! No waste!

Manchets Two Ways

Makes 12 of each type of manchet. You can scale the recipe down by halving it, if you’d prefer to make just one. To make the dough easier to handle all the rolling and folding, chill overnight in the fridge (covered) after the first rise.

For the dough
600g strong white bread flour
1 sachet fast-action yeast
1 tsp salt
water to mix

For Guildford Manchets
60g lard, softened
60g butter, softened

For Lardy Buns
120g lard, softened

To glaze
whole milk

  • Mix the flour, yeast, salt and water (400-500ml, depending on the moisture content of your flour) into a dough.
  • Knead for 10 minutes until smooth, then cover and set aside to rise for 1 hour.
  • Tip out the dough and flatten with the palm of your hand. If you’re chilling the dough overnight, fold the dough into a neat rectangle, wrap in plastic and place in the fridge.
  • When ready to make up the rolls, if making the Guildford Manchets, mash the softened butter and lard together with a fork.
  • If you’re making both types of manchet, divide the dough in half and repeat the following with each half, using the different fats.
  • Roll out the dough into a long rectangle.
  • Dot one third of the fat over the top two-thirds of the dough.
  • Fold the bottom third of the dough upwards and the top third downwards. Turn the folded dough 90° to the left.
  • Repeat the rolling and folding two more times, until all the fat has been used.
  • Roll and fold the dough one final time, without adding any fat.
  • Roll the dough out into a rectangle about 2cm thick
  • For Guildford Manchets
    • Cut the dough into 12 squares.
    • Fold each corner into the middle, then repeat with the ‘inbetween’ edges, pinching them together firmly.
    • Turn the folded dough over, and roll under your cupped hand to form into a smooth ball.
    • Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment.
    • Alternatively, use mini foil pie tins like these, as used in this recipe, and simply fold in the four corners before dropping them into the foil tins. This will help preserve the layers by keeping the fat from running out of the dough and also reduce the possibility of the buns bursting at the seams. No need to cut the buns before baking is using this method.
  • For Lardy Buns
    • Use a small (5 or 6cm diameter) round cutter to cut out the buns.
    • Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment.
  • Set the buns aside to rise for 30 minutes.
  • Heat the oven to 220°C, 200°C Fan.
  • Brush the risen buns with milk, then cut a criss-cross of diamonds into the top of the Lardy Buns and a single deep cut across the top of the Guildford Manchets. OK, here’s the thing. The original instructions for the Guildford Manchets, as reproduced by Mrs David, were to ‘dock through the centre only’ – the logic of which is understandable –  it both lets out steam during baking and exposes the wonderful layers beneath. But as may be observed from the photo, it does also mean that the end result is a bit  ‘Georgia O’Keef’. If you don’t see it, then I urge you to remain in blissful ignorance – it’s probably for the best. Because as we have learned before, baking can be a bawdy business at times. *coughs awkwardly* Moving on…
  • Bake the buns for 20 minutes, turning the trays around after 10 minutes to give an even colouring.
  • Cool on a wire rack.
  • Best served warm.
  • Store in an airtight container.

 

Easter Baking

17th century, 19th century

Two recipes for you this week, both of which are ancestors of recipes we still use today: a Good Friday Cake, and Easter Cakes. Both recipes come from manuscripts held by the National Library of Scotland.

Good Friday Cake recipe, from the manuscript of Dorothy Best, circa 1688, National Library of Scotland.

The Good Friday Cake is a yeasted saffron bun, lightly spiced and speckled with either currants or raisins. Links to our modern Hot Cross Buns are obvious. The use of saffron gives the cooked buns a wonderfully golden crust. The recipe doesn’t give an exact quantity of saffron, rather it suggest “two penny-worth”. In terms of translating this into a modern recipe, it’s probably better to go by the quantity of dough your working with to guide you.  I’ve scaled this recipe down to 1/14th scale, working with just 1lb/450g of flour. Consequently, I suggest just a pinch of saffron. Sidebar: in culinary terms, a pinch is usually the quantity of whatever you’re measuring that can be picked up using two fingers and your thumb. However, due to the strength/expense of saffron, the smaller finger-and-thumb pinch is all that is required here.

For the Easter Cakes, we revisit the eccentrically-spelled Bakery Book (my own nickname for it) dating from the early 19th century. Easter Cake recipes are still being made today, with modern variations including a range of spices and/or lemon zest. To avoid confusion, they are nowadays usually referred to as Easter Biscuits. As I’ve mentioned before, back in the day, the word ‘cake’ was used to refer to anything round and relatively flat in shape. I’ve read ‘cake’ recipes for sugar drops, lozenges, incense pellets, fruit drops, biscuits, buns, crackers, small cakes, large cakes and preserved herbs.

Easter Cakes recipe from an anonymous, hand-written commercial bakery book, dating from 1827, National Library of Scotland.

I’ve spent so much time reading handwritten manuscripts, and many laborious hours with this manuscript in particular, I can now read the above recipe at something resembling a ‘normal’ speed, but for anyone interested but deterred, I offer the following ‘translation’:

Easter Cakes for shops or for tables.
First, take 1½lb butter and 1½lb of coarse sugar rolled clear of lumps, and clean currants and finely sieved cinnamon, then rub that all fine into 4lb flour and then make a bay in the flour so and take ½oz volatile salts and dissolve it into a little milk and then pour that into it and enough milk for to wet that into a good stiff paste and roll that out into a thin thin sheets and cut them out round with tin cutters and crimp the edges of them all round so [diagram] and then put on very slightly-greased tins so far apart [diagram] and slightly wash the tops over with fine sieved loaf sugar and a little milk and bake in a sharp oven and stand on the tins until cold and keep dry and clean.

So! We meet again, Mr Volington Salts.

There are but a few tweaks of this recipe required in order to bring it into something usable by today’s standards.

