Category Archives: baking

21/05/2025 · 6:00 am

Four Scone Recipes

You know what it’s like; you go to the home baking aisle of the supermarket and pick up a bag of flour, thinking ‘I’m sure I’m running low’, buy a bag, only to find there is, in fact, a large bag sitting, unopened, in the pantry. Unsure what to do with them, I asked social media whether I should make some scones, saffron buns or lardy cake with it (three recipes I have been meaning to post for years now). The answer came in: 3-way tie. I shall endeavour to do all three for you over the next month or so.

Up first, then, are scones, the must-have for a modern Cornish or Devonshire cream tea. I have written about cream teas both on the blog and in my book Knead to Know, the excerpt of which you can find on my YouTube Channel.

This is the recipe I used when I had both my restaurant and artisan market stall, so it is very tried-and-tested. I have provided some variations for you beneath the method: cranberry and orange, cheese, and walnut and Stilton. When the restaurant was open, we served a savoury cream tea using a cheese scone, swapped clotted cream for cream cheese and exchanged the jam for curried beetroot chutney or onion marmalade.

Classic recipes – especially Scottish and Irish ones – use buttermilk instead of plain milk. As buttermilk is increasingly difficult to get hold of these days, I’ve used milk, but you can swap the two. If you do, use 15 g bicarbonate of soda instead of 25 g baking powder. One final thing: I use strong white flour instead of plain to give the scones a boost in the oven, again, not traditional; in fact, it was a trick picked up from Paul Hollywood in his book 100 Great Breads. This doesn’t mean you can knead the dough roughly as though it is for bread; you still have to use a light touch with mixing, rolling and cutting out. Hopefully, my method will help you achieve great results.

I’ll follow soon with a post on the history of scones.

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Basic Scones

A note on measuring liquids: 1 ml of milk weighs 1 g, so it’s easier – and much more accurate – to weigh it on scales rather than reading the graduations on the side of the measuring jug.

Makes 12 to 15 scones.

500 g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting

30g baking powder

½ tsp salt

75g butter

75g caster sugar

80g quartered glacé cherries, raisins or currants (optional)

200 ml/g whole milk

2 medium eggs

Egg wash: 1 egg or egg yolk beaten with ½ tsp salt

Granulated or Demerara sugar for sprinkling

Preheat your oven to 200°C.

In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt and rub in the butter – you can use the flat beater attachment on your mixer with this, or good old fingertips. Stir in the sugar and fruit (if using).

Beat the eggs with the milk, and steadily mix the liquids into the dry ingredients. If using a mixer, keep it at a slow speed. Make sure all the flour is incorporated, bring the dough together and give it a brief knead on a floured worktop until the dough is smooth.

Keeping your worktop floured, roll out the dough to a thickness of 1.5 to 1.75 cm (a generous ½ inch), and cut out into rounds. I normally use a cutter of a diameter between 7 and 8 cm. It is important to take care when cutting: make sure you dunk your cutter in more flour and tap off excess before cutting. This is important because if there are splodges of sticky dough on the cutter, it will seal the edges of the scones, preventing a good rise. Also, don’t be tempted to twist your cutter, as this will have a similar effect. Arrange the cut-out scones on 2 lined baking sheets.

Bring the leftover dough together with your hands to form a cohesive dough without kneading it too much – we don’t want tough scones! Roll out again and cut out. Repeat until all of the mixture is used up.

Brush with egg wash being careful not to let any dribble down the sides – again, this will hamper the rising of the dough – then sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and well risen. If there is uneven browning at the 10-minute mark, switch the trays around in the oven.

Cool on a rack.

Scones are best enjoyed on the day or the day after they are made. They do freeze well. Enliven them by popping them in the microwave for 10 to 20 seconds.

Eat with butter or clotted cream and jam.

Variations

Cranberry and Orange

Make as above, but add the zest of two oranges to the dry ingredients, and use dried cranberries instead of raisins or currants. Juice the oranges, pour into a measuring jug and top up with milk to 200ml/g.

