Cornish Saffron Cake

Saffron is an ingredient imbued with an air of exoticism, sensuality and beauty. Its musty perfume and concentrated potency both awaken the senses and astonish - how can such a tiny amount of what looks so meaningless release such colour and scent? The labour intensity of harvesting saffron (each stigma removed by hand, 4,300 flowers to be visited to form an ounce of weight), and thereby the cost of the end product, have also added to its status. Stories of Phoenician sailors landing on the rugged Cornish coast to barter with saffron in exchange for tin, have increased its romantic image.

That all said, saffron is a spice not to everyone's taste. For all those that wax lyrical over it, there are also those that consider it a tad overrated. Of course those less impressed may not have sampled the true flavour of saffron. Because of its cost synthetic substitutes or ground turmeric powder are sometimes used in its stead. In the index of Elizabeth David's 'English Bread and Yeast Cookery' is the item 'Saffron, travesties of'. Turn to the page in question and you will be warned to beware 'false, shameful saffron cakes'; these will be made without saffron, only colouring, too much vanilla and sugar sweetening and are sponge cakes, rather than yeasted breads.' Ms. David goes on to give several recipes for genuine saffron cakes - a recipe originating from Devon; a traditional cake from Cornwall; and also recipes from the 17th and 18th centuries which were baked more widely across the country. Not a hint of an E-number or a whiff of shame to be found in these recipes.

Saffron was originally favoured for the lovely bright yellow colour that it imparted to food. It was used liberally by chefs to wealthy mediaeval households for just this effect. Saffron was imported, but some areas of England were able to cultivate it. The cost of 'local' saffron was little less than imported saffron because of the labour involved in producing it. Cambridgeshire and Essex had saffron farms (so too Stratton in Cornwall according to Linda Collister in 'The Bread Book' and Jane Grigson in "English Food' - although I could find no further information on Cornish grown saffron). Saffron Walden in Essex is named for the local trade, although the saffron grown here was principally used for dyeing wool for weaving. The cultivation of saffron in England had all but died out by the 18th century. Despite its growth on the East side of the country it was only in Devon and Cornwall that saffron became associated with a regional food, and both districts developed their own form of fruit bread flavoured with the spice.

Now, at this stage I have to confess that part of the reason that it has been such a long while since I last posted, is that I had
to have two goes at turning out a decent saffron cake. Try number one used the Cornish Saffron Cake recipe from David's 'English Bread etc.', and frankly my loaf turned out to have all the appeal of a house brick. It was edible, but very disappointing. The rise I achieved with the dough was really minimal, despite my incredible patience with it. Patience sorely tried my loaf (after a taste) went binwards. The saffron I used was clearly past its prime, and the loaf was a muted yellow, rather than a proper sun-has-got-his-hat-on golden. I blame myself for the outcome, but, what to do? Browsing through a recipe book at work I found the answer. In Linda Collister's 'Country Breads' book is a recipe entitled 'Daniel's Cornish saffron bread'. I turned to the page expecting to find that Daniel is a Cornish master baker of many years standing. Nope. Daniel is Linda's six year old son, and he bakes a saffron cake each Sunday for tea. Now was the time to swallow my pride (and hopefully a tastier slice of cake), and admit that if a six year old could successfully turn out a saffron cake using this recipe, then there was HOPE FOR ME YET!

I bought myself some fresh saffron, and failing again to find fresh yeast, bought myself a new tin of dried yeast. Unfortunately my mum wasn't around to weigh out my ingredients, nor to negotiate the hot oven, but I thought I might manage this for myself.

Cornish Saffron Bread (so easy even a 33 year old grown-up can make it)

Half a teaspoon of saffron strands
300ml hot milk
500g unbleached white bread flour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
150g unsalted butter, diced
50g light muscovado sugar
15g fresh yeast/7g dried yeast
100g mixed fruit

Makes one medium sized loaf

1. Pop the saffron into the hot milk and give it a stir. You will start to see the colour leach from the strands. Glorious. Leave to infuse overnight.


2. Grease a suitable sized loaf tin.
3. Put the flour and the salt into a large mixing bowl. Add the butter, and rub in with fingertips until you get the appearance of fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar until well combined.
4. Reheat the milk to just below blood temperature. With the dried yeast I used I had to use this liquid to get the granules active, and the same applies to fresh yeast. Some dried yeast you can add directly to the flour, so check on the packaging.
5. Make a well in the middle of your flour and pour in the milk and yeast mixture (unless you have added the yeast to the flour - see above).
6. Fun bit. Using your hand work the liquid into the flour to form a dough, and then turn out onto a work surface and knead for 10 minutes. A great early morning workout.
7. Add the dried fruit to the dough (best done in stages) and knead for another minute until well combined.
8. Pop the dough into the greased tin. Put the tin into a large plastic bag (make good use of a nasty supermarket carrier) allowing space for rising, and tuck the opening of the bag under the tin to seal it. Leave the dough to rise to the top of the tin - this will take 1 - 3 hours depending on the kitchen temperature. My dough was ready to bake in 2 hours.


9. Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Bake your loaf for about an hour. The top will be a golden-brown, and the base of the loaf should sound hollow when tapped. Leave to cool on a wire rack.


And I am pleased to say that this go at saffron cake making had a happy ending. The dough swelled beautifully, the loaf was a beautiful shade of sunshine, and the crumb was soft and succulent (like a brioche). The saffron flavouring (and scent) was unhindered by the addition of other spices. So, thank you Daniel. You are my new baking mentor.

Scones, Cream and Jam - a West Country cream tea

The important question of the day is - do you put cream on first and then jam on top; or do you smother your freshly baked scone with zesty fruit preserve and then top with lashings and lashings of thick, thick cream? If you like cream on top then this means that you follow the Cornish method of anointing your scone; and if you put jam uppermost then you are Devonian in your tastes. The folk of Devon and Cornwall both believe their way of dressing scones is correct and best. I feel a taste test coming on.

Scones in the Devonian manner - cream then jam.

Cornish scones - jam then cream.

Scones - a fundamental part of a West Country cream tea. Cream teas - a fundamental part of English fine food and culinary culture. Who can imagine a finer way to spend a lazy afternoon in the English countryside, than with a jam spoon in one hand, and a smooch of cream on your lips...

I have previously looked at the history of the scone, and found it to be of Scottish origin. Traditionally cooked upon a gridle or griddle over a open fire. When enclosed ovens and chemical raising agents were introduced in the 19th century, a new generation of scones was born. The Scots baked these new aerated scones and served them as part of their afternoon and high teas. However, other parts of Britain were not slow to also get baking these new-style scones, and in the West of England they were consumed with local products such as clotted cream and fruit preserves. In Cornwall black treacle is also a favoured topping - served along with clotted cream the combination is known as 'Thunder and Lightning'.

Thunder and Lightning - cream with black treacle.

Scones are a favourite food of mine, but I confess it is a good few years since I have made a batch. I can see that good scone baking is a skill that may come with practice, but every scone-mistress or master has had to start somewhere. To give myself an advantage I am following a recipe from Linda Collister's 'The Baking Book'. In the introduction to her scone recipe she writes, '...over the last 20 years I've tried every recipe I've come across [Now, that's dedication] - ones using soured milk or buttermilk; risen with various combinations of bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar, or baking powder; made with cream, or with golden syrup, with or without eggs.' Twenty years of practice must result in a damn fine recipe? Linda uses self-raising flour (so as to avoid a chemical aftertaste), a pinch of salt, golden caster sugar, butter, an egg and a little milk. Her recipe suggests that you make the dough up in a food processor as this brings the dough together quickly, with the miminum of handling.

