Category Archives: Teatime

20/06/2025 · 6:54 am

Saffron Buns

Saffron-scented buns, breads and cakes used to be enjoyed right across England from at least the 17th century. Today, however, they are typically found in bun form and are associated with Cornwall because, from around the 1780s, saffron was only grown in this area and Essex.[1]

A modern-day saffron bun is a lovely egg yolk yellow and has that lovely, unique earthy flavour associated with the spice. Other ingredients usually include mixed spice, dried fruit and a little sugar, and e enriched with a good amount of egg and clotted cream, though as Sam Bilton points out in Fool’s Gold: A History of British Saffron, Sarah Harrison’s 18th-century recipe contains no fruit, and the only spice used aside from saffron is coriander seed.[2] Early recipes are usually for single, large cakes such as Sir Kenelm Digby’s ‘excellent cake’, which is baked in a hoop and requires ‘a Peck of fine flower’. It’s enriched with (amongst other things) ‘one pint of Sack…half a pint of Rose-water [and] half a quarter of an ounce of Saffron.’ It is then iced with sugar and egg whites flavoured again with rose water.[3] Rosewater seems to have been a key ingredient because it’s still used a century later in John Farley’s London Art of Cookery (1783) and again in Cassell’s Dictionary of Food a century after that.[4] Perhaps it should be brought back?

Sir Kenhelm Digby’s ‘excellent’ saffron cake also contained rose water

Because of their expensive and rich ingredients, saffron buns are associated with celebrations and feast days. On Good Friday (a day associated with spiced buns), they were cut with a cross and brushed with a saffron wash and eaten with clotted cream.[5] At Christmastime, they were made into miniature cottage loaf shapes. They were also a special taste of home: folk of Newquay, when putting together Christmas food parcels to be sent to fighters during the Great War, were sure to include saffron cakes and buns.[6]

If you want to know more about the history of baking, check out my book Knead to Know, published by Icon Books.

 According to Cassell, aside from providing colour and flavour, saffron makes buns or cakes ‘wholesome and palatable’, aids digestion and will ‘drive out intestinal worms’ to boot, and suggests swapping the liquid used in your favourite bun or cake recipe for saffron-steeped hot water that has been allowed to cool to blood heat.[7]

Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world by weight, and there was (and still is) therefore pressure for food manufacturers to use an adulterant such as yellow food colouring or turmeric to offset costs. Real saffron buns are appropriately (but proportionally) more expensive than your regular fruit bun, and according to Elizabeth David, the strands are not strained from their soaking water as one might expect, ‘probably as a visible sign that true saffron has been used.’[8]

But how much saffron to use? Amounts can vary greatly, and Sam Bilton wrestles with this question: she spotted that Elizabeth David complained about people using too much saffron in their cooking – true, it can taste soapy when over-applied – but then asks for four pinches in her recipe for buns![9] Of course, the answer depends upon a few factors: the quality of your saffron, how long it has been sitting in the spice rack, and how much you enjoy the flavour of saffron. My recipe uses ‘a good 2-finger pinch’.

This is what ‘a good 2-finger pinch’ looks like

If you want to know more about the history of saffron in Britain, have a listen to this episode of The British Food History Podcast with guest Sam Bilton:

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.

Recipe

Makes 12 buns.

230 ml full-fat milk, plus extra for brushing.

A good 2-finger pinch of saffron

500 g strong white bread flour, plus extra for rolling

1 tsp/8 g instant yeast

1 tsp/10 g salt

¾ tsp mixed spice or 1½ tsp ground coriander seed

60 g caster sugar

2 eggs, beaten

120 g clotted cream

A little flavourless oil for proving

120 g mixed dried fruit (currants, raisins and sultanas)

Pour the milk into a small saucepan and bring to scalding point. Check to see if a skin has formed on the milk’s surface, if so, remove it before adding the saffron.[10] Whisk in the saffron strands and let the milk cool to ‘blood heat’ (about 40°C).

Mix the flour, yeast, salt, spice/s and sugar in the bowl of a tabletop mixer, make a well in the centre and add the eggs, clotted cream and saffron-infused milk. Attach a kneading hook, mix to combine on a slow speed and then turn up the speed a couple of notches and knead for around 6 minutes, until the mixture is smooth and elastic – it will still be a little sticky.

Add a little oil to a bowl and with oiled hands, gather up your dough into a ball and sit it in the bowl. Cover with cling film or a damp, clean tea towel until it doubles in size. Mine took 2 hours.