Classic cheese scones

Use just 25 g caster sugar, and add 100 to 125 g grated Cheddar cheese once the flour has been rubbed in. If you like, you can add ½ teaspoon of dried herbs and a good pinch of Cayenne pepper. Use 230 g/ml of milk instead of 200 g/ml. Sprinkle some finely grated cheese (Parmesan is good) over the egg-washed scones before they go in the oven.

Walnut and Stilton scones

As above, but use 100-125 g grated Stilton and 80 g chopped walnuts

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22/03/2025 · 11:48 am

Yorkshire Teacakes

A hospitable Yorkshire housewife would consider her tea table was barely spread if it were not liberally supplied with these delicious cakes, constant relays of which should be served steaming hot.

Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (1883)[1]

A split and toasted fruit teacake, liberally spread with melting salted butter is one of life’s simple pleasures. For those of you who are not already in the know, a Yorkshire teacake is a round, slightly flattened, enriched, soft breadcake usually containing a little sugar, spice, dried fruit, and candied peel. There was a time when England had scores of regional fruited or enriched bread cakes and loaves, but they have largely gone by the wayside. Others that spring to mind are Bath buns, Wiltshire lardy cakes and Lincolnshire plum bread.[2] These types of cakes and breads are much more appreciated in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, or so it seems. The Yorkshire teacake has escaped its regional roots, so much so that it has lost its Yorkshire identifier and is simply called a teacake by most people.

Just-baked teacakes with plenty of salted butter

Yorkshire teacakes can be traced back to the opening decades of the 18th century when they were called ‘Yorkshire Cakes’. They will have been very expensive because they are enriched with eggs, butter, milk, and plenty of sugar and dried fruits.[3] By the 1880s, they are called Yorkshire teacakes.[4]

Working-class families enjoyed them too, but there was invariably less fruit, just a touch of sugar, half-and-half milk and water, no eggs and lard instead of butter. I like this more austere version, though I do go will all milk (full fat, of course) and much prefer lard to often over rich butter. Looking through recipes, the amount of lard varies greatly from a knob to over five ounces per pound of flour.

It’s very important that the teacakes are nice and soft. To achieve this, heed this excellent advice from Florence White:

Immediately after taking from the oven, rub over with buttered paper, and cover with a light, clean blanket; this gives a soft skin.[5]

When they are freshly baked they are lovely eaten untoasted, but any older than that and they must be split and toasted (or if you want to go hardcore Yorkshire, strong Cheddar cheese[6]).

It occurred to me that I hadn’t baked a batch of teacakes for a good few years, and I was thereafter craving them, so I baked a batch. They are so worth making at home and I give you my recipe, should you fancy having a go yourself.

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Recipe

This is quite a sticky dough and I would recommend making this in a stand mixer with a dough hook, but they can be made without one; just be prepared to be very sticky in the first 10 minutes of kneading. If you prefer plain teacakes, omit the fruit and spice and add half the sugar.

Makes 8 teacakes:

500 g strong plain flour, plus extra for kneading and shaping

30 g caster sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp instant yeast

½ tsp mixed spice or ½ a grated nutmeg

80 g softened lard or butter, or a mixture

300 ml warm milk or half-and-half milk and water

Around 2 tbs vegetable or sunflower oil

80 g mixed dried fruit

30 g candied peel (optional)

Extra milk for brushing

Add the flour, sugar, salt, yeast and spices to a mixing bowl, make a well in the centre and add the softened fat, then tip in the warm liquid. Using a kneading hook, mix the ingredients on a slow speed until everything has combined, then turn up the speed a notch or two and knead for about 10 minutes until smooth – it won’t be very elastic because of the lashings of lard.

If you want to do this by hand, mix the ingredients with a wooden spoon. When thoroughly mixed, leave it to stand for 15 minutes or so; this gives the flour to absorb some of the liquid making for easier hand kneading. Knead on a lightly floured surface for around 15 minutes.