230g self-raising flour
a pinch of salt
40g golden caster sugar
40g unsalted butter, diced
1 egg, made up to 140ml with milk

Makes 8 scones when using a 6cm fluted cutter
(might appear to be a modest quantity, but when split and topped with cream and jam this will seem like a feast)

1. Preheat oven to 220C/425F/gas 7.
2. Sift flour and salt into a bowl, then tip into food processor.
3. Add the sugar to the food processor and blend briefly to mix the sugar into the flour.
4. Add the diced butter and pulse until the mixture is lump-free and has the look of sand.
5. Mix the egg and milk together, and then pour into the food processor whilst it is running. You need to keep an eye on the mixture, for as soon as it comes together into a soft ball of dough you need to stop the machine. If dough looks too dry add a little more milk.
6. Remove dough and turn onto floured surface. If the dough is sticky work in a little flour (gently does it). Otherwise, knead the dough carefully - just enough to bring it together into a neater ball, and then pat out on your work surface (use your hands). You need to only press the dough to a depth of about 2cm. Use your cutter to cut out circles of dough. Use the trimmings left to form a second ball of dough, pat out again and then cut more circles.
7. Arrange the circles of dough on a prepared baking tray and pop straight into the oven. Keep an eye on them. The scones should take 12-15 minutes, or should be extracted when they have gone golden brown on top. Put onto wire cooling rack as soon as they leave the oven. Cover with clean tea towel to help keep moistness in.

Scones baked and cooled, I headed out to the garden to conduct some scone sampling.
I present the naked scone...


The scones were very light, almost of melt in the mouth crumbliness. This did prove to be a perfect backdrop to the more substantial weight of the cream, and to the more assertive flavour of the jam. I don't think that they were THE ultimate scones, but they were very good (they could have been a little moister I think). As to whether the Devonian or Cornish order of topping was the best, I will have to sit on the fence and say they both work very nicely. However, the black treacle and cream was not for me. You would have to be a real fan of the flavour of treacle to like this as it has such a strong taste.

Which would you choose?...

Gratuitous clotted cream image - one million calories a look.

A Meme of Fives...

Brazilian Linda kindly nominated me to take part in the latest circulating Meme.

Here goes:

Five Things in my Freezer

We only have a small icebox at the top of our fridge, but it is amazing how much you can cram into it. Amongst those items lurking/imbedded in the ice are:

1. Blackberries picked last summer from along the banks of the Thames.
2. Unmarked containers of homemade soups.
3. Edamame.
4. Bits of chicken useful for soup making.
5. Chopped up brown banana - perfect for putting into cakes.

Five Things in my Closet

1. More shoes than I can wear in my lifetime. Necessary all the same.
2. A portfolio containing the art work I did at University.
3. More scarves than I can wear in my lifetime. These can make great photographic backgrounds, and therefore are also very necessary.
4. My wedding dress, carefully folded into a storage box.
5. Spare duvets etc. crammed into black bin bags.

Five Things in my Car

We don't own a car, and I get to work each day by bicycle. A peak in the panniers reveals:

1. Sun glasses. Crucial to forget these on sunny days, and find it turn grey and wet on days when I am wearing them.
2. Spare carrier bags for wrapping things in when it rains.
3. Bungee clip for attaching objects to my bike. Generally this doesn't work, but I have brought flowers home using it.
4. Puncture repair kit.
5. And on my return home from work each day, my panniers are packed to the rafters with food for the evening meal. Wine bottles at the bottom and squashable fruit at the top.

Five Things in my Purse

1. Money-off vouchers way past their expiry date.
2. A photo of my husband (to frighten off any would-be purse thief?)
3. Business cards for my blog.
4. Lots of plastic - in the form of store loyalty cards, library membership etc., rather than access to fabulous amounts of credit.
5. Many, many old reciepts.

I would like to follow on and tag the following bloggers - the first four ladies I came into contact with through the Euro-Blogging by Mail events, and Pille I met in person at the last UK food bloggers get together. I love the fact that all these sites and individuals represent different countries or different cultures. Plus, you 'meet' the nicest people blogging...

Check out their sites:

Eva at The Golden Shrimp
Fanny at Food Beam
Nicky at Delicious Days
Dagmar at A Cat in the Kitchen
Pille at Nami-Nami

Bakewell Pudding/Tart, Derbyshire

Andrew at SpittoonExtra recently posted a rallying cry to all bloggers to go out a bake a Bakewell Pudding/Tart. This in reponse to a recent article in The Grocer magazine and The Independent newspaper that suggests that the dish is falling out of favour. Mr. Kipling's exceedingly sweet and sickly rendition of the same item has seen a 31 per cent decrease in sales over the last year, that would be nice to put down to keen bakers making their own at home, but apparently the drop in popularity reflects the unhealthy ingredients and the fact we are all so damn health conscious. Hmmm. The presence of sugar, butter and eggs doesn't seem to effect the popularity of cakes generally, so I am not sure about this argument. Perhaps the Bakewell Pudding/Tart is seen as a old-fashioned food, and is simply passing out of fashion. Either way, it would be a great shame for a famed regional dish to simply fade away (I will weep no tear for Mr. Kipling however), and therefore I am firmly behind Andrew's suggestion that as many people as possible make and post a Bakewell Pudding/Tart before the end of the month.

But before I weary my fingers and your patience, I should briefly touch on the duality of the name. It is a tart or is it a pudding? The original dish was known as a Bakewell Pudding. The earliest recorded recipe, by Eliza Acton in 1845, indicates a pastry-less sweet; a dish lined with fruit preserves and topped with egg yolks beaten with sugar and butter, into which a small amount of almond flavouring was added (no ground almonds). As for the stories that attribute the origination of the dish to a clumsy cook at a Derbyshire Inn, who muddled up the making of a strawberry tart by putting the fruit mix straight onto the pastry base of a tart, rather than on the top of the butter, egg and sugar 'filling', I am pretty sure that there is no hard proof that this is the fact. Similar dishes to Bakewell Pudding were in existence for several centuries before Ms. Acton penned her recipe, many were variations on the Transparent Pudding. The Transparent Pudding recipes I could find on the internet all come from late 19th century American cookbooks, so the idea obviously travelled across the Atlantic via a pastry loving cook. Somewhere in Kentucky is a bakery that still makes them for sale. Maybe they are much more widely available than this? - do let me know.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the Bakewell Pudding came to have a pastry base. Mrs Beeton in 1861 gives a recipe for one with a puff-pastry base. I can see that from then on the Bakewell Pudding could be legitimately be referred to as a tart, for it was baked within a pastry case. Recipes nowadays use either puff or shortcrust pastry, and the title is either for a Pudding or a Tart. In this instance I really don't think it matters too much. The orignal pudding has become a tart, so to my mind either name is valid.

At least two Bakewell-based bakers boast that they recreate the 'original' pudding/tart recipe, and even they can't agree on which name to go by. In Bakewell town there is both a Bakewell Pudding Shop, and aBakewell Tart Shop. If you go to the website of the Bakewell Pudding Shop, you can enter a competition to win one of their renditions of the pudding. Go on, it's worth a shot.

My recipe comes from one of my regular sources, Jane Grigson's 'English Food'. Her recipe is for a Bakewell Pudding, and she mentions that local to Bakewell it is always a pudding and never a tart. Her instructions are for one large pudding, but as I wanted to bake small puddings I have tweaked them a little.