  • Volatile salts (aka Baker’s Ammonia)  were used for aeration in the years before the invention of baking powder. During baking, the heat of the oven causes the ammonium carbonate/bicarbonate to decompose into ammonia, carbon dioxide, and water, providing both puff and crispness to baked goods, without any aftertaste. You can still buy it today (it is especially good for certain gingerbreads), although your kitchen should be well ventilated in order to disperse the ammonia properly. Substituting baking powder for the volatile salts is a straightforward swap.
  • We no longer need to smash out the lumps in our coarse sugar – Demerera sugar is an excellent substitute.
  • Cinnamon can easily be purchased finely ground and lump-free.
  • Hand crimping biscuits is no longer required and a fluted, round cutter will do the job in a fraction of the time.
  • Using parchment paper ensures your biscuits do not stick to the baking sheets and also reduces washing up afterwards.
  • Caster sugar can be used for the finely-sieved loaf sugar.

I hope you enjoy trying these two Easter resurrections from times past.

Good Friday Cake

Delicious sliced, toasted and spread with salted butter.

200ml milk
a pinch of saffron strands
1lb plain flour
50g unsalted butter
0.5 tsp ground cloves
0.5 tsp ground mace
100ml warm water
1 sachet fast-action yeast

35g raisins
35g currants

milk to glaze

  • Put the milk into a small pan with the saffron and bring to a simmer.
  • Remove from the heat, cover and allow to steep for 20 minutes.
  • Put the flour, butter, cloves, mace and yeast into a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
  • Pour the saffron mixture and the water into the bowl of a stand mixer.
  • Add the flour mixture and knead for 10 minutes.
  • Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1 hour.
  • Tip out the risen dough and divide in half.
  • Flatten the dough and sprinkle over the dried fruit – currants in one half, raisins in the other.
  • Shape into rounds and flatten slightly. Each bun will be about 15cm in diameter.
  • Cover lightly with a cloth and set to rise for about 30 minutes.
  • Heat the oven to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
  • Cut a deep cross into the centre of each bun. Be sure not to cut through the edges. My dough scraper is just about the perfect width for this.
  • Brush the tops with milk and bake for 30-40 minutes, turning the tray around after 25 minutes to help even the colour.
  • Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.

Easter Cakes

Makes about 35 biscuits.

I made these gluten-free with a mixture of gluten-free flour and xanthan gum. If you’re fine with gluten, just use regular plain flour.

225g gluten-free flour + ½ tsp xanthan gum
1 rounded tsp ground cinnamon
2 level tsp baking powder
85g unsalted butter
85g Demerera sugar
85g currants

milk to mix & glaze
caster sugar to sprinkle

  • Heat the oven to 180°C, 160°C Fan.
  • Put the flour, xanthan gum, cinnamon, baking powder and butter into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
  • Tip the mixture into a bowl and add the currants and sugar.
  • Moisten with milk and stir until the mixture comes together into a dough.
  • Knead briefly and turn out onto a floured surface.
  • Roll out thinly (5mm) and cut into biscuits using a crimped, 5cm diameter cutter.
  • Lay the biscuits onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
  • Brush the tops with milk and lightly sprinkle with caster sugar.
  • Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the edges are a light golden brown, turning the tins around after 10 minutes to help even the colour.
  • Cool on the tins for 10 minutes, then finish cooling on a wire rack.
  • Store in an airtight container.

Onion Soup

17th century, 18th century, 19th century, soup

There’s nothing quite like a hearty soup for filling and warming you up on a brisk winter’s day. I’m patriotic for British food and deep down I must confess being a little resentful of the popularity of French Onion Soup. Nothing against the French, but recently, I starting pondering why we don’t have a decent British Onion Soup? After all, onions have been part of our food landscape for over 1500 years, brought by the Romans, presumably because our native alliums did not, pardon the pun, cut the mustard.

So I leapt, gazelle-like, to my collection of handwritten manuscripts to see what was occurring back in the day, and found many an onion soup, if not alive and kicking, then robustly chopped and simmering for many a decade.

I have selected three such soups for your delectation today, each of them delicious (obvs), each of them different in subtle, surprising ways. In deference to modern eating habits, one is vegan, one is vegetarian and one is whipped up with an unashamedly meaty stock.

Feel free to serve your onion soup with whatever garnishes take your fancy: crusty bread, cheesy croutons, spring onions/chives, grated cheese…

Which ever you choose, I hope you’ll enjoy warming yourself up with some/all of them .

White Onion Soup, circa 1820

Gluten-free.

A Georgian White Onion Soup, circa 1820, MS7854, Wellcome Collection

This recipe caught my eye first and foremost because it is the first recipe in an anonymous, early 19thC manuscript. I like to imagine the author excitedly beginning a new recipe collection and what’s their first choice? Boom! White Onion Soup! I, not unreasonably, assumed this would be a banger of a recipe. I was also intrigued because of it’s title – specifying ‘white’ – unlike the majority of the onion soup recipes. It isn’t in reference to a specific type of onion, so I thought maybe it was for something cream or milk-based, thus resulting in a light-coloured soup. Turns out, it is quite the opposite, as the cooking liquid is made from two very meaty stocks of lamb and beef, and the onions are initially simmered with some lean ham/bacon. After much thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that ‘white’ refers to how the onions are treated, i.e. not browned or coloured. In each white onion soup recipe I found, the onions were either gently stewed in butter or initially parboiled in water. Cream was added at the end, as is recommended in this recipe, but having tasted this soup both before and after the addition of cream, my recommendation is to omit it altogether: the mix of meat broths give a light and delicate flavour that is as savoury as it is surprising, given its dark colouring. It is deliciously complex.

A bowl of onion soup, showing chopped onion in a dark meat broth
White Onion Soup with meat broth

For the stock
2 strong beef stock pots/cubes
2 lamb stock pots/cubes
1 blade of mace
3 whole cloves
1 tbs black peppercorns
2 litres water

800g brown onions
120g unsalted butter
½ gammon steak or  120g lean back bacon

salt and pepper
cream to taste (optional)

  • Put the ingredients for the stock into a large saucepan.
  • Bring gently to a boil, stirring until the stock pots have dissolved, then turn down the heat  and simmer, uncovered, for about an hour, or until reduced to 1.5 litres.
  • While the stock is simmering, peel and chop the onions finely.
  • Melt the butter in a pan and add the onions and gammon/bacon and toss to coat.
  • Cook the onions in the butter over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent. Stir to keep them from catching any colour.
  • When the stock is ready, strain out the solids and return the stock to the saucepan.
  • Remove the gammon from the pan, then add the softened onions and butter to the stock.
  • Simmer the soup for 10-15 minutes, then taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Since the stock pots are already quite heavily salted, you may not need anything further.
  • Chop the gammon/bacon finely and return to the soup if liked, or use it elsewhere (sandwich, salad, omelette, etc).
  • Serve hot, with cream if preferred.