Brush a clean mixing bowl with the vegetable oil, gather up the floppy dough as best as you can (oil your hands, it makes this bit much easier), tuck it into a ball and pop it in the oiled bowl. Cover with a tea towel or cling film until it has doubled in size. This will take a while; even sat close to the radiator, my dough took over two hours.

Now take two baking sheets and line them with greaseproof paper and set aside.

Tip the dough onto a floured worktop and press out into a square, add the fruit and knead it into the dough. You do this step in the oiled bowl if you like. When everything is reasonably equally distributed, cut the dough into 8 equal-sized pieces. Using just a very little flour roll the pieces of dough into tight balls, then roll them out into circles with a floured rolling pin so they are 4 to 5 cm thick. Sit them on your baking sheets as you make them.

When you’ve done all 8, cover them with tea towels or place a container over them so they can prove again. In my experience the second proving takes about half the time of the first. As they prove turn your oven to 200°C fan (or equivalent). If you have a steam setting on your oven, use it. If you don’t, place a roasting tin in the bottom of the oven to heat up, and when you put your teacakes in the oven, tip some water into the now very hot tin and close the door.

Before and after the second proving

When they have doubled in size, brush them with milk and pop them in the oven. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Test whether they are ready by tapping the base of one: it should sound hollow.

Remove the teacakes from the oven and immediately throw a double layer of tea towels over them to keep them soft as they cool.

Notes:

[1] Cassell (1883) Cassell’s dictionary of cookery. Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.

[2] Check out Elizabeth David’s classic English Bread and Yeast Cookery (1977) for several other examples.

[3] David, E. (1977) English Bread and Yeast Cookery. Grub Street; Mason, L. and Brown, C. (1999) The Taste of Britain. Devon: Harper Press.

[4] Cassell (1883)

[5] White, F. (1932) Good Things in England. Persephone.

[6] Brears, P. (2014) Traditional Food in Yorkshire. Prospect Books.

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28/01/2025 · 8:08 am

To make a Bakewell tart

At the end of 2024, I gave you my recipe for Bakewell pudding. The plan was to follow with my recipe for Bakewell tart. Alas, life, Christmas and then a holiday to New Zealand got in the way.

But I always get around to things eventually and I give it to you today!

The Bakewell tart, despite it being dearly loved by Brits, was originally made as a cheap, dumbed-down version of the rich Derbyshire pudding: the puff pastry swapped for shortcrust, and the buttery almond filling swapped for an almond-flavoured sponge cake.

I write about the histories of the Bakewell pudding and tart in Knead to Know: A History of Baking, so pick up a copy if you want to know more.

I have been using this recipe for years now and it’s a real crowd-pleaser. When the restaurant was open, I served this tart warm with a lemon-flavoured cream and received a big bear hug from a diner: there could have been no better seal of approval in my book! The secret to its success is that I make a frangipane rather than a sponge cake filling, bound together with just a tablespoon of flour.

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Recipe

Makes 1 x 21 cm/8 inch tart

For the sweet shortcrust pastry:

200 g plain flour

100 g salted butter, diced (or half-and-half butter and lard)

50 g caster or icing sugar

1 egg, well beaten

Cold water (see recipe)

For the filling:

100 g salted butter, softened

100 g caster sugar

2 eggs

100g ground almonds

30 g self-raising flour

¼ tsp almond extract

3 or 4 tbs raspberry jam

30 g slivered almonds

First, make the pastry: Place the flour and fat(s) in a mixing bowl and rub the fat in until the mixture resembles fresh breadcrumbs. You can do this by hand using fingertips or with the flat beater of a stand mixer on a slow speed. Make a well in the centre and add most of the egg. If using a stand mixer, slowly mix it in, pouring more egg into any dry patches. If doing by hand, use a butter knife to mix (this prevents overworking of the dough). You should have a cohesive dough that can be brought together with your hand – if it does seem dry, add a tablespoon of cold water.