Knead the dried fruit into the dough, then divide into 12 (for precision weigh the dough), then line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Roll each piece of dough into tight balls using a very small amount of flour to prevent it sticking and then arrange on the baking tray. Cover and allow to prove – this usually takes a third of the time as the first rising.[11]

Preheat the oven to 200°C and use the steam setting, or place a metal tray on the base of the oven and pour water into it.

Brush the buns with milk and place in the oven for 18 to 20 minutes. If they turn too golden brown, turn down the heat to 175°C.

When ready, remove from the oven and immediately brush with more milk and then throw a double layer of clean tea towels over them and allow to cool.

These are best eaten on the day they were made; any older than that, they should be toasted.

Notes:

[1] Davidson, A. (1999) The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press; Mason, L. and Brown, C. (1999) The Taste of Britain. Devon: Harper Press. It also prompts the question – why are there no famous Essex saffron bakes or dishes? Maybe there is.

[2] Bilton, S. (2022) Fool’s Gold: A History of British Saffron. Prospect Books.

[3] Digby, K. (1669) The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened (1997 reprint). Edited by J. Stevenson and P. Davidson. Prospect Books.

[4] Cassell (1883) Cassell’s dictionary of cookery. Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.; Farley, J. (1783) The London Art of Cookery, and Housekeeper’s Complete Assistant. Price.

[5] Mason & Brown (1999); Bilton (2022).

[6] Bilton (2022).

[7] Cassell (1883)

[8] David, E. (1977) English Bread and Yeast Cookery. Grub Street.

[9] Bilton (2022).

[10] I speak from personal experience here: if you don’t remove the skin, the strands just get caught encapsulated in it.

[11] The best things to use to cover a whole tray of buns are a large shopping “bag for life”, an upturned plastic storage box or a damp, clean tea towel: take your pick.

3 Comments

Filed under baking, bread, cooking, food, General, history, Recipes, Teatime, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

25/05/2025 · 1:13 pm

‘Knead to Know: A History of Baking’ talk now on YouTube

Hello everyone. I do hope your Bank Holiday Weekend is going swimmingly and that you are enjoying the sunshine (& showers!).

I have uploaded my ‘Knead to Know’ Zoom talk from September last year to my YouTube channel. I know there were several people who couldn’t make it on the night. It’s completely unedited except for the Q&A section at the end.

I talked about how I approached writing Knead to Know: A History of Baking by asking myself, “What is baking?”, a trickier and more philosophical question than you might think; the origins and history of the very first bakers; Early Medieval bread and bakers; Yorkshire Christmas Pyes; and the Denby Dale Pie.

I’ll be adding more content to my channel throughout the year, so please give it a follow if you are a YouTube user: click here to view and follow the channel.

Knead to Know: A History of Baking is published by Icon Books and is available from all good bookshops.

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under baking, Books, bread, cooking, food, General, history, Teatime

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

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.

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.

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

7 Comments

Filed under baking, cake, cooking, food, General, Recipes, Teatime, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

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.

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.

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.

10 Comments

Filed under baking, Britain, cooking, food, General, Puddings, Recipes, Teatime

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

14/11/2024 · 7:00 am

Two free talks this December (one online & one in person)

Hello there folks. A very quick post just to let you all know that I am giving two free talks this December.

The first is taking place at Manchester Central Library at 6pm on 5 December and is entitled The History of Pies & Puddings. Because it’s December I shall be looking at some festive examples but also a few other favourites. There will also be some of the library’s antiquarian cookery books to view as part of it. Book your spot here.

The second is a free Zoom talk on 17 December at 7pm (GMT) called The Philosophy of Puddings where I will look at the history of this very British food in the kitchen and in our culture. Will any of your favourites be mentioned? Book your spot here.

There are new events cropping up all of the time so make sure that you check the Upcoming Events tab regularly.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

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.

7 Comments

Filed under Books, Britain, cooking, events, food, General, history, Puddings, Teatime

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

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.

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.

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.

2 Comments

Filed under baking, Britain, cake, cooking, food, General, history, Nineteenth Century, Recipes, Teatime, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under baking, Books, bread, cake, food, Puddings, Teatime, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

28/04/2024 · 7:19 pm

To Make Chelsea Buns

Well hello! Sorry for the long quiet spell, I have been hard at work writing not one, but two books. The manuscripts have been handed in and the usual service can resume. I did keep the podcast going though, so if you’ve not heard the new episodes, listen below:

The books are about baking and puddings, and I’ll tell you more about them later in the year. As I was researching and writing them, I realised that there are recipes I have been meaning to write for you, but, for one reason or another, I have never got around to. Well, I aim to rectify this over the next few months. Top of my pile is the very delicious Chelsea bun, my favourite of the sticky bun tribe.