Rich sweet shortcrust pastry (I made enough to line a 12 hole tart tin)
Raspberry/strawberry jam (decent stuff please - I bought raspberry jam but then couldn't get the blooming lid off it, so used strawberry instead)
65g unsalted butter
2 eggs
65g caster sugar
65g ground almonds

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas 4.
2. Roll out the pastry, press out circles of suitable size and use to line your tin.
3. Melt the butter and leave to cool.
4. Pop a little jam into the base of each pudding. Don't go mad, but put in enough to cover the base comfortably.
5. Beat the eggs and sugar until they are pale in colour and of a good thick cream consistency.
6. Add the butter and stir in, then fold in the almonds. Spoon mixture onto the jam layer - again don't go too mad or you'll end up with a big Bakewell mess when they cook.
7. My little tarts took approx. 15-20 minutes to cook. I whipped them out as soon as they reached a good colour.


I was rather pleased with my little puddings. They were extremely light and easy to consume. The egg, sugar and almond topping formed quite a thin layer, and I didn't really notice a strong almond flavour. I think that the ground almonds served to bind the mixture as much as anything. I would certainly make these again, and I will have to now that they are all polished off. Thanks Andrew, for your inspiring idea.

P.S. For any keen and inventive icecream makers out there, you may be interested to know that I came across a site for the Bakewell Ice Cream Parlour (opening summer of 2006), which will be selling Bakewell Pudding icecream. A good idea?...

Girdle Scones (Scones Part 2)

So, back to Scotland and my quest to bake the evolutionary forefathers of what we now know as the scone. For my previous posting I baked an oatmeal bannock - bannocks being the great-grandaddy of the scone. To recap: a bannock was originally a loaf of unleavened bread, circular in shape, and baked on the girdle. The name is now applied to all manner of girdle-baked doughs (sweetened, unsweetened, leavened or unleavened), and can refer to a large plate-sized scone. The original of the oatmeal bannock recipe that I used would have produced an unleavened bread. The 'modern' version of the recipe included bicarbonate of soda, although I found that the lift this gave the dough was very limited. Elizabeth David in 'English Bread and Yeast Cookery', comments that the chemical raising agents available to the home-baker from the second half of the 19th century, were first used to introduce some lightness into 'biscuits, girdle scones, oatcakes, and other bakestone products that had previously been made without an aerating agent'. The bannock I cooked was akin to a large doughy oatcake, with a pretty stodgy consistency; and so I wanted to find a recipe that would step closer to producing the type of light scone that goes down so nicely with toppings of cream and jam (particularly in the south-west of England).

I returned to F. Marian McNeill's book 'The Scots Kitchen', and selected a recipe entitled 'White Girdle Scones, or Soda Scones'. The 'white' refers to the fact that these scones are made with wheat flour, rather than oatmeal or barleymeal (these along with rye are Scotland's traditional grains); the secondary title reveals that the scones are leavened in the same way as soda bread is - with baking soda and cream of tartar. They are, naturally, cooked on a metal hot-plate, rather than oven-baked.

450g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt
Buttermilk to mix to a dough (I used up a 284ml carton, and had to top up with milk)

1. Preheat your girdle (no need to grease).
2. Sieve flour, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar and salt into a bowl.
3. Add the buttermilk and gently mix in to form a very soft dough.
4. Divide dough into four. Take each piece and shape into a circle and then press gently with your hand to flatten to approx. 1/2inch depth (I started off with a rolling pin, but found it easier to work without it). Cut each circle into four quarters.


5. Pop each quarter onto the girdle. Leave to cook until the dough has swollen and risen slightly, and the base of the scone is light brown (about five minutes). Flip and cook other side. The insides should be cooked when the edges of the scone are dry (if your girdle is too hot the outsides will scorch and the inside will remind doughy - this MAY have happened to one or two of mine, but I will never admit it).


Although some of my quartered scones looked a little abstract post-girdling (if that isn't a verb, then it damn well should be), I was pleased with the general appearance of them. I was careful to not overwork the dough by handling it too much or too roughly, and the last scones on the girdle looked as well as those that hit the plate first. Hopefully this bodes well for my next round of scone baking...

What to top my girdle scones with for sampling purposes? Well, I happened to have a jar of Norwegian blueberry jam, given to me by a friend whose sister lives there. Blueberries are the cultivated form of the bilberry or blaeberry that grows wild in Scotland and the north of England. McNeil gives a recipe for blaeberry jam. It seemed an appropriate choice therefore for my scone topping (along with a lick of butter). The scones had a moist bread-like consistency, with a neutral flavour that made them an excellent back-drop to butter and jam (or even butter alone). I also found that they made a reasonable bread roll substitute to accompany our lunch-time soup. A scone for all purposes, and wrapped in a tea-towel they stayed moist all day, eating well even when cold.

This recipe pushed closer to producing the type scone served in such quantity in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset, although the method and ingredients are sufficiently different to ensure that these girdle scones have quite different character. The similarity between these girdle scones and the West Country scones is that they cook to a light, moist dough/crumb. Those 19th century chemists can, I think, take some thanks for their role in the development of the old style unleavened bannock into such good things as these.

My next scone journey will see me descend from the hob to the oven. I am stock-piling clotted cream in anticipation.


I would like to sign off this post by saying hello to all the bloggers (and a couple of partners) that I met yesterday at Johanna and Jeanne's blog party (a joint second birthday). It was great to meet everyone, and I look forward to checking out those sites that are new to me. For those not in attendance, we ate magnificently (inventive canapes, climaxing with a chocolate fountain), and drunk copious amounts of sparkling wine. I didn't take my camera because I knew that the event would be well documented (a gathering of bloggers - how could it not be so!). The weather and setting were fantastic, and Johanna and Jeanne were the perfect hostesses - helped by Carolyn, Johanna's daughter. Thank you ladies!

Oatmeal Bannock (Scones Part 1)

During the course of researching the background to Scotch pancakes, I was surprised to learn that scones are of Scottish invention. I had always assumed that they originated in the South-West of England, hence the popularity of Cornish and Devonshire cream teas, where freshly baked scones are served with lashings of locally produced clotted cream and home-made jams. I was wrong.

In Scotland the girdle has been an essential piece of cooking equipment right through to the late 20th century at least. When English supermarket chains extended into Scotland, they were forced to install girdles in-store so as to be able to provide the Scots with familiar and favoured products (Mason & Brown). This reliance on the girdle, particularly in rural areas, meant that very particular types of food developed north of the border. Breads, for example, were baked on the girdle rather than baked in the oven; the girdle also produced pancakes, oatcakes, thin crumpets, potato and oatmeal scones. The girdle-cooked breads were unleavened, circular in form, and the size of a dinner plate. These loaves were made from barley flour or oatmeal, and were known as bannocks. Over time bannocks began to be made with wheat flour, yeast and were enriched with butter and dried fruit - i.e. the Selkirk Bannock. In present times the name bannock is applied more generally to any baked item of a similar size and shape to the original bannock loaf, and can also be used as a term for a large circular scone which is scored into sections.

So, a bannock can also be a scone. What is a scone? Well, a scone is made from baked dough and a food of many guises - the dough can be sweetened or left plain; the baking can be done on the girdle, or in the oven; the dough can be leavened or chemically raised, or left alone; may be made from various flour types, or have potatoes as a base; oven-baked scones tend to be made of rolled dough, cut into smaller pieces (round or square), whereas girdle-caked scones tend to be left as a large disc. Recipes for scones therefore are very various!