Knead briefly, cover and allow to rest in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 180°C and place a baking tray on the centre shelf

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the pastry to the thickness of a pound coin, and use it to line an 8”/20 cm loose-bottomed tart tin or ring.[1] Prick the base with a fork and place it back in the fridge to firm up.

Now make the filling: using a hand beater or stand mixer, beat together the soft butter, caster sugar, eggs, almonds, flour and extract until smooth.

Take the pastry out of the fridge and spread jam over the bottom leaving a centimetre gap all around the inside edge. Spoon or pipe the mixture first around the edges and then the centre (this stops the jam from rising up the sides of the pastry lining), levelling off with a spatula.

Sprinkle with the slivered almonds and slide the tart onto the hot baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes, turning the heat down to 160°C if the top gets too brown. Cool on a rack, and remove from the tin when just warm.

[1] You will find that there is excess pastry – make some nice jam tarts or turnovers.

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06/12/2024 · 6:03 am

To make a Bakewell pudding

I was at the Foyles Winter Evening on the 28th of November promoting The Philosophy of Puddings. It was at their flagship Charing Cross Road store, adjacent to Soho, and it was all very exciting. To draw folk in, I brought two puddings from opposite ends of the pudding spectrum: a nice, but very sweet, Bakewell pudding and a very savoury black pudding. I’m sure you can guess which was the most popular (by the way, tune into this podcast episode to hear about my gaff involving Rick Astley and the black pudding).

I promised I would post the recipe for a Bakewell pudding because it went down so well at the event. A Bakewell pudding is different from a Bakewell tart: the pudding is made up of a puff pastry case, a layer of raspberry jam, and then a sweet mixture of melted butter, eggs, sugar, and ground almonds. It’s very sweet and seems to be derived from a tribe of puddings called transparent puddings.[1]

The recipe for Bakewell pudding is a closely-guarded secret held by the several bakeries in Bakewell who reckon they have the original recipe. I won’t go into the history of the pudding here, it can all be found in the Philosophy of Puddings and Knead to Know.[2] However, Sheila Hutchins provides a recipe in her excellent 1967 book English Recipes and Others which she obtained from ‘Mr Oulsnam, the cook at the Rutland Arms in Bakewell where the pudding was said to be invented’.[3] There are recipes too in Jane Grigson’s English Food (1992) and Regula Ysewijn’s Pride and Pudding (2015). The first recipe appears in Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845), and it doesn’t have a crust, and is made with egg yolks, not whole eggs.[4]

One of several bakeries in Bakewell that reckon they have the true original Bakewell pudding recipe

All of the recipes vary slightly, but I have gone with something that resembles the modern version, though my filling has a higher proportion of ground almonds than the Rutland Arms recipe (but not too much because it begins to veer on Bakewell tart territory. I feel I have the balance just right, but you can be the judge of that.

By the way, the finished pudding isn’t a particularly beautiful-looking thing, it won’t come out of the oven looking like French patisserie, it’s wonky and slightly scruffy but very delicious; as a pudding should be.

Apologies for the lack of a photo of the interior! I was stressed on the night and forgot to take one, but here I am with the pudding in Foyles.

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Recipe

My recipe makes 1 x 23 cm/9 inch (approx.) pudding in a round tin with sloping sides. The great thing about puddings is that they are very forgiving, so if your tin has straight sides or fluted edges, or not exactly the right dimensions, don’t worry, it will be fine.

The pastry is not blind-baked first. To avoid the dreaded soggy bottom put a baking tray in the oven so it can get nice and hot. When the pudding is ready to bake, sit it on the very hot tray which will help crisp it up before it starts to turn soggy.

1 batch of Quick and Easy Puff Pastry

120 g butter

120 g caster sugar

80 g ground almonds

2 eggs

A few drops of almond essence

2 to 3 dessertspoons of raspberry jam

Preheat your oven to 220°C and place a baking tray on the centre shelf.