Late Stuart Onion Soup, circa 1700

Vegetarian. Gluten-free.

Late Stuart Onion Soup, circa 1700, MS1811, Wellcome Collection

This onion soup is about a century older than the one above, and is the kind of recipe I love in that it gives several options when making it to tailor it to your own personal tastes. I do love multi-purpose recipes! This is a recipe where the onions are browned/caramelised, and you can feel free to decide how dark to take them, according to your personal preference. The recipe actually calls for them to be ‘blackish’, which I think is a bit far, but certainly they should be brown and maybe a little dark on the edges also.

I love the addition of the fresh herbs in the cooking liquid, adding a real savoury note to the soup. This recipe also suggests ways in which the soup can be enriched, either by the addition of milk or broth for the cooking liquid, but only either one or the other, never both together. Adding milk to hot liquids can be tricky, because it is prone to curdling if you take your eye off the pan for a second and the soup gets too hot. One solution would be to use double cream, as the additional fat content helps to prevent curdling, but this might prove too rich for some palates. I recommend using a small can of evaporated milk: its caramel notes being very complimentary to the browned onions, and also much less likely to curdle.

Creamy caramelised onion soup with fresh herbs

800g onions
1 level tsp salt
125g unsalted butter
1200ml cold water
3 sprigs fresh thyme + more to garnish
12 stalks fresh parsley + more to garnish
EITHER evaporated milk – 1 small tin (170ml) or to taste from a large tin (410ml) OR 500ml beef stock
black pepper to taste

  • Peel and slice the onions into semi-circles.
  • Melt the butter in a large pan, preferably non-stick
  • Add the onions and cook slowly over a medium-low (6 of 9) heat, stirring occasionally, until browned to your liking. This will take a while, probably 30 minutes or more. Sprinkling the onions with the salt will help draw out their moisture and speed up the browning process a little.
  • When the onions are browned to your liking, add the water, thyme and parsley.
  • Simmer with the herbs for 20-30 minutes. NB Fresh thyme can be quite potent, so check along the way how your soup is tasting – you might want to fish out the thyme stalks sooner rather than later.
  • Add your enrichment liquids – either evaporated milk or beef stock – and heat through.
  • Taste and adjust the seasoning to your palate.
  • Serve.

Martha Bradley’s Onion Soup with Vinegar, 1758

Vegan. Vegetarian. Dairy-free. Gluten-free*.

This onion soup recipe is the most surprising of the three. I have adjusted it slightly in order to make it vegan (oil for butter), but that’s not what is surprising.

No, the surprising part is the flavour: bold and hearty with a real punch of richness and then brightness brought by the vinegar. I looked up this rather unusual combination, and found several versions, some of which were entitled “Drunk Soup” and emphasized the restorative properties of such a soup when recovering from over-indulgence: the sweetness of the onions providing restorative energy to the body and the vinegar providing balance to the fat/richness.

Another unusual aspect is the use of another soup to give body to the onion soup. ‘Pease soup’ is made from dried peas, not fresh garden peas, and is usually simmered with a ham hock in the making to give a thick and hearty soup. Obviously that wouldn’t do if I was to keep this recipe vegan, so not having any dried peas to hand, I opted for a tin of lentil soup, reasoning that both peas and lentils are farinaceous in texture and also vegan. I figured I could switch things around later if the recipe showed promise. However, it made for such an extraordinary soup I had absolutely no notes, so the recipe neither needed nor got any further tweaks.

It is my favourite of all three soups and epitomises why old British recipes are worthy of perseverance: this recipe was just tucked away in a relatively unknown, mid-eighteenth century book and it turns out to be a classic.

Martha Bradley's Onion Soup with Vinegar, "The British Housewife" 1758
Martha Bradley’s Onion Soup with Vinegar, “The British Housewife” 1758

600g brown onions
2tbs vegetable oil
2 level tbs cornflour
salt and pepper to taste
1 x 400g tin Heinz Lentil Soup*(See note [1] below)
1-2tbs vinegar (your choice of type)

  • Peel and slice the onions either in half moons or vertically.
  • Add the vegetable oil to a large pan and tip in the onions.
  • Stir the onions over a medium-low heat (6 of 9) until softened and browned. Again, you can take the browning to whatever degree you like, but a mid-brown will take about 30 minutes.
  • Add the cornflour and stir in. Cook for a couple of minutes.
  • Open the tin of soup and pour into a bowl. Fill the tin with water and add it to the bowl. Use a stick blender to puree the mixture smooth, then pour the blended and diluted soup into the onion mixture.
  • Stir the soup/onion mixture. It will thicken quite quickly. Decide whether the soup is thick enough or too thick for your tastes. Add another soup-tin of water to dilute it, if liked.
  • Add vinegar of your choice. This can be any kind of vinegar: white, distilled, rice, sherry, malt, wine, cider, balsamic – whatever you have to hand. I would caution you to add a teaspoon at a time and stir it in thoroughly before tasting and adding more. A relatively mild white balsamic might require the full two tablespoons, but distilled vinegar merely a teaspoon or two.
  • Heat through and serve.

 

 

 

[1] Heinz Lentil Soup is vegan, even though it only says Vegetarian on the tin. It contains wheat flour (presumably for thickening purposes), making it not strictly gluten-free. I have developed some sensitivity to gluten, and yet I experienced no adverse effects, which leads me to assume it is only there in trace quantities. Not everyone is the same, so in order to keep this strictly gluten-free, I recommend making your own lentil/split-pea soup. My suggestion is for using yellow split peas due to their colour (a better match to the caramelised onions than green peas – although I could be wrong. Let me know!), dried black Carlin peas or even dried white beans/peas.