I want to return to oven-baked scones in a future post (and will journey southwards to do so). For this posting I want to girdle-cook an early crossover between what was eaten in Scotland as a bread, and what became more familiar as a scone. For my recipe I used F. Marian McNeil's book 'The Scots Kitchen'. Her recipes for girdle-baked scones, bannocks and pancakes are highly praised in Elizabeth David's 'English Bread and Yeast Cookery'. David advises the baker to make use of McNeil's recipes; she says, 'Her oatcakes and scones have nothing of the tea shop and the tourist board about them. They are the real thing'. Well, Mrs D.'s is a voice to be listened to, so off to the bookshelf I went. McNeill's book is seen as the seminal work on traditional Scottish foods. It was compiled in the 1920s, and is clearly written by an experienced cook. Exact quantities are not always given, and cooking instructions are not of Delia et. al. clarity. McNeill clearly writes for the practised cook, and the baker who has a good feel for the materials she or he is working with. Intimidated, moi?

Scotland had as its staple cereal crops, barley firstly, and then oats. Wheat was difficult to grow and so wheat flour was historically used much less frequently that barleymeal or oatmeal (meal is a less finely ground product than flour). Obviously today wheat flour is widely available in Scotland, but it is still an imported product, and to get a more authentic flavour to your Scottish baking one should really use barley or oats. As barleymeal is hard to come by, I bought some fine oatmeal and used this in McNeil's recipe for Bere or Barley Bannocks, replacing the beremeal/barley with the oat equivalent. She gives two methods, one 'old' and one 'modern'. The old method has no rising agent, uses butter and sweet milk rather than buttermilk. The modern method has no fat added, uses bicarbonate of soda and buttermilk. It is this presence of a chemical rising agent is that makes the recipe a step toward that of the scone. I halved the quantities of ingredients suggested by McNeill.

225g fine oatmeal
55g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 pint of buttermilk (in the recipe this measurement was given in teacupfuls, but this volume seemed to give a good consistency to the mixture)

1. Preheat your girdle. It is hot enough to cook on when flour sprinkled on it takes a few seconds to brown.
2. Put the oatmeal, flour and salt into a large bowl and mix well.
3. Put the buttermilk into a small bowl, add the teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and mix briskly. McNeill writes that it will fizz up, but mine didn't.
4. Add the buttermilk mixture to the dry ingredients and bring together into a soft dough. Be careful not to overwork the mixture. The key thing is to work quickly as the bicarbonate of soda will be kicked into action by the buttermilk.
5. Roll mixture out on a lightly floured surface, to a depth of about 1/2 inch. Cut into a round (cut around a suitable size plate).
6. Dust girdle with a small amount of flour and put on the round of dough to cook. Turn the bannock over when the underside starts to brown.


I wasn't sure what to expect from the appearance of my bannock. It only swelled the smallest of amounts during cooking. I wasn't sure whether it should rise more or not, bannocks were originally unleavened breads after all; but I did think that the point of using the bicarbonate of soda was to get a rise, even if this were only very slight. Maybe I needed a bit more bicarbonate of soda; or maybe the oatmeal is too sturdy to get much rise from? (Update - I have since learnt that oatmeal has a very low gluten content so will never make a dough with 'lift'. Flat bread/scones are what you get!)

In the end I decided that my oatmeal bannock was not far removed from a giant oatcake. The oatcake recipe that McNeil gives a few pages after her instructions for bannock, comprises of oatmeal, a pinch of salt and a pinch of bicarbonate of soda, mixed with a bit of fat and hot water. The oatcakes are rolled out thinly and then cooked on the girdle. The bannock is moister and softer than these oatcakes would be, but is closer in substance to them than the savoury scone I had imagined it would appear to resemble. It was very dense and a little chewy. I avoided drinking too much water after sampling in case my stomach swelled like a haggis.


Flavour-wise the bannock was fairly bland. I do like oats, so for me this wasn't a problem, but I did find that a slice was best consumed with a lick of butter and a drizzle of honey (making up for the lack of fat and sugar in the recipe perhaps). It would be a good base to a fried feast of bacon, mushrooms, eggs, tomatoes etc., as the sturdiness and blandness of the bannock would soak up the oil and the flavours. This bannock is definitely a food for sending Scots soldiers on long marches, or to give a hill farmer sturdy legs during long days on the mountains; it would be wasted on pillows of golden cream and sweet summer fruits. Perhaps before moving out to the West Country I need to try one more of McNeil's girdle recipes, to see if I can find one that forms a closer link between the scones of Scotland and the scones of the South-West of England?

By coincidence, today (9th June) is St. Columba's Day (patron saint of shepherds). In rural Scotland this was traditionally marked by the baking of an oatmeal, barleymeal or rye bannock - one of the few foodstuffs that Columba allowed himself in his monastry on the island of Iona. The bannock would contain a coin and was shared between the children of the household. Whoever had the slice of bannock with the coin 'won' the job of looking after the new lambs for the next year (a prize coveted by children, for it meant that they were being granted great responsibility - better than an iPod, eh kids?).

Scotch Pancakes

Scotch pancakes are one of many Scottish cakes cooked on a flat bakestone or girdle (griddle to the English). The Scottish poet Robert Burns described his native land as a 'Land o' Cakes'. He may have meant the oatcake in particular, but 'cake' also meant more generally any form of bread (leavened or unleavened), or cereal-based baked foodstuff. A pancake was a 'cake' cooked on a heated flat-surface; historically a bakestone, hearthstone or girdle, and eventually a pan. Scotch pancakes are also known as 'drop' or 'dropped scones', because soft dollops of mixture are dropped onto the cooking surface. According to Laura Mason, the Scottish are the originators of the scone (a subset of the cake genus), and the 'Scotch pancake' is one of its many forms. I look forward to exploring other members of the Scottish scone family shortly...

The method of cooking on a heated surface is a very ancient one. If you only have a wood or peat fuelled fire for your cooking, it is a simple matter to bury a stone in the embers, or to prop a metal pan over the flames in order to heat the cooking surface. The Welsh have similar girdle-cooked foods of long heritage - such as crempogs (ffroes) and Welsh cakes (The Oxford Companion to Food mentions a theory that the Scottish miners who travelled south to work in the Welsh coal districts of Glamorganshire, were responsible for bringing the girdle pancake recipe with them.). Northern England shared the oatcake with the Scottish Highlands, as both areas were well suited to the cultivation of oats, although different regions prepared the oatcakes in slightly different way.

The 'girdle' used by the Scots for their cooking, is a round, cast-iron flat plate, with a semi-circular handle. The town of Culross in Fife, was granted a royal charter for their manufacture back in 1599 - this gave Culross a monopoly on the production of girdles for many years. The National Trust for Scotland has been working to preserve the town of Culross since the 1930s, so by the 20th century the success of Culross girdles had diminished somewhat. I have not been to the town, but it looks a handsome place.

Scotch Pancakes (recipe from this book)

120g self-raising flour
small pinch salt
30g caster sugar
1 egg
1/4 pint milk

1. First grease your girdle (I love that instruction) - use a oil as butter will burn, and then put on the hob to heat.
2. Sift the flour into a bowl and add the pinch of salt, and then tip in the sugar.
3. Crack the egg into the milk (best not to try doing this into the bottle), and whisk.
4. Pour the egg and milk liquid into the dry ingredients, and mix to form a smooth batter.
5. Test that the girdle is hot enough by putting a teaspoonsworth of batter onto it. You should have a fairy-size pancake cooked for you in less than a minute.
6. For the main-event pancakes, use a tablespoon to drop the batter onto the girdle. I used the back of the spoon to form the dollops into more aesthetic rounds.
7. Keep a beady eye on the batter. When the surface has become covered in bubbles get ready to flip them over using a palette knife (please ignore the scratchy metal one I am using).