I recently asked Twitter[1] which was better, cinnamon or Chelsea buns. In my hubris, I expected the Chelsea bun to win easily. It did not, and the main reason it wasn’t picked was that folk didn’t know what one was. Well, today I give you my recipe which I have been working on and I think perfected (I hope you agree).

For those not in the know, a Chelsea bun is a coil of enriched dough filled with butter, sugar and dried fruit. They are batch-cooked together so as they grow, they touch, filling the tin, producing buns that are soft on the sides, gooey at the bottom and brown on the top. They are finished with a sticky glaze and adorned with crunchy sugar. Decadent deliciousness. Jane Grigson wrote that they are ‘[t]he best of all the buns, on account of their buttery melting sweetness, and the fun of uncoiling them as you eat them.’[2]

They were first made at the Bun House in Chelsea at the start of the 18th century, the earliest mention of them cropping up in the 1710s.[3] The buns fell out of favour sometime in the early 20th century and are hard to track down, so if you want to try one, you’ll have to make it.[4]

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.

Recipe

The dough for these buns is sticky and difficult to knead, and I would advise using the dough hook attachment on a stand mixer. Hand-kneading is perfectly possible, it’s just a messy business.

Enriched doughs take longer to prove, so if there is somewhere warm to prove your dough, so much the better.

Makes 12 buns

For the bun dough:

500g strong white flour

5g/1tsp instant yeast

10g/2 level tsp salt

60g sugar (caster or brown)

90g softened butter

250ml warm milk, or half-milk-half-water

1 beaten egg

For the filling:

60g melted butter

90g sugar (caster or brown)

90g raisins and/or currants

40g candied peel

Egg wash

For the glaze:

50ml water

50g caster sugar

Crushed lump sugar (optional)

Make the dough using a stand mixer, if possible: first, mix all of the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Next, make a well in the centre and add the butter, liquid and egg. Mix to combine the ingredients and then knead with a dough hook on a slow-medium speed for around 10 minutes until smooth and the stickiness of the mixture has much reduced. Lightly oil another bowl (and your hands) and turn out the dough, tightening it up into a ball. Cover and prove until at least double in size. I proved mine at room temperature and it took 90 minutes.

As you wait, line a 24 x 34 cm deep-side tray with greaseproof paper, fixing it in place with dots of oil or butter.

Fix the side closest to you by pressing and spreading the doughy edge to the worktop.

When doubled in size, roll or press out the dough out on a lightly-floured surface – it’s still sticky so make sure you reapply flour to your worktop regularly – until you make a rectangle measuring approximately 40 x 60 cm, the dough with its long side facing you. Have patience and try to make the dough of even thickness.

Now apply the filling: lavishly brush the dough with the melted butter, go right up to the back edge, but leave a 1-cm gap on the side edges and 2-cm on the edge facing you.

Next, sprinkle the sugar evenly, then the dried fruit and candied peel.

Now the fun bit: fold the further edge over and start to roll up the dough by lifting and stretching gently before rolling, keeping the coil tight. It is easiest to do this in sections. Keep going until the dough is almost rolled up, then lightly brush the facing edge with a little water.

Using a sharp knife, cut off the two ends[5] – I like a serrated knife for this job – then cut the dough into 9 or 12 pieces. If the knife presses the edges a bit and flattens the coils, don’t worry, they can be easily reshaped by hand.

Arrange your buns in your prepared tin, leaving a good and even gap between them. Cover and allow to prove again: for me, this took 60 minutes.

When they are almost proved, preheat your oven to 200°C. When ready, brush each bun with beaten egg. Slide into the oven and bake for 25 to 3- minutes if baking 12 buns. It’s worth investigating them to check they have baked all the way through.

When they come out of the oven, sit them on a cooling rack in their tin.

Make the glaze by mixing the sugar and water in a pan over a medium heat. Stir to dissolve, increase the heat and bring to a boil, and let it bubble away for 30 seconds. Take off the heat and brush the buns: be lavish. It might take a couple of coats to use up all the glaze. If you like, sprinkle with crushed lump sugar.

[1] I refuse to call it X.

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

[3] David, E. (1977) English Bread and Yeast Cookery. Grub Street.

[4] Mason, L. and Brown, C. (1999) The Taste of Britain. Devon: Harper Press.