Irish Halloween Treats

19th century, 20th century, Bread, Cakes, Large Cakes, Small Cakes

There are several Halloween traditions around these isles, but arguably the strongest traditions abide in Ireland.

Several years ago, I discovered online a trove of fascinating Irish social history at the National Folklore Collection. This project is the digitisation of thousands of essays written by Irish schoolchildren and teachers from over 5000 primary schools in the Irish Free State, between the years 1937-1939. These social history essays contain information gleaned from parents and grandparents, and give a fascinating insight into hearth and home stretching back to famine times in the nineteenth century. This amazing resource is searchable on an abundance subjects, but of course the food essays are going to be my main interest.

If you’d like a deep-dive into just how much information is available to explore, my paper “The Boxty Paradox: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once” can be downloaded from the Books and Writing page. One thing that became aparrent during the research of that paper was just how bleak the food choices of so many families were. Consequently, the celebratory foods might seem to us rather plain. However, they can also demonstrate an appreciation for, if not the finer things in life, then life’s simple pleasures.

“Hallowe’en was a great night among the Irish people long ago and they looked forward to it for many weeks. All the boys and girls would gather together in one house and they would have great feasting & merrymaking.”

Collected by Annie Fallon from Mr John Harley, Farmhill, Co. Mayo1

The Halloween/November’s Night/Oidhche Shamhna foods most mentioned are barn brack/bairín breac – a ‘speckled loaf’ originally of caraway seeds, but more recently dried fruit – boxty, apples and nuts.

“In this locality the popular food at Halloween are apples, nuts, and boxty, also dumplings of many kinds.”

Collected by Mrs A. Montgomery from Mrs Kelly, Corr, Co. Cavan2

According to many accounts, the Halloween barn brack was saved up for and bought from a bakery. These cakes were baked containing a ring, and whoever got the piece of cake with the ring was supposed to get married within a year.

“Halloweve night falls on the last night of October. On that day my mother goes to town and she buys apples, nuts and a barn-brack. “

Collected by Jerard Jordan from Mrs Gara, Tivannagh, Co. Roscommon.3

Alternately, during hard times, a soda cake would be baked at home either on the griddle or inside a bastible (lidded pot). The most coveted cake was baked with sour cream, but apples and hazelnuts could also be added.

“apples are put in cakes for November night.”

Collected by Tommy Kelleher from Mrs Margaret Kelleher, Mullaghroe South, Co. Cork4

“The cream cake was a soda cake with plenty of cream in it and baked in the griddle.”

Collected by Beití Ní Dhomhnaill from Mrs Ashe, teacher, Dún Beag5

“On special occasions … a cream cake was made. Cream was mixed through the milk when mixing the dough. Currants, sugar and raisins were also put in the cream cake to make it rich and sweet.”

Collected by Seamus Daly, Kilclooney, Co. Waterford6

“On festive occasions a special cake was baked of such ingredients as flour, eggs, sour cream and a little sugar.”

Collected by Mary Jones from Mr M. Jones, Bruree, Co. Limerick7

“… cream cakes were made. These were made thin, but otherwise were made in the same way as ordinary soda cake.”

Collected by Michael Collins, Woodcock Hill, Co. Clare8

The recipes this week are two versions of soda cake mentioned in accounts in The Schools Collection: the cream cake and a fruit cake. According to the written accounts, the cream cake was considered the pinnacle of social delicacies, in numerous accounts warranting special mention. The fruit soda cake has more oblique mentions, but is absolutely symbolic of the foods enjoyed at Halloween. You can, of course, choose to add apples and nuts to the cream cake, if liked.

 Cream Cake

In the 19th century in Ireland, white flour was expensive, so if wheat flour was used at all, in most households it was wholemeal. I’ve opted for a less dense mixture of white and brown. Choose your own variation.

If you’d like to add apples and nuts to your cream cake, use the proportions in the recipe below, and reduce the sugar to 50g.

450g plain flour/wholemeal/brown/mixture
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
85g sugar – caster, light/dark brown – your choice
300ml sour cream
100ml milk

  • Prepare your baking tin(s). You can, of course, bake your soda cake freeform, but a tin is also fine. My tin of preference is a 24cm shallow square tin, but you can also choose smaller tins or indeed choose to bake them in a pan on the ob over medium-low heat. If using a tin, line with baking parchment.
  • Heat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan. If using the hob, put a non-stick pan over medium-low heat (4 on a 1-9 scale) and allow to heat thoroughly.
  • Put the flour(s), soda, salt, sugar and eggs into a food processor and blitz briefly until well combined.
  • Tip the mixture into a large bowl.
  • Mix the milk and cream together until smooth, then add to the dry ingredients bit by bit. NB You might not need all of the milk mixture, as it will depend on the amount of moisture already in the flour and eggs. You want a soft dough, so a little extra is fine, but not enough moisture will lead to a dense loaf too stiff to rise.
  • When your dough is fully combined, tip out onto a floured surface.
    • For soda farls to cook on the hob, divide the dough into two, and lightly shape each half into rounds. Gently pat down until 4cm in height. Using a dough scraper or similar, cut each round into six or eight triangles.
    • For a large loaf, shape into a round and transfer to your prepared tin. Cut a deep cross in the top to assist in even cooking. If you have any of the cream mixture left, you can brush it over the top of your loaf as a glaze.
  • To cook your cream cake(s)
    • For a large loaf, bake for 45-50 minutes, turning the oven half-way through to ensure even baking.
    • For cream farls, bake gently in your pan for around 10 minutes each side, turning carefully when the first side is toasted and lightly browned.
  • Cool briefy on a wire rack and serve warm with plenty of good butter.

Apple and Hazelnut Soda Cake

Apples and nuts were central to the feasting at Halloween and this sweet soda cake is rich with both kinds of autumnal bounty. Enjoy warm from the oven or toasted, with a generous spreading of good butter. I’ve chosen to use Bramley cooking apples, as they break down into fluff when cooked.