Don't worry if the underside isn't as coloured as you would like it to be, you can always turn the pancake over for an extra girdling.


8. When cooked remove the pancakes from the girdle, and wrap in clean tea towel to keep moist.

The jury is out on whether to eat these hot from the girdle, or leave them to cool. Either way I think that they should be eaten on the day of cooking. This recipe makes about 18 pancakes, so a good quantity for Sunday night tea for two. Consume with butter, or butter and jam.

Sticky Toffee Pudding Icecream with Brandy Snaps

I love icecream. I love trying new flavours. One the highlights of our trip last year to Japan was the opportunity to try matcha (green tea), sweet potato, black sesame seed, and sake icecreams. The first icecream of summer is an event of great ceremonial celebration; and if it occurs on an unseasonably glorious day in March, then so much the better. And, isn’t just amazing how at the end of a large meal, a scoop or two of icecream still manages to slither down the hatch…

Inspired by a fabulous idea dreamt up by Rob at Hungry in Hogtown for entry in the recent St. George’s day English pudding event, I just had to make a batch of sticky toffee pudding icecream to try for myself.

Sticky toffee pudding, as Rob discovered, is not a English pudding of great antiquity, but it is a dessert that is well known across the country, and one that features on the menus of eateries from homely hostelries to hoity-toity hotels. I think it deserves the accolade of 'modern classic', and is undoubtably a recipe that will have great longevity. It has an association with the Lake District, as the recipe apparently originated from the kitchens of The Sharrow Bay Hotel, that stands on the shores of Lake Ullswater, Penrith, Cumbria. The hotel was established in 1948 by the late Francis Coulson and Brian Sack. Francis was by all accounts a bit of a genius in the kitchen. He devised the recipe (originally called 'icky-sticky toffee sponge) back in the early 1970s. He was never precious about the recipe, and passed it on to whoever asked for it. However, there does appear to be a rival claim for the pudding from another Cumbrian hotel; the chef of which set up Cartmel Village Shop, in the small town of Cartmel to produce and sell the puddings commercially. If you live in the UK, then you will probably have seen Cartmel Sticky Toffee Puddings in your local supermarket. They are very good indeed.


On a cruise around Waitrose I discovered that Cartmel Village Shop also produce a Sticky Toffee Sauce. Made with only sugar, cream, butter and vanilla essence, it tastes as naughty as you might expect. Keep it out of sight, to try and keep it out of mind.

For the purposes of this recipe I bought two Marks and Spencer Sticky Toffee Puddings, as it would have been too distressing to mulch up a Cartmel pudding, and too much effort to make my own simply to use as an icecream base. The M&S puddings come in packs of two individual servings, and the quantity was pretty spot on for Rob's recipe.


A couple of notes on the making of the icecream - I took the instruction to caramelise the pudding to mean simply heating the broken pudding in its own sugary sauce. I did this over a pretty low heat for about 5-8 minutes. I added the sugar with the milk and cream (think Rob forgot to mention this). The resulting icecream had a intense flavour, but I think (for my tastes) could have benefited from a reduction in the amount of molasses used. The treacley taste was a little overwhelming. However, that aside this was a luxuriant creamy take on an already top-tip pudding.

To set off the smoothly dense icecream I decided make some brandy snaps. Brandy snaps are a form of thin, crunchy, sticky and slightly chewy ginger biscuit, made and consumed across the country. Historically they have come in differing forms, but now they are generally rolled into a tube shape when still warm. The cooled tube can then be filled with cream to serve.

Laura Mason and Dorothy Hartley both classify brandy snaps as wafers - which are thin biscuits made in a wafering iron, with heat applied to top and bottom surfaces of the biscuit. (Click here to see some historical wafers). Mason suggests that wafers (as sweet biscuits) developed from the plain wafers produced in Catholic countries for use celebrating the Eucharist. Now, it seems to me that there is quite a long journey to be made from Communion wafer to brandy snap, so I'll take Ms. Mason's word for this. Alan Davidson in the 'Oxford Companion to Food' describes the biscuits as, 'crisp, lacy baked items which stand on the frontier between biscuits, wafers and sugar confectionery.'


To me this sounds a better summation of what brandy snaps are; I can find no recipe that requires wafer tongs to cook them, instead they are oven baked on a metal sheet. I think that they could be successfully made on a flat griddle, which is perhaps closer to the cooking method used for wafers.

Brandy snaps were sold in Britain as another form of fairing (gingered biscuits were a big winner at country fairs it seems), and they came in many shapes and could be made with sugar, honey or treacle, and from the 1880s - golden syrup. Not all recipes include brandy - it seems that the flavour is not really discernable, so to make cheaper batches of snaps it was left out. Some recipes skip out the ginger too, relying solely on the cooked sugar and butter for flavouring. Don't worry, there will be none of that abstinence in this household. The recipe I followed from Jane Grigson's 'English Food' uses both brandy and ginger, and golden syrup lends its deliciously sticky presence to form the basis of the snap.

Brandy Snaps
(quantities given here make 20-30 biscuits - I used half quantities)

125g butter
125g golden syrup
125g granulated sugar
Pinch salt
125g plain flour
2 teaspoons of ground ginger
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
2 teaspoons of brandy

1. Preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Prepare a couple of baking sheets with greaseproof paper.
2. Melt the butter, syrup and sugar in a pan over a low heat. Keep stirring, and once the sugar has dissolved take pan off the heat. Leave the mixture to cool.
3. As soon as the mixture is tepid, add the salt, flour, ginger, lemon and brandy. Mix well.
4. Measure out the mixture using teaspoons. You will need to space the dollops out well, so aim for 6 per baking sheet (you can always do a second batch - I did).
5. Jane suggests baking for 8-10 minutes, but I found this too long and the snaps burnt. By my third go I snatched the baking sheet from the oven immediately as a nice deep golden had been achieved.
6. You can shape the snaps round wooden spoon handles, or a rolling pin, and drape them over the base of a glass to form a basket. Be ready to start shaping not long after the biscuits come out of the oven. They might appear too soft, but as soon as you start to work them the mixture seems to magically harden. Hours of fun.


The brandy snaps went well with the sticky toffee icecream, but I had another batch of icecream in the freezer, also freshly churned this weekend -rhubarb ripple icecream (from an old recipe from Sainsbury's Magazine). I felt a bit mean excluding it from the chance of a moment of glory, so I popped a couple of scoops into the only brandy snap basket that I had managed to make, and stuck in a fan of broken snap.


Who needs crockery? I think that there could be a large market for edible tableware...

Putting the Feast Back into St. George's Feast Day

So just who was Saint George? Most sources agree that there are very few hard facts known about the man who became the saint; perhaps not surprising as he was supposed to have lived during the 3rd century. Born in Cappadocia (Turkey), he attained high rank within the Roman army under the Emperor Diocletian. Diocletian was a ruthless and bloody-thirsty persecutor of Christians. George was a Christian and stood up to the Emperor, refusing to carry out his commands. He admitted his own faith and was tortured and then put to death - on the 23rd April 303. The story of his bravery and martyrdom quickly spread across Christian Europe. It was the Roman Catholic church that beatified him, but he is also recognised as a saint in the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches.

English soldiers have fought under the spiritual lead of St. George since the first of the Crusades in 1098, when St. George was apparently seen on the battlefield at Antioch, and he helped the Crusaders to win the day. The Crusading knights wore a red cross on a white or silver background to identify them on the battlefield - this ensign became the emblem of the flag England, and was known as the St. George's Cross.

In 1348 King Edward III of England established the Knights of the Garter. The Order of the Garter was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Edward the Confessor (the King) and St. George. St. George's chapel in Windsor Castle was built as a chapel for the order. It is believed that it was King Edward the III who declared St. George patron saint of England.