[5] Don’t throw these away: cook them separately and have with a cup of tea – baker’s perk!

8 Comments

Filed under baking, bread, Britain, cooking, food, General, history, Recipes, Teatime, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

22/12/2023 · 10:12 am

Edward Kidder’s Early 18th Century Mince Pies

This post complements the 2023 Christmas special of The British Food History Podcast called ‘Mince Pies’:

As promised on this year’s Christmas episode of the podcast, all about mince pies, here is my pastry recipe and method for making the shaped-mince pies in E. Kidder’s Receipts of Pastry and Cookery. It was originally published in 1721, but I used the 1740 edition of the book (here’s a link to the document). If you go to the end of the book, you will see lots of different minced pie templates, just like the ones below. The idea was that you rolled out your pastry and cut a shape out, then made pastry walls, filled them with mincemeat, placed on lid on top and baked it. Really beautiful, but fiddly-looking shapes, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I felt a little nervous making them, so let me at this point, say a massive thank you to Ivan Day for the advice he gave me on shaping these pies. Ivan has an excellent blog with a fascinating article about mince pies (click this link to read it).

In the Christmas episode, I considered making some of the pie designs in Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook (first published in 1660), but I found Edward’s designs much easier to extrapolate into three-dimensional pies! However, here are a few from May’s book to give you an idea of the sorts of minced pies he was making:

The Materials

The first thing you need to do is get organised with your templates. I simply took screenshots of the book, printed them out and cut them out. You can make them any size you like. My shapes were around 10cm wide, and I went for the ones that looked the easiest!

Then you need the correct tools for the job. I have collected over the years various pastry tools, both antique and modern. The wheels are called jiggers, which are used for cutting pastry. The antique ones usually come with a crimping tool attached, and these are used to fuse two pieces of pastry. The one I own with what looks like a flat pair of tweezers was particularly helpful for the pies I made here. I used a paring knife to cut out the shapes – the jiggers weren’t appropriate for these smaller pies.

Jiggers do come in handy for cutting out the pastry walls – essentially strips of pastry – I have a tool that’s made up of 5 jiggers on one expandable frame so you can cut several strips of the same thickness in one go.

That’s the tools of the trade, but now let’s look at our ingredients: we need mincemeat (I used the lamb mincemeat, recipe here) but you can use any you like.[1] Then we need some pastry that is mouldable (we don’t want the walls collapsing in the oven!) yet edible.

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.

Mouldable Hot Water Pastry

I came up with the following recipe, based on one given by Jane Grigson in English Food.[2] It’s very good for moulding, but not particularly delicious, I made a few changes and I think it’s pretty good. It is simple to make, and this was enough for 8 to 10 pies, depending upon how large your templates are (you could, of course, make one large one!)

500 g plain flour

125 g salted butter, diced

125 g lard, diced

75 ml hot water

2 tbs icing sugar

First, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Put the lard in a saucepan and pour the hot water over it. Heat gently, but be careful – you don’t want it to boil and splutter. Stir in the icing sugar and when it is dissolved, make a well in the centre of the flour-butter mixture and pour into it three-quarters of the hot liquid. Cut the liquid in with a knife, then pour the remaining hot liquid to pour over any dry patches that remain. Once all of the water has been added, give the pastry a knead (leave it to cool a little if you need to). It should be smooth, pliable and waxy. Cover with cling film and allow to cool completely, but do not refrigerate.

Constructing the Pies

Now you can roll out a third of the pastry thinly – aim for the thickness of a pound coin, 2 to 3 millimetres – and cut out your bases. Now roll out another third into a long strip, long enough to go around the perimeter of your shapes. To do this, use a piece of string to trace around the shape. When the appropriate length, use a ruler to cut your strips at your desired thickness. I went for 2 cm, but I could have gone thicker than that, I think.

Now the fiddly bit: brush the edges of the bases with plain water and glue the sides on. Use your finger and thumb to pinch them together, and then crimp them with a crimper tool if you have one. Repeat with all of your shapes and place in the fridge for a few hours to firm up. When firm, roll out the final third of the pastry and cut out your lids.

Fill your pies with your chosen mincemeat, brush the rims of your pies with water and fix on the lids in the same way as you did the bases. Make a steam hole and place back in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up again. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 200°C.

If you like, brush your pies with an egg wash before you bake them for 25 minutes, or until a good golden-brown colour. If you are making large pies, turn the heat down to 175°C and cook longer: you should see or hear the filling bubbling, telling you it is ready!