Begin by rolling out the pastry to the thickness of a pound coin (3 mm approximately). Allow to rest for a couple of minutes before lining the tin with the pastry. Make sure the pastry is tucked into the edges properly and that there are no air bubbles. Trim with a knife or rolling pin (whichever is most efficient – depends upon your tin!) and prick the pastry all over with a fork so that it doesn’t puff up too much in the oven.

Place the lined tin in the fridge so the butter can harden up. Meanwhile, make the filling: slowly melt the butter in a saucepan, as you wait, mix the sugar and ground almonds in a mixing bowl, then the eggs and almond essence. When the butter is just melted beat it into the mixture.

Take the lined tin out of the fridge and spread with the jam, leaving a gap all around the inside edge.

Spoon or pour the mixture, first around the inside edge and then the centre, smoothing over any gaps.

Place in the oven on the now very hot baking tray for 25 to 35 minutes, turning the temperature down to 180°C when the top reaches a nice, deep golden brown (it was around the 20-minute mark for me).

When the centre is set, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool on a wire rack.

[1] Buttery, N. The Philosophy of Puddings. (British Library Publishing, 2024).

[2] Being a baked pud, Bakewell pudding gets mentioned in both The Philosophy of Puddings and Knead to Know: a History of Baking (though different aspects are discussed).

[3] Hutchins, S. English Recipes, and Others from Scotland, Wales and Ireland as They Appeared in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Cookery Books and Now Devised for Modern Use. (Cookery Book Club, 1967).

[4] Acton, E. Modern Cookery For Private Families. (Quadrille, 1845); Grigson, J. English Food. 3rd edition (Penguin, 1992); Ysewijn, R. Pride and Pudding: The History of British Puddings Savoury and Sweet. (Murdoch Books, 2015).

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24/11/2024 · 7:00 am

Competition: Win a copy of my two new books!

It’s competition time!

Would you like to be in with a chance of winning a signed copy of both of my new books Knead to Know: A History of Baking and The Philosophy of Puddings? Well here is your chance.

It is very simple to enter: All you need to do is go to the foot of this post, “like” it and leave a comment declaring your favourite Christmastime dessert.

I will select one person at random on 2 December at 7pm GMT. That’s your deadline. Good luck!

If you like the blogs and podcast I produce and would to start a £3 monthly subscription, or would like to treat me to virtual coffee or pint: follow this link for more information. Thank you.

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29/10/2024 · 7:00 am

Singin’ Hinnies

In my book Knead to Know: A History of Baking, I made sure that there was a full chapter focussing on griddlecakes: food baked on hearthstones, bakestones and iron griddles. Of course, when writing the chapter, I took much inspiration from Jane Grigson’s baking recipes in English Food. I was surprised by the great variety. These days the English barely think beyond the crêpe.

It’s been a while since I posted a recipe for a griddlecake, and I have had this one, for singin’ hinnies, waiting in the wings for a while. These little cakes are a rather forgotten speciality of Northumberland. I first made these for the Neil Cooks Grigson project in its very early days and I didn’t do a great job of interpreting Jane’s recipe.[1] I have improved greatly since then. The real prompt to get this recipe out there was my conversation with Sophie Grigson, Jane’s daughter, for a recent episode of The British Food History Podcast all about Jane’s work. The topic of singin’ hinnies cropped up because Jane’s entry for it in English Food is particularly evocative. Listen to the episode here:

These griddlecakes, enriched with lard and butter and sweetened only by dried fruit, were eaten by all, and were especially at children’s parties where tuppeny and thruppenny pieces were hidden inside.[2] These once ubiquitous cakes were, for many families, sadly the ‘substitutes for the birthday cake [they] could not afford.’ The word ‘hinnie’ is a dialect one for honey, a term of endearment, and the ‘singin’’ refers to the comforting sizzle of the butter and lard from the cooking griddlecakes, although Jane does point out that ‘the singin’ hinnies made less of a song for many people as they could not afford the full complement of butter and lard.’[3]