After the battle of Agincourt in 1415, the 23rd of April was declared a national feast day for St. George (and to celebrate victory over the French). As a Catholic saint, this day of feasting fell out of favour after the reformation, which probably accounts for why it has become such an understated event. I trust that a merry band of food bloggers will be able to put the 'feast' back into 'feast day'.

The dragon slaying part of St. George's legend stems from Medieval stories of other battling heroes, and this was given a polish by the Victorians who also liked a good tale of chivalrous daring-do. It is likely that the dragon in the tale is symbolic of the evil persecution of Christians, or alternatively be representative of the Devil. The beautiful damsel is the personification of Christian truth.

So what to cook to mark St. George's Day? As a soldier, and as a 'leader' of English knights, I thought that the pudding dish 'Poor Knights of Windsor' might be an apt choice for our man George. The dish consists of slices of bread soaked in sherry, milk and sugar, dipped in egg yolk and fried in butter. Served with cinnamon powder mixed with a little sugar, and jam if you're feeling indulgent, this is a 'poor man's' pudding - no rich egg custard, pastry, or serious quantities of sugar went into the making of it. The real-life Poor Knights of Windsor were impoverished military veterans, nominated by members of the Order of the Garter, who were given accomodation and provisions by Windsor Castle. They are now known as the 'Military Knights of Windsor'. Unfortunately nobody seems to know why the dish has the name it has, nor what association it might have with retired soldiers, but it is nice to imagine a rusty swordsman or two tucking into a slice of Poors Knights, talking about the old days and fair maidens that once they wooed.

My recipe came from here.


Use your best knife to cleft the bread in twain.


I am not a big fan of eggy bread (too eggy), but this was much more delicate, soft and delicious. The cinnamon sugar reminded me how much I used to like cinnamon toast once upon a time (another English tea-time classic). I used organic white bread - fresh not stale. In 'English Food' Jane Grigson suggests slices of brioche, which I can imagine would be perfect taste-wise, but rather too French for use today. A perfect indulgent Sunday breakfast/brunch or tea-time treat.

And to keep my Poor Knights company, what better than a few Maids of Honour? These are sweet curd cheese pastries that also have an royal association, this time with that great lover of tarts - Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn naturally also had a hand in this, as it was during the time that she served as a Lady-in-Waiting that Henry developed a taste for Maids of Honour (or very little). Click here for a little more history. The original recipe is associated with Hampton Court, and nearby Richmond-upon-Thames. The Richmond bakery purporting to be the Original Shop of Maids of Honour closed in the 1950s, but on the road that leads from Richmond to Kew Bridge is the shop of the Newens family, where Maids of Honour are still baked and sold.



I made a detour enroute to work to photograph the Newens tea room, so I have yet to sample the 'Original Maids of Honour', but I might make another trip there next weekend as a birthday treat for myself.

The 'Original' recipe, and that followed by the Newens tea room is, of course, top secret. Instead I followed the second recipe on page 2 of this article. Rather than make junket, I bought some curd cheese from Waitrose, Devon Gold cheese made from milk of Jersey and Guernsey cows. I'd never seen curd cheese before, so thought it worth an image. The cheese looks very like thick double cream, but has a sour taste.


When my Maids went into the oven they quickly proved to be blowsy madams, with their skirts puffing up almost to neck height. Perhaps I should have pricked the bases of the tarts? Upon cooling they sunk back down a little, regaining modesty (although some were still a little giddy as you can see).



My Maids were bite-size ladies. Very light and delicately flavoured companions for my Knights. I think that they got on rather well. The lemon zest in with the curd cheese gave the filling a flavour similar to lemon curd, yet subtler. I came across a recipe by Delia Smith that includes lemon curd along with the cheese, that would give a much more powerful hit of lemon and sugar - maybe too overwhelming? I will have to try it and see. A cook's work is never done...

Five Maids-in-Waiting (to be eaten).


Happy St. George's Day!

What's For Pud? and St George's Day

Good Eating on Good Friday - Hot Cross Buns

'Happiness is a warm bun', as I believe John Lennon might have once said. He might also have written, 'make loaves not war'. So I think that he and I would be in agreement over the pleasures of a hot cross bun. In fact you would have to be something of a puritanal killjoy to issue a statement of 'ban the bun' (and bun puns), but this is what Oliver Cromwell did after he took power. One minute he was chopping off the head of a monarch, and the next vetoeing the simple pleasure of a sweet fruit bun. Sometimes that man just went too far.

Fortunately now normal service has been resumed, and I feel it is pretty likely that many of you will be enjoying a bun or two over the Easter weekend. As you eat and savour, please consider the ancient history and the mysterious powers said to be embued in your average humble hot cross bun.

The most obvious association that the hot cross bun has is with the Christian church, and the story of the crucifixtion of Jesus Christ. The cross on top of the bun is seen to represent the crucifix, but is also a celebration of the resurrection. However, the hot cross bun also has links with much older religions. Ancient Greek and Egyptian bakers cooked up buns at a similar time of year to celebrate the coming of Spring. Anglo-Saxon Pagans worshipped a goddess by the name of Eostre, who was their Goddess of Spring (if you type Eostre into Google, you will find one sponsored link - to Cadburys and their Easter eggs. Someone at the chocolate factory is obviously seeking to appeal to the intellectual and New Age Pagan consumer). The Saxons in their worship of Eostre would consume a round bun (symbolic of the moon), that was marked into four quarters (either representative of the phases of the moon, or symbolic of the sun). It was the Pagan celebration of Eostre that gave its name to the Christian festival, as with a sleight of hand one became the other.

Legend has it that it was a monk at St. Albans abbey who converted the cross topped bun to the Christian church. In 1361 Father Thomas Rocliffe baked spiced fruit buns, marked them with a cross and distributed them to the poor. Some sources claim the dough used was also used for the communion wafer, and as it had been consecrated this was why the buns bore the mark of the cross. It was the presumed sanctity of the dough that may have given rise to another bun tale, namely that buns baked on Good Friday (the Friday before Easter Sunday) would not grow stale nor become mouldy. It also may account for the fact that hot cross buns were thought to be capable of curing certain illnesses; that sailors took them to sea to protect against shipwreck; and that farmers believed they could keep the rats from their grain (acting as a distraction device I can see how this one might work).

I baked my hot cross buns to Dan Lepard's recipe from March issue of Waitrose Food Illustrated. The results tasted worthy of a Beatles' lyric, but I did have a little trouble in the making of them. Any advice gratefully received.

The thing about any home bread-making is that at first glance a recipe may look like a lot of time-consuming faff; but if you tot up the total time spent in the kitchen, it only actually involves about half an hour's work. OK, the rising part of the process may take 15 hours, but you are unlikely to spend that time sitting watching the bowl. Go out and enjoy life.

I started by weighing out and assembling the ingredients during commercial breaks the night before baking. I then went to bed for a night dreaming of warm buns(!). In the morning I got up and went to the hairdresser, and then came back and examined my dough. I had left the dough for a slow rise in the fridge, and although it had definitely changed in appearance from when I had popped it in 10 hours previous, it looked nothing like any previous bread dough I had made. The dough had been very wet and although the moisture had been absorbed, the rise was rather limited. I followed Dan Lepard's method of dividing the dough, and then repeatedly folding each piece (rather than kneading). The dough was very cold, and it felt quite solid and heavy rather than elastic. Perhaps the dough should have been left to come to room temperature?