100g whole unblanched hazelnuts
450g plain flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
50g sugar – caster, granulated, Demerera, light/dark brown – your choice
2 Bramley Apples – or 500-600g of similar cooking/sharp apples
200ml plain yogurt
200ml whole milk

  • Prepare your baking tin. My tin of preference is a 24cm shallow square tin. Line with baking parchment.
  • Heat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
  • Put the hazelnuts onto a baking tin and bake for 10 minutes until lightly browned and toasty. You can remove the skins by rubbing the nuts in a clean cloth, but I prefer to leave them as is.
  • Put the flour, salt, sugar and soda into a bowl and whisk together.
  • Peel and core your apples, and chop into 2cm pieces. Add the chopped apple and nuts to your dry ingredients and mix.
  • Whisk together the yogurt and milk, then gradually add to the rest of the ingredients. I find it best to stir the liquid through with a round-ended knife, which is less rough than a larger utensil. You might not need all of the liquid as the apples will contribute to the moisture of the mix.
  • Tip out your dough and shape lightly into a round. Transfer the dough to your baking tin, and cut a deep cross in the top to facilitate even baking.
  • Bake for 50-60 minutes until risen and browned, turning the tin around after 30 minutes.
  • Cool briefly on a wire rack and enjoy warm or toasted with lots of good butter.

1 The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0096, Page 84
2The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0982, Page 233
3 The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0234, Page 307
4 The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0359, Page 144.
5 The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0626, Page 350.
6 The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0654, Page 447.
7The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0498, Page 131
8 The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0598, Page 249

Griddle Scones

19th century, 20th century, Bread, Small Cakes, Yeast

Following on from the Slapan last time, I have another bakestone recipe for you – Griddle Scones!

I love a scone. I willfully and shamelessly pronounce it ‘skon’ too – even though I know the etymology dictates that it should rightfully be pronounced ‘sk-ohhh-n’, because that brings images to mind of little finger outstretched and pretensions of grandeur, so I just prefer the short, humble sound of ‘skon’. Fight me.

Traditional scones are absolutely the easiest and best thing to whip up when presented with an Entertaining Emergencyâ„¢. You can be serving up a batch of fragrant and hot scones in about 30 minutes – and that includes 15 minutes of baking!

Griddle scones are not that kind of scone – the time required is closer to 3.5 hours, start to finish. “Why would I bother waiting around for all that time when I can have some oven scones in just 30 minutes?” I hear you ask. I’m afraid I have no quick response, but for the fact that if you were to make these, you would then have your answer.

So do you like eating soft, billowy clouds? Because making griddle scones is how you get to eat sweet, billowy, buttery clouds. The yeast dough is enriched with double-strength milk, butter, eggs and sugar, and therefore it requires much longer to prove – 2 hours in the first instance. So while it’s a relatively long time, it’s not a hands-on commitment. The second rise can be up to an hour, but I recommend starting cooking half the dough after about 40 minutes – mainly because if, like me, you don’t actually possess a griddle, but do possess a rather nice non-stick pan, you can cook the first half of the dough easily, with plenty of room for manoeuvering the scones when turning them over. I have tried cooking the whole dough all at once, and it was very tricksy – plus the scones expand upwards quite considerably during baking, which was also not helpful in a confined pan space.

If you’re a fan of muffins then, aside from the extended rising time, this method is pretty much the same, but with one subtle difference. The enrichments of butter, sugar and egg mean that the cooked dough remains incredibly soft. Even when browned, the outsides of these scones never approaches anything remotely close to crusty. The sides of the scones are particularly delicate, and as supple as skin. In enjoying them, we must be mindful of Hannah Glasse’s advice when referring to muffins, in that they must be split/pulled apart, for to use a knife on them when hot, is to squish down the cloud of dough to something claggy and leaden. The best approach I have found is to use a serrated knife to just break the skin of the scone on the sides, then use the tines of two forks to pull the scones apart. You don’t have to use forks, of course, you can just pull them apart – but I must be lacking a bit of skill there, because I always seem to end up with one pillowy side and one thin and somewhat meagre side, and thus reduce the overall eating experience by half.

Griddle scones go back to the 19th century, but this recipe is scaled down and adapted from an absolute classic of griddle/bakestone cookery, “Morning and Hot Plate Goods” by John Boyd (undated, but thought to be 1946-ish) – a veritable cornucopia of commercial recipes from the offices of The British Baker. He calls them fermented scones, but I’ve opted for the more easily understood Griddle Scones.

Griddle Scones

This recipe has the unusual ingredient of ‘double strength’ milk, which is water mixed with twice the usual quantity of milk powder. I use whole milk powder, because that’s what I have in the cupboard, but skimmed milk powder, which might be easier to find, would be fine as well.

145ml water
30g whole milk powder
scant ½ tsp salt
45g unsalted butter
45g caster sugar
1 large egg – beaten
260g plain flour
1 sachet fast action yeast

  • Put the water, milk powder, salt, butter and sugar in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until the butter melts and the sugar is dissolved. Cool to blood temperature, whisk in the egg, then pour into a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and stir until combined. The dough will be very soft and moist.
  • Cover the bowl with plastic, or a cloth, and set aside to rise for 2 hours.
  • Gently tip out the dough onto a floured surface and divide it into two (roughly 270g each). Shape each half into a circle, and pat down gently until it is 2-3cm thick.
  • Using a dough scraper or similar, cut each round into triangular farls. These can be as few as four or as many as eight.
    The sizes of scone you get whether cutting your round into (L->R) four, six or eight.

    I think six farls is probably the happy medium, unless you’re serving teeny scones for afternoon tea, in which case go with the eight.