Notes:

[1] Though it is best to use a low-sugar recipe, not a gloopy one from the supermarket shelves. I recommend Jane Grigson’s orange mincemeat or Mrs Beeton’s traditional mincemeat.

[2] See Oldbury Gooseberry Tarts on the other blog.

Leave a comment

Filed under baking, Britain, cooking, Eighteenth Century, food, General, history, Recipes, Teatime, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

28/07/2023 · 9:39 am

Malt Loaf

I have been meaning to give you this recipe for that most beloved of teatime treats, the humble malt loaf for ages; indeed, I have had a jar of malt syrup sitting in my food cupboard for at least three years I bought especially for this post. Well, hopefully, it’s a case of ‘the best things come to those who wait’.

For those of you unaware of this stalwart of the British teatime spread, let me explain what it is. It is a member of a tribe of baked goods known as tea loaves. They are tea loaves because they’re eaten at teatime, but also because they contain tea. They are easy to make and also contain dried fruit, and usually do not contain any butter, and should instead be eaten spread liberally with it. They are loaf-shaped but are a type of cake. A malt loaf specifically is made with malt syrup and black treacle, and like Yorkshire parkin, it needs to be left awhile to turn nice and sticky. Before we get to the recipe, let’s have a look at the history.

Looking into the origins of the malt loaf has been rather difficult; I can find a recipe for malt loaf in the June 1930 edition of the Derbyshire Times and Cheshire Herald. It sounds like a malt loaf: dark and sticky, but black treacle is used not malt syrup.1 It seems to be called a ‘malt’ loaf because of the brown, malted flour used, which is not the same. Other malt loaves certainly contained malt syrup; beloved British brands Hovis and Allinson made them. However, these loaves were of the regular sort: loaves of white bread ‘improved’ by the addition of malt syrup.2,3 The malt syrup improved the colour and flavour and produced a moister loaf. Again, not the same.

John Sorenson’s original Beswick shop (pic: Manchester Libraries)

And so, we must turn to the iconic Soreen malt loaf, which has been baked in Manchester since the 1930s. The recipe, which has supposedly never changed, was invented by Danish immigrant John Rahbak Sorenson who lived in Hulme, Manchester. He first opened a business selling bakery equipment, before starting his own bakery in Beswick, where he sold his ‘Sorenson Malt Loaf’. He sold the business in 1938, but the loaf continued to be baked, the only thing that changed was its name.4 Today, the factory resides in Trafford Park (home to Manchester United FC), where it cranks out 300,000 loaves of Soreen per day.5

Their recipe is a secret, but we do know that they use wholemeal flour; in fact, it is because of the inclusion of wholemeal flour that Soreen is marketed as a health food.4 That it is sticky with sugary syrups undoes this claim somewhat, but the combination of easily digested sugars and slow-release complex carbohydrates apparently make Soreen a favourite food for athletes.

Well, their recipe is a secret, but mine is not and it’s a tried-and-tested one. I used to make these sticky loaves for my little traditional market stall back in the day, and the recipe is based on one which appears in Gary Rhodes’ excellent book New British Classics.6 It is easy to make, but I must advise you about the flour: it must be sifted. It’s one of my most hated kitchen tasks, and I avoid it whenever possible, but in this case it is necessary. Wholemeal flour does tend to clump in the bag and seeing that the wet and dry ingredients need only the briefest of mixing, you need to be sure your flour is lump-free. That said, don’t forget to tip the bran left behind in the sieve back into the sifted flour.

Subscribe to get access

This recipes is for my £3 monthly subscribers. Read more of this content when you subscribe today and support the blogs and podcast. Subscribers get access to special blog posts, Easter eggs from my podcast, and a monthly newsletter. You can become a subscriber by following this link.

Subscribe

References

  1. Hughes, G. Malt Loaf. The Foods of England Project; http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/maltloaf.htm.
  2. Oddy, D. J. From Plain Fare to Fusion Food: British Diet from the 1890s to the 1990s. (Boydell Press, 2003).
  3. David, E. English Bread and Yeast Cookery. (Grub Street, 1977).
  4. Hovis: Our Story. http://www.soreen.com/our-history/.
  5. Greer, S. Inside the Soreen malt loaf factory in Manchester. Manchester Evening News (2018).
  6. Rhodes, G. New British Classics. (Random House, 2006).

11 Comments

Filed under baking, bread, Britain, cake, cooking, food, General, history, Recipes, Teatime, Twentieth Century, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,