I have found other mentions of singin’ hinnies elsewhere but recipes and descriptions are very vague. I did find two nineteenth-century descriptions that really emphasised their importance at the dinner tables of miners – Northumberland being very much a colliery county. The job required very calorific food, so these griddlecakes served an important function. One stated that ‘miner’s food consisted of plum pudding, roast beef and “singing hinnies”.’[4] Another, written by J.G. Kohl, a German travel writer, informs us that ‘[the colliers] even have dishes and cakes of their own; and among these I was particularly told of their “singing hinnies”, a kind of cake that owes its epithet “singing” to the custom of serving it hissing hot upon the table…They are very buttery, and must never be absent on a holiday from the table of a genuine pitman.’[5]

Jane reckons they are the second-best British griddlecake; for her, Welsh cakes take the top spot.

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Recipe

I give you my interpretation of Jane’s recipe with more precise ingredients and method. I have found all other recipes to be either too vague in the amount of liquid that should be added, or, when specific, far too dry. I do hope you find this recipe clear; I know it must work because the hinnies sing loud and true as they cook on the griddle.

A proper singin’ hinnie should be made with equal amounts of butter and lard. If you are vegetarian, avoid using shortening such as Trex, instead go posh and use all butter.

Makes 24 to 28 griddlecakes

500 g plain flour, plus extra for rolling

1 tsp baking powder

¾ tsp salt

125 g lard, diced

125 g butter, diced

180 g dried mixed fruit

220-240 ml milk

Extra lard for frying

Extra butter for buttering the insides of the singin’ hinnies

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, then rub in the lard and butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, then add the dried fruit and mix again.

Make a well in the centre, add most of the milk and mix to make a nice soft dough – it’s a good idea to use the old-fashioned method of combining everything using a cutting motion with a butter knife; that way you ensure the liquid is combined with the other ingredients without overworking the gluten in the flour. Add the remaining milk should there be any dry patches.

Lightly flour your worktop and knead the dough briefly so that it becomes nice and smooth. Let it rest as you get your bakestone, griddle or pan ready.

Place the bakestone on a medium heat and allow to get to a good heat; because there is no sugar in the mixture, the cakes don’t burn easily.

As you wait for it to heat up, roll the dough on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of around ¾ centimetre and cut out rounds. I used a 7-centimetre cutter, but 6- or 8-centimetre cutters will be fine. You might find it easier to cut them out if you dip your cutter in flour and tap away any excess. Reroll the pastry and cut out more.

Take a small piece of lard, quickly rub it over the surface of the bakestone and cook your first batch: mine took 5 to 6 minutes on each side to achieve a nice golden brown colour on the outside and a fluffy interior (I sacrificed one to check inside). Split each one with a knife and add a small pat of butter, close and keep them warm in the oven on a serving plate as you cook the rest.

Serve warm with your favourite toppings. I went with good old golden syrup (and an extra knob of butter).

Notes

[1] Read the original post here.

[2] i.e. two-penny and three-penny coins.

[3] Grigson, J. (1992) English Food. Third Edit. Penguin.

[4] Fynes, R. (1873) Miners of Northumberland and Durham. J. Robinson.

[5] Kohl, J.G. (1844) England, Wales and Scotland. Chapman and Hall.

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27/09/2024 · 6:13 pm

New book ‘The Philosophy of Puddings’ out 24 October 2024

I’m very excited to announce that my next book The Philosophy of Puddings with be published on 24 October 2024, published by the British Library – part of their excellent The Philosophy of… series.

Preorder The Philosophy of Puddings from your favourite bookseller, or from the British Library bookshop.

The word ‘pudding’ is a confusing one if you are not from the British Isles because so many things can be a pudding: steamed sponge, Christmas pud, sticky toffee pudding, plus black and white pudding AND haggis. Add to this the fact that pudding can also be a byword for any dessert. Convoluted craziness.