  • Slide the farls apart from one another, so that they have room to rise, and cover lightly with a cloth.
  • Leave to rise for 30-40 minutes.
  • Put a non-stick pan on medium-low heat (4 on my hob) and allow it to heat through. This will take about 5 minutes. You want the pan to be evenly hot throughout, otherwise your scones will cook unevenly. No need to grease the pan.
  • Cook your first batch of scones. NB: As you move each scone into the pan TURN IT OVER and cook the top first. By cooking the rounded, risen ‘top’ first, and the already-flat bottom second, your scones will have a much neater shape. Not turning them over will make your finished scones rather misshapen. Still delicious, but not at their best to look at. Spread them out, avoiding the centre of the pan as it will be the hottest. Cook for 4-5 minutes until browned on the bottom, then carefully turn them over and cook until both sides are evenly coloured. Don’t worry if you turned them too early, you can flip them again once the second side is done.They will continue to rise with the heat of the pan, and will become almost wobbly, so try and turn them over in one fluid motion and then don’t touch them until they have cooked for a further four minutes. To check for done-ness, lightly rest a finger on the top of a scone and try to move it gently from side to side: if there’s no longer any wobble, the scone is cooked.  
  • Cool on a wire rack.
  • To serve: If not eating immediately, when time to serve, warm the scones in the oven. Use a serrated knife to break the ‘skin’ on the sides of each scone, then pull apart either by hand or by using the tines of two forks. Butter generously and enjoy.

Cookeels

18th century, 19th century, Bread, Yeast

I have a ‘lost’ recipe for you today – a spiced bun that has been known about, recorded and discussed for over 200 years, but for which there has been no recipe. Until now.

British Popular Customs, Present and Past; Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People: Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year
By Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer · 1876 p81

As luck would have it, I found not one but two recipes buried in the handwritten manuscripts held by The Wellcome Collection.

The earliest mention of Cookeels is found in Robert Forby’s The Vocabulary of East Anglia.

Cookeel: A sort of cross-bun, made and eaten in Norfolk during Lent. They are sold cheap and may be from Fr. Coquille.
The Vocabulary of East Anglia, Robert Forby, 1830, p76.

This definition is expanded upon throughout the nineteenth century as more and more academics weigh in with their opinion.

From “A glossary of words used in East Anglia, founded on that of Forby”, p46, Walter Rye, 1895, London
Notes and queries, Fifth Series, Volume Ninth, 1878, Jan-June, London. p87
Notes and queries, Fifth Series, Volume Ninth, 1878 Jan-June, London. p152

Something that became more and more apparent, is the somewhat lackadaisical approach to the spelling of these baked items. This is also true of the names of the two manuscript recipes, to whit Cookeals and Cock Ells:

MS7850, Anonymous manuscript circa 1745, Wellcome Collection

MS7834, Anonymous 19thC manuscript, Wellcome Collection

Confession time, I do like to get the the truth of the matter when it comes to recipe names and history. Love a great backstory, cannot be doing with made-up rubbish. So with all these different names, I decided to drill down and see if I couldn’t get to the bottom of it all (this phrase will come back to haunt me shortly).

I don’t think there’s much merit in the name deriving from the French ‘coquille’ (shell): there’s no hard crust, due to the butter, milk and eggs, and no mention of them being shell-shaped. Similarly, I think naming them after the cockfighting pits is also a bit of a stretch. The various accounts seeme to waver between Cockeel and Cookeel, and neither of the handwritten recipes offer any definitive help.

Playing around with the spelling, it turns out that Cockle bread is a thing:

“So far back as the time of Henry III., we find mention made of wassel bread, cockle bread and bread of treet corresponding with the three sorts of bread now in use, viz. white, wheaten and household bread.”

The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, p157, 1852.

Cocklety bread has also been recorded in playground chants:

“The term ” Cockelty ” is still heard among our children at play. One of them squats on its haunches with the hands joined beneath the thighs, and being lifted by a couple of others who have hold by the bowed arms, it is swung backwards and forwards and bumped on the ground or against the wall, while continuing the words, “This is the way we make cockelty bread.”- -Robinson’s Whitby Glossary, p. 40.”

“The traditional games of England, Scotland, and Ireland” 1894-1898, Alice Bertha Gomme, p75

Delighted with this quaint image, I pursued Cockle Bread further – and immediately regretted that decision.

“The traditional games of England, Scotland, and Ireland” 1894-1898, Alice Bertha Gomme, p74

And before I knew it, I was learning that as an extension of this ribaldry, sometimes dough was actually kneaded this way, and then baked and fed to the person whom the girl wished to enamour.

ANYHOO……..Spice buns!

Cookeels

Makes 16

These soft, pillowy buns were enjoyed throughout the season of Lent. Unlike the more famous Good Friday buns, they contained no fruit and neither were they marked with a cross. One of the above anecdotes mentioned allspice as a seasoning, but neither of the recipes do, so we’re going to stick to nutmeg. Usually mixed with several other spices, the fact that these buns have just a single spice adds to their appeal. The enrichment of the egg, milk and butter makes the dough exceedingly soft and the baked bun incredibly tender of crumb. Delicious warm from the oven and freshly buttered, you can also enjoy them toasted with butter and cheese.

150ml water
150ml milk
1 large egg
100g butter
100g caster sugar
pinch of salt
450g strong white flour
2tsp ground nutmeg
1 sachet fast-action yeast

1 large egg yolk
2-3tbs milk

  • Put the dry ingredients into a food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
  • Tip the mixture into a mixing bowl.
  • Zap the water in the microwave for 1 minute. This should heat it but without boiling.
  • Pour the milk into the hot water and stir. It should now be warm. Add the egg to the warm milk mixture and whisk thoroughly.
  • Pour the milk mixture into the other ingredients and mix until the dough comes together. It will be very soft – too soft to knead – but it will become manageable once risen.
  • Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place to rise for 1 hour.
  • Cover a large baking tray, or shallow oven shelf for preference, in baking parchment.
  • Once the dough has risen, dust your work surface well with flour.
  • Tip the dough out onto the flour and pat gently to deflate. Dust the surface with flour, then, with the help of a dough scraper, lift and fold the sides inwards and pat down. Continue the dusting and folding until the dough is firm enough to handle. The first time I made this, I put too much liquid in, but it only took three lots of folding to make it manageable.
  • Pat the dough into a square. it will be roughly 20cm, but if it’s larger, that’s fine.
  • Cut the dough into 16 pieces. The easiest way is to cut your square of dough into quarters, then cut each quarter into four.
  • For each piece, fold in the edges of the dough, flip it over and roll into a ball under your hand.
  • Set the shaped dough onto your prepared baking sheet. The dough will spread during rising/baking to the size of a teacake, so space them well apart (7-8cm).
  • When all the dough has been shaped, cover lightly and set aside to rise for 30 minutes.
  • Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan.
  • Whisk together the egg yolk and the milk and brush this glaze over your risen buns. You can use just milk if you prefer.
  • Bake your buns for 20 minutes, turning the baking tray/shelf around after 10 minutes to help with even colouring.
  • Remove from the oven and immediately cover with a clean cloth. This will trap the steam and ensure your buns are soft and pillowy when cooled.
  • Store in an airtight container when cold.