I then left my dough buns to rise again. Off I popped to the shops to buy the ingredients for lunch (chicken and lime soup). When I came back I had another moment of worry as the buns hadn't got any larger. I put the trays next to the hob as I prepared the soup and this did seem to perk the buns up a bit. On went the flour and water paste cross (quite difficult to get the consistency right), and then into the oven.


I thought that the initial stage of baking might encourage a final swelling, but nope. Still, the smells coming from the oven were suitably spicey and hunger inducing. When the buns were done I glazed them - which really does finish the appearance of them off very nicely, although my crosses were a little difficult to make out.


The finished buns were dense but the consistency was perfectly OK. See top picture for a cross-section. I toasted a bun and topped each half with some beautiful Cornish butter - the flavour of the buns was superb. Happy Easter and welcome Spring!


One last story - In the East End of London there is a pub called The Widow's Son. In a cottage that stood where the pub is today, lived a widow whose son was a sailor. The son was due to return home from sea one Easter Friday, and his mother had set about baking his favourite treat - hot cross buns. Sadly her son's boat never returned to safe harbour, and the hot cross buns lay uneaten. Each year on Easter Friday his mother would bake another batch of buns, and would set one aside for her boy. The cottage became known as 'The Bun House',and when it was in 1848 demolished and a pub built in its place, the widow's tale lived on in the pub's name. Each year on Good Friday there is a ceremony within the pub, and a sailor will add another bun to a net of them hanging from the pub's beamed ceiling, before raising a glass or two to the Widow's son.

Sedgemoor Easter Cakes, Somerset

Easter biscuits are made across Britain and are so ubiquitous that Marks & Spencer sell them as part of their seasonal fare (see below). Traditionally they are served after church on Easter Sunday, and are presented in a bundle of three biscuits to represent the Holy Trinity. They are eaten alongside hot cross buns, simnel cake and copious quantities of chocolate eggs as part of our Easter festivities. The feasting comes at the end of Lent, so the taste of rich foods is supposed to come as a treat. Similar biscuits eaten before Lent commences are known as Lenten biscuits, and are made to use up eggs, sugar etc. in the way that the Shrove Tuesday pancake does.

The West Country (from Gloucestershire, Avon, Wiltshire and Dorset westwards) has an association with Easter biscuit recipes, but my reading turned up more country-wide variations than there are days in Lent, so I think that this is one of those recipes with a central 'theme', but for which there are unlimited variations. The theme is spice and fruit. All Easter biscuits are spiced, either through a small addition of mixed spice or ground cinnamon. The fruit is either solely currants, or can be currants with a little mixed peel. Some recipes use grated lemon zest for extra zing. Biscuits made commercially may have oil of cassia added. Cassia is a part of the same (laurel) family as the cinnamon that you can pick up in the supermarket. It has a similar but stronger and more bitter flavour. An Bristol educated, Australian resident writes of making Easter biscuits at catering college in Bristol, that had oil of cassia as a flavouring. A quick scout around the net reveals it to be an ingredient you can pick up through retailers that stock essential oils etc. (should you wish to try it). I also found one commercial bakery that uses it as a flavouring, and proclaims the fact.

My recipe is from 'Good Things in England', edited by Florence White. This book first published in 1932 was in Florence's words, '...an attempt to capture the charm of England's cookery before it is completely crushed out of existence.' The book documents in recipe form traditional and regional dishes from all corners of the country. A similar study was made of Scottish food by F. Marian NcNeill in 1929 (I have yet to learn of a similar text covering Welsh food).

The post-war years encouraged a certain amount of introspection and a re-evaluation of English culture, but were also a forward looking age, and a generation that saw foreign culture as something to be experimented with and explored. Florence White did not seek to exclude the modern, but wished to record the riches of England's larder, and to talk with the people who were still preparing dishes with ancient credentials, and to ensure that such recipes were documented for future generations (such as ours - Florence, this posting is for you). The flypiece to the book reads, 'A Practical Cookery Book for Everyday Use. Containing Traditional and Regional Recipes suited to Modern Tastes contributed by English Men and Women between 1399 and 1932.'

Florence White set up the English Folk Association in 1931, and in the January of that year was held the first English Folk Cookery Exhibition in Kensington, London. My recipe for Easter biscuits was supplied for this exhibition by Mrs. Wyatt of Huish Episcopi, Somerset. Sedgemoor is a coastal region of Somerset, firmly in the 'West Country'.

Sedgemoor Easter Cakes (yep, biscuits can also be cakes)

225g plain flour
110g butter
110g caster sugar
110g currants
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 egg
2 tbsp brandy

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Prepare two baking sheets.
2. Rub the butter into the flour.
3. Add the sugar, currants, spice and the cinnamon.
4. Beat the egg and mix with the brandy - add to the dry ingredients ands stir until well incorporated.
5. Roll out about 1/2 inch/1cm thick, and cut into rounds.
6. Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown.

There was no instruction to glaze with egg white and sprinkle with sugar, which most other recipes suggested. I thought that by doing so the finished biscuits might have looked a bit more appetising. They tasted rather fine, but the surface of them was very matt and had large dimples. However, on a closer examination of Marks & Spencer's efforts, I saw that their biscuits were identical in colour, also had large dimples, and although were speckled with sugar grains were equally matt. A taste test (tough job, but someone needs to address these things) revealed a bisuit with a drier consistency than mine, and more snap. The main flavour to my taste buds appeared to be aniseed with a hint of caramel. All in all they were no better, no worse, simply different (oh, alright then. My biscuits beat M&S's by a Easter bunny's whisker, but don't tell them).


Marks & Spencer's Easter Biscuits - flavoured with mixed spice (cinnamon, coriander, ginger, aniseed, dill, cloves, nutmeg), and a dash of lemon juice).


Easter chick. Who are you calling ugly?

Marmalade - Part 2 ... and Dundee Cake

This posting is dedicated to my mum on Mother's Day - with lots of love.


Over the course of the 17th century the method used for producing quince marmalade was applied to other fruit, including oranges. The oranges available in Britain at this were bitter not sweet, so the combination of fruit and sugar was a good one. The earliest orange marmalades were therefore not dissimilar to the quince marmelada that I made in my previous posting.

Another fruit popular for preserves during the 17th century was the pippin (apples raised from a pip). Pippins are naturally high in pectin (as is the quince), so it was an easy fruit to work with. Although they too could be made into a set paste and boxed, they were generally made into a jelly of a beautiful golden translucency and presented in a glass to show off the colour. The pippin jelly was delicately flavoured and 17th century tastes preferred something stronger, and so additional fruit was added in the form of candied lemon or orange peel, or even whole fruit. The golden jelly held the fruit in suspended animation that looked pretty impressive, and so was a nifty number to serve to guests as part of your dessert course. The combination of pippin jelly with orange peel proved to be a popular one.

When Charles II's court returned from exile in France, they brought to England a small linguistic shift in fruit preserve terminology. In France preserved quinces were made into something that had a jellied consistency and that was potted not boxed. The French name for this was 'marmelade de coings'. The Restoration court (and therefore fashionable society) were thus in the habit of referring to this jellied substance as a 'marmalade', and so the name began to be applied to fruit preserves that did not necessarily match the appearance of the Portuguese marmelada. Fashions being what they are, the older forms of marmalade began to look old hat, and a new form of marmalade started to emerge.