I have tried to tackle the tricky etymology of the word before – puddings change and morph into so many different things across time that it’s pretty mind-boggling, and I’m so glad to have the opportunity to really study it in depth: a dream come true really. As far as I know there isn’t a book that tracks the word right through history, focussing not just on trends and fashions but also why puddings are so important in British identity.

To pique your curiosity: The contents page and a couple of the fantastic illustrations from the British Library’s collections

Here’s what the blurb says:

Just what is a pudding? We all have our favourites, whether it is a school-dinner jam roly-poly with custard, or a Yorkshire with onion gravy, a Burns’ Night haggis or the Christmas plum pudding. The humble pudding started out as a meat boiled in either animal intestine or in a cloth. With the advent of pudding bowls and moulds, the pudding assumed a myriad of identities. Neil Buttery traces the long history of pudding and its importance in British culture and language. He has tried and tested many recipes from across the centuries in his ‘Pud Club’ and shares his extensive knowledge and expertise.

The Philosophy of Puddings features stunning images and photographs from the Library’s collections.

I will present some of my research an online talk in December – the date is to be announced, so make sure you keep an eye out on social media or the ‘Upcoming Events’ page on the blog.

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26/08/2024 · 10:47 am

Madeira Cake

I have been thinking and reading about baked goods rather a lot this year, having written Knead to Know: A History of Baking (out 12 September, preorder here). One thing I mention in the book is the activity we in Britain no longer partake in: dipping little sponge cakes in sweet alcoholic drinks. The closest we get to this is when we soak them in booze for a trifle, but fewer and fewer of us are making traditional trifles these days, I’d say.[1] Cakes made especially for dipping are well known: financiers, madeleines, boudoir biscuits (which are actually dry cakes). We used to dunk cake in wine though, and even came up with one of our own (the ones listed above are all French in origin); the now rather passe Madeira cake. It’s dismissed as a rather dry, plain sponge cake,[2] and perhaps it is, but that’s because we are no longer consuming it in the way it was designed to be, as Jane Grigson tells us in English Food, ‘this cake was served with Madeira and other sweet wines in the nineteenth century.’[3]

Madeira is a sweet wine made on the island of the same name (sugar was made there in the early modern period[4]), and it was a popular export to Britain from the seventeenth century.[5] The first time recipes for cakes specifically made for dipping in wine pop up in handwritten manuscripts from the eighteenth century, and the first printed recipe for Madeira cake (according to Laura Mason and Catherine Brown) appears in Eliza Acton’s 1845 classic Modern Cookery for Private Families.[6]

To produce a cake that can be successfully dipped without breaking up, it must be made on the dry side compared to, say, a pound cake or Victoria sponge: more flour is used, and no extra liquid is added (there’s no dropping consistency here). Whilst searching the internet for recipes, I spotted that people commonly search for ‘moist Madeira cake’ recipes. Well there is no such thing, it isn’t supposed to be moist. Yes, there are recipes to be found on the internet for apparently moist Madeira cakes that include additional ground almonds, milk and/or a reduced amount of flour. Well, you can do that, of course – be my guest, it will be delicious I’m sure – but it will no longer be a Madeira cake.

Creating lift is very important when it comes to sponge cake-making, and in Eliza Acton’s recipe, it is achieved by whisking eggs and sugar until frothy, before folding in flour mixed with a little ‘carbonate of soda’, and then cold, melted butter.[7] We’d call this a genoise-style cake these days. Recipes today use the more familiar creaming method and more raising agent, but don’t be tempted to use self-raising flour – that would give the mixture too much of a boost; we’re aiming for small, densely packed, bubbles here, so a more restrained amount of baking powder is required.

The characteristic crack of a loaf-shaped Madeira cake is most pleasing, but only achieved because a dry mixture is used.