Carrot Bread

19th century, Bread, Yeast

Personal recipe books can be quite eclectic in the mix of recipes the owner chooses to include. Quite apart from the recipes they (or if you’re a wealthy noblewoman, your scribe) include, there can also be hurried notes scribbled down on scraps of paper or the backs of envelopes, letters and cards answering requests for recipes, as well as clippings from newspapers and magazines.

This recipe was found between the pages of Catherine Ashley’s household book, dated circa 1830 (MS.995, held by The Wellcome Collection). It had been clipped from The Record, a twice-weekly religious newspaper, in January, 1847. The author, The Rev. John Lowder, had experimented with using carrots to make bread after reading an article in The Gardeners’ Chronicle in December 1846. He wrote to the editor of The Record in the hope that by sharing his findings, his clergy brethren might find the results useful for their own poor and needy.

The article in The Gardeners’ Chronicle had detailed an open correspondence between The Right Hon. T.F.Kennedy, Paymaster General for the Irish Civil Service and Henry Labouchere, the then Secretary of State for Ireland in the government of Lord John Russell (1846-1852). In it, Kennedy suggested that experiments done in Austria on the supplementing of flour with beetroot to make bread might help with the (then early stages) of the potato disaster in Ireland. Growing beetroot on just one acre, he maintained, would produce a crop of £30 value, with a clear profit of £15 to the grower, and provide valuable supplementary nutrition  to the Irish poor, being of a much higher value than potatoes. Although noble, this idea falls at the first hurdle because the poor in Ireland were eating potatoes precisely because they did not have access to the flour needed for this scheme to work.

Parsnips were also used in experiments and were deemed excellent, but carrots were not, with the reason being given as carrots were “much less palatable.”

Enter the Rev. Lowder with his own efforts, whereby he succeeded in producing delicious carrot bread by cooking and pureeing the carrots first, whereas the original experiments had been done by grating the raw vegetables.

The recipe is simple: equal weights of (pureed, cooked) carrot and flour mixed together, and then continued with the usual bread-making method. I thought this almost too good to be true and put it to the test by adding only salt and yeast. The result is the loaf picture above. I added no water, bar the 2-3 tablespoons of carrot water needed to get the carrots pureed. In all honesty, it looked too moist in the initial mixing, but I had faith and decided to wait and see what the first rise made of it. The resulting dough after an hour was gloriously light and very lithe and needed only the briefest of shaping before putting it into a 20cm/8″ square tin. Another rise of 30 minutes was followed with a 40 minute bake. The loaf was cooled on a rack overnight before being sliced.

I appreciate that the use of white bread flour is probably of a finer quality than that employed by the good Reverend Lowder in his experimentation, but I made that call in order to give the recipe its best chance of success.

Shortly after this recipe was published (1848) Reverend Lowder moved half a world away, with his wife and five children, to China, after being appointed Chaplain of Shanghai. Heartrendingly, he would perish in a swimming tragedy shortly thereafter (September, 1849) at the age of just thirty-nine.

Carrot Bread sliced – plain (top) and toasted (bottom)

As can be seen in the photo above, the colour of the crumb is glorious. Given the vibrancy, it’s surprising that there isn’t more carrot flavour. The texture is soft, with a slight chew, similar to potato bread. When toasted, the colour changes very little – the darkening of the crust around the edges being the main indicator. There is a suspicion of roasted carrot in the flavour, and if you’re eating it with anything other than butter, you might miss it altogether. Overall, I’m really liking this new (to me) recipe – it will definitely be making a regular appearance in this household.

Carrot Bread

Since proportions of flour and carrot are the only specifications, although I’ve not tried it yet, I see no reason why carrots left over from a previous meal might not be successfully used in this recipe, adding plain water if necessary for a smooth puree. If the total of puree + flour is less than 700g, then only one sachet of yeast would be needed, and half the salt. Some accent spices could also be added, such as caraway or cumin seeds.

500g carrots, peeled and sliced
500g strong white flour
10g salt
2 sachets fast action yeast

  • Put the carrots into a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a simmer.
  • Cook until tender all the way through – between 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of the carrot pieces.
  • When cooked, strain (reserving the liquid) and puree in a liquidiser or using a stick blender. Add a little of the cooking water if the carrots aren’t blending easily.
  • When pureed and smooth, set aside for 10 minutes to cool slightly, in order to not adversely affect the yeast.
  • When just warm, put the carrots and the rest of the ingredients into a bowl and bring together as a dough. Knead either by hand or using a dough hook for 10 minutes.
  • Cover and allow to rise for 1 hour.
  • Tip out the risen dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently deflate.
  • Shape and add to your tin of choice. I used a 20cm/8 inch square tin lined with baking parchment. If you use a different shaped tin, you might have to adjust the cooking time accordingly.
  • Allow to rise for a further 30 minutes.
  • Heat the oven to 220°C/200°C Fan.
  • Just before putting your loaf in the oven, cut some slashes in the top crust to prevent it rising  unevenly during the initial ‘oven spring’. Bake for 35-40 minutes until well risen and with the crust firm. You might want to remove your loaf from the tin and return it to the oven to bake for another 5-10 minutes in order to really crisp up the crust.
  • Cool on a wire rack.
  • Slice when cold.

Ormskirk Gingerbread

19th century

If you’d asked me only a few years ago, of my opinion of gingerbread, I would have given an indifferent shrug in response: I didn’t dislike it, but I wasn’t a fervent fan either. Ginger biscuits and the gingerbread used for gingerbread men I thought dull. Ginger cake was fine, but it would never be a first choice. Since then, I have discovered so many old recipes that have range and depth and nuance that it’s turned my head completely. And here we have another to add to the collection.