At some point towards the end of the 17th century a cunning (but unknown) British housewife devised a method of producing a jellied preserve from bitter Seville oranges alone (no need for the addition of pippins). The first orange marmalades of this type were still much thicker than those served today, but they would have been potted, not boxed, and eaten with a spoon, not cut with a knife. The method of making the marmalade involved boiling the peel and pulp with sugar, and then pounding the softened fruit with in a mortar. Very labourious work. Eventually a second method evolved in which the peel was boiled separately to soften it, and then the peel was boiled again along with sugar, juice and pulp. The result was a opaque jelly with peel suspended in it. In Scotland the slices of peel within orange marmalade were known as
'chips' and so the preserve there often went under the name 'chip marmalade'.

There is a myth that Mary Queen of Scots introduced marmalade to Scotland, but I think this is down to the infamous pun derived from marrying her name to marmelada. Mary was seasick on the journey from France to Scotland, and is supposed to have asked for "marmelade pour Marie est malade" (quince marmalade was thought to be good for settling stomachs). It is possible that Mary help popularise French food tastes within Scotland, and that a consignment of marmelada travelled with her from France, but it was already known in Scotland before her arrival.

It was harder for Scottish housewives to obtain quinces, but there were plenty of other fruits available locally for preserve making. Oranges were imported into Scotland from the end of the 15th century. Three sugar boiling houses were established in Scotland between 1667 and 1701. Raw sugar was imported alongside the oranges, and so the two ingredients needed for orange marmalade making in Scotland were readily available by the end of the 1600s. It was this latter fact that led to Janet Keiller (often wrongly credited with inventing marmalade) to turning her hand to large-scale production of orange marmalade.


At an unknown date towards the end of the 17th century, Janet Keiller bought going cheap a load of oranges from a ship forced to dock in Dundee harbour due to bad weather. With sugar from her husband'’s grocery business she cannily turned the fruit into marmalade, which she then sold through Mr. Keiller's store. Janet, faced with a cargo load of oranges, chose to use the 'chip marmalade' method (slightly less work). Mrs. Keiller's marmalade proved to be a great success, and in Dundee in 1797 a full-time business was established producing marmalade, and also eventually producing jams, confectionery and Dundee cakes. The 'chip marmalade' would be known in England as 'Scotch marmalade', and eventually synonymously as 'Dundee marmalade' all thanks to the popularity of Keiller's product.

So this brings me neatly to a stopping off point for a quick bake. Keiller's quickly evolved into large-scale food producer, with the work-force and equipment to produce other goods alongside the marmalade. Dundee cake was first made by Keiller's at some point in the 19th century. They cannot take the credit for the recipe, as similar fruit cakes were made across Scotland, but they were able to produce cakes commercially which then sold across the globe as 'Dundee cake'. Dundee cakes are not so heavily fruited as some dried fruit based cakes, and the top of each cake is studded with blanched almonds. The use of almonds to decorate the cake in a distinctive way, was probably just a marketing ploy to ensure product individuality. For Keiller's cake making was also a clever way of ensuring the factory workers were kept busy when Seville oranges were out of season, and to use up any left-over peel.


Mary Queen of Scots pops up again in a legend connected to Dundee cake. The story goes that Mary didn'’t like cherries in her fruit cake, and so a Scottish baker came up with a special recipe which didn't include them (surely you just leave them out?). A 'genuine' Dundee cake should therefore not include cherries. I have to say though that in most of the recipes that I read they were included. Perhaps they were recipes devised by Mary's jealous cousin, Elizabeth I?

I followed the recipe sent to me by Eva (The Golden Shrimp). As part of her EBBP box to me she sent me key ingredients for Dundee cake -– mixed peel, raisin, sultanas, cherries (sorry Eva, I went with Mary on this one, but I'’ll find a good use for them in the near future), and a small bottle of whisky (a single malt! - I kept this for drinking with my cake, and used a more pedestrian whisky I already had). Eva's recipe was either for one large cake, or for several small ones. I decided to make miniature cakes. The recipe also included instructions for making a whisky syrup or saboyan to serve with the cakes, to turn them into a rather wonderful sounding dessert (recipe is from Gary Rhodes: At the Table).

175g butter
175g caster sugar
3 large egg, beaten
225g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground mixed spice
2 tbsp ground almonds
175g currants
175g sultanas
50g chopped glace cherries (if you want to)
50g chopped mixed peel
finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange
3-4 tbsp whisky
50g blanched almonds to decorate

1. Preheat oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3. Prepare your cake tins. I used three small tins approx. 10cm across by 3 cm deep, and I also filled nine muffin cases.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the beaten eggs gradually.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and spice into a bowl.
4. Put all the fruit, including the grated lemon and orange zest, into another bowl.
5. Fold the dry ingredients into the butter, sugar and egg mixture. Once well blended add the dried fruit. Finish off by adding the wet ingredients making damn sure you don’t leave out the whisky.
6. Spoon into the cake tins/cases, and place the almonds on top of the mixture in a decorative manner.
7. Gary suggests that small Dundee cakes will take about 25 minutes. I kept an eye on mine and found they took closer to 45.
8. After leaving the cakes to cool you can wrap them in greaseproof paper and store them in an airtight box. A large cake should be stored for a week before eating to improve the flavour. Me, I had a small cake (a wee morsel - see below) as soon as it was cool enough to get in my mouth. ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!


Incidentally, did you know that the Dalai Lama is very fond of Dundee cake?

Anyway, back to the marmalade tale. Keiller's success encouraged other Scottish grocer and kitchen supremo partnerships to launch rival businesses. James Robertson and his wife Marion set up their company in Paisley in 1864. Robertson's best known product is 'Golden Shred', still selling well today. Four years later, George and Margaret Baxter started their company in Morayshire. Alongside marmalade Baxters also made jams and other conserves. They are still a household name, and now produce all manner of foodstuffs. And so, with the success of these companies, and the initial commericalisation of the marmalade making process by Keillers, marmalade has a long association with Scotland which continues.

Much further south, the university town of Oxford was the site of an English firm which also had great sales success with its marmalade and other preserves. Frank Cooper and his wife (yet another grocer and talented cook combo) set up their business in 1874. Cooper's product was unique in the way that the marmalade was prepared, as after two boilings the softened orange pulp was left to mature for between 3 and 12 months. The finished marmalade was dark and contained coarse cut peel. The marmalade was enjoyed by students and dons, and visitors to the town took jars away with them. Business boomed. A large factory was built in Oxford right next to the railway station for ease of transportation. Cooper's success meant that Oxford is also forever associated with the sweet, sticky stuff. Chivers of Histon, Cambridgeshire and Wilkin & Sons of Tiptree, Essex, also put their towns on the marmalade map.

So, just one last thing to consider. Marmalade was first eaten at the end of the main evening meal as part of the range of dishes offered as dessert. The reason being was that oranges were considered comforting to the stomach; aides to digestion; and also stimulatory of warmth to the body. From Elizabethan times through to the 18th century, this continued to be the case. It was the medicinal benefits of oranges which led to the Scots first sampling marmalade as part of their first meal of the day - breakfast. The Scots had been in the habit of starting their day with a dram of whisky, followed by a bowl of ale with a toast floating in it. When tea drinking became fashionable in the early 18th century some people dropped the ale and took tea instead. Others swapped the whisky for a tot of body warming marmalade. The Presbytarians no doubt welcomed the loss of alcohol, but the Scottish breakfast evolved into a fine feast of a meal soon to be copied by those in the rest of Britain.



Golden Shred 'World's Best' Marmalade? To me this is reminiscent of the claim of one of our national tabloids to be 'The World's Greatest Newspaper'. I think I will leave that for you to decide...



My main source of information for both my postings on marmalade was 'The Book of Marmalade' by C. Anne Wilson. It also contains many historical recipes for marmalade, and ideas of foods to make with marmalade (cakes, trifles, pies etc.).