Older recipes ask for Madeira cake to be cooked in a round tin (or hoop), but I prefer baking mine in a 900 g (2 lb) loaf tin.[8] I like the characteristic crack you get that runs down the length of the baked cake. Very pleasing. When it comes to flavouring, just a little lemon zest is traditional. Some ask for a decoration of candied citron strips, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

This recipe is adapted from the one given by Jane Grigson in her classic tome English Food,[9] first published in 1974, making it 50 years old this year!

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175 g softened, salted butter

175 g caster sugar

275 g plain flour

1 level tsp baking powder

4 large eggs (or 4 medium eggs + 1 tbs milk)

Grated zest of a lemon

Preheat your oven to 160°C, then line a 900 g (2 lb) loaf tin with baking paper.

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy with your beaters, a most important stage as it seeds lots of air bubbles in the batter, making for a lighter cake. Now crack the eggs into the mixture one at a time: put the beater on a medium speed, add your first one, and when fully combined, add the next. If the egg and butter mixture begins to curdle (and it probably will after egg number two), add a spoonful of flour and beat on a medium-high speed until incorporated fully, then continue until all of the eggs are used up.

Mix the flour and baking powder, and tip into the mixture along with the lemon zest. Stir on a slow speed until the mixture is smooth. If your beater’s slow speed isn’t that slow, it is better to mix in the flour by hand. If you used medium eggs, add the milk at this point and mix into the batter.

Spoon the mixture into the lined loaf tin and level off. Bake for 1 hour (though check after 50 minutes) until cooked through. Do the good old test of pressing the cake with a finger: if it springs back, it is ready. You can always skewer the cake with a wooden toothpick to see if it comes out clear of any uncooked batter.

When ready, cool in the tin on a wire rack. Best eaten within the first 24 hours of baking.

Notes

[1] In Britain, the only thing we’re dunking is our biscuits in our tea.

[2] See also: seed cake.

[3] Grigson, J. (1992). English Food (Third Edit). Penguin.

[4] This is covered in Buttery, N. (2022). A Dark History of Sugar. Pen and Sword History.

[5] Mason, L., & Brown, C. (1999). The Taste of Britain. Harper Press.

[6] Ibid. I searched too and could not find an earlier example.

[7] Acton, E. (1845). Modern Cookery For Private Families. Quadrille.

[8] Most recipes, even modern ones, describe loaf tins by the weight of bread dough they are designed to bake: 450g (1 lb) or 900g (2 lb). Exact dimensions vary, but in the case of a 900g (2lb) tin, the dimensions are around 21 cm long x 11 cm wide x 7 cm high.

[9] Read my original post on Neil Cooks Grigson here.

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12/08/2024 · 12:48 pm

New book ‘Knead to Know: A History of Baking’ out 12 September 2024

Out 12 September 2024!

Exciting announcement time!

I am very pleased to announce that I have a new book out next month. It’s called Knead to Know: A History of Baking, published by Icon Books and out in the shops on 12 September 2024.

Notice it’s A history, not THE history of baking. I’ve taken what I think are the most important parts, or thing I have found the most interesting with respect to the history of this huge sprawling subject. I’ve broken it up into five broad chapters: Griddlecakes & Pancakes; Biscuits & Cakes; Bread; Pies & Puddings; and Patisserie. Really, I could have written a whole chapter on each of these subjects!

It’s in a different format to my previous books in that the chapters are broken up into short pieces, the length of a blog post. This means that you can dip in and out of it like a coffee table book, or read it cover to cover.

It’s not a recipe book, but there are lots of baking tips and rules of thumb. Of course, recipes for many of the foods that crop up in the book you can find on this blog, and I’ll be adding more as the year goes on, so keep a look out.

It is available to preorder from your favourite bookseller.

There are several upcoming events: online and in-person talks, plus festival appearances, details of which can be found on the Upcoming Events tab of the blog.

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28/07/2024 · 11:15 am

To Make Eccles Cakes

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