Ormskirk Gingerbread has a lot going for it, and I’d even go so far as to say it is probably one of the best-tasting gingerbreads you’ve never heard of.

It has a speckled appearance, from mixing the dry ingredients with melted butter and treacle, which is enough to bind, but not drown. There is candied peel, traditionally lemon but sometimes others, and spices, usually ginger, but frequently, additional spices as well. A major attraction, for me at least, is the texture, falling between the softness of parkin and the crispness of a biscuit. As you, quite literally, sink your teeth into a piece, you experience a dense chewiness which, with the variety of flavourings, is immensely satisfying.

Ormskirk Gingerbread (1830s) is  one of the earliest geographically-linked gingerbreads I’ve found – predated only by Wrexham Gingerbread (1828). In the 1850s, a group of five local women paid £20 per year to the East Lancashire Railway company for the privilege of selling their gingerbread to travellers passing through Ormskirk station, which must have contributed to the spread of its popularity.

I have a selection of recipes for you to try, because in all honesty, I like them all. The method is the same for all of them, so I shall be listing the scaled-down ingredients alongside each recipe, then you can scroll down to the method and cooking instructions. All quantities are for a 20cm square tin.

Ormskirk Gingerbread recipe, (1822-1841), MS4998, Wellcome Collection

This recipe is from a handwritten manuscript held at the Wellcome Collection. It might actually be older than the recipe below, but there’s no way of telling for sure. Rather unhelpfully, there are no instructions for either making or baking, but it clearly contains all the classic ingredients and is a great introduction to this type of gingerbread:

225g plain flour
115g soft, light brown sugar
7g/1tbsp ground ginger
85g butter
115g treacle
20g candied lemon peel

From: The domestic receipt-book by Joseph Worrrall, 1832, p38.

This is the earliest printed recipe I found. Unfortunately, it contains an error – the sugar is missing. Aside from this, what I found interesting was the complete omission of what appears to be a major component of other recipes, the candied lemon peel.  In  addition, there is, proportionally, a lot of spice in relation to the quantity of flour, but it is an interesting variation. In the past, I have bought dried, chipped ginger, and ground it as needed, and the flavour is bright and vibrant and, curiously, with a touch of lemon. Similarly with allspice, whose flavour really evokes a blend of spices.

225g plain flour
60g butter
115g treacle
115g soft, light brown sugar
14g ground ginger
14g allspice

From The druggist’s hand-book of practical receipts, Thomas F. Branston, 1853, p80

This recipe echoes the medicinal uses many believed gingerbread possessed in the middle ages. I find it odd that it is Ormskirk Gingerbread that is specified in particular, instead of a generic gingerbread recipe. Jalap is the ground root of a Mexican plant of the Morning Glory family, and it was used in times past for its laxative effect.

225g plain flour
115g soft, light brown sugar
115g treacle
80g butter
30g candied lemon peel
2 tsp ground ginger
1½ tsp ground nutmeg

Peterson Magazine 1861-01: Vol 39 Iss 1, p93

This last recipe is a full-on, all the bells and whistles version. There’s no candied lemon peel – instead there’s candied orange and candied citron and, aside from the ginger, no other spices. There’s a higher than usual farinaceous component, with the addition of some oatmeal flour (which you can make yourself by putting rolled oats into a blender/spice mill). Finally, there’s the instruction to mix it a full day before you want to bake it. Many old gingerbread recipes have this added time requirement, because they’d also use alum and potash as raising agents, and these worked slowly, so a mix for gingerbread could be sitting in a tub for days if not weeks. There’s no raising agent included in this recipe, so I was curious whether there would be any difference to the other batches. Verdict: There was, and the resulting gingerbread was definitely veering towards cakey, although this might have been due to the added oatmeal – if that’s your preferred texture, have at it. The next time I make this I probably wouldn’t wait the 24 hours, but that’s just me being impatient.

225g plain flour
115g butter
60g sifted oatmeal flour
80g soft, light brown sugar
115g treacle
15g candied orange peel
15g candied citron peel
7g ground ginger

As I said at the top, all these recipes are delicious.

Ormskirk Gingerbread

Another reason to choose to make this gingerbread is that it can be made gluten-free, using gluten-free flour (I used Doves Farm) and gluten-free oats (Morrisons have the nicest looking GF oats – they’re like steel-rolled ones!).

It can also be made vegan, if you swap out the butter for either coconut oil or some other fat that is solid at room temperature.

Finally, there’s two slight variations in method, and it relates to how you handle the butter. The traditional method for gingerbread is to melt it in the treacle and then pour the mixture into the dry ingredients to mix. The other method is to blitz it with the dry ingredients in a food processor (or rub it in by hand). It doesn’t matter which method you choose, as the result is the same.

  • Choose your ingredients from one of the four recipes above.
  • Line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment.
  • Heat the oven to 160°C, 140°C Fan.
  • Mix your spices, sugar and flour(s).
  • If you’re blitzing the butter with the dried ingredients, add it now.
  • Blitz the mixture to resemble breadcrumbs.
  • Slice the candied peel thinly and then cut into 1cm pieces. Mix the peel into the dry ingredients, making sure the pieces don’t stick together.
  • Pour your treacle into a pan to warm. I use a large frying pan, as I prefer to add everything to the treacle, as opposed to pouring the treacle into the dry ingredients. Add the butter if you’ve not added it to the flour. You’re not trying to boil it, just warm it up enough that it moves freely and the butter (if using) is melted.
  • When the butter has melted and the treacle warmed, pour  the warm liquid into the dry ingredients and mix in. It doesn’t have to be evenly coloured.
  • Tip the mixture into your prepared pan and level out. I like to leave it rather roughly textured. Don’t press the mixture down hard, just even it out.
  • Bake for 40 minutes, turning the tin around after 20 minutes to ensure even baking.
  • Remove from the oven and , leaving the gingerbread in the tin, divide it into pieces. You can cut it into any shape you please – easiest with a square tin is 16 pieces (4 x 4 grid).
  • Set the pan aside to cool completely.
  • When the gingerbread is cold, store in an airtight container.