Good Things in England - A Practical Cookery Book for Everyday Use, Containing Traditional and Regional Recipes Suited to Modern Tastes. Florence White
INGREDIENTS: Flour 1 1/2 lb.; clarified dripping 1/4 lb.; moist sugar 1/4 lb.; currants 1/4 lb.; raisins 1/4 lb.; mixed peel cut small 2 oz.; compressed yeast 1 oz.; milk 1 pint.
TIME: 1/2 hour to rise; 2 hours to bake.
METHOD
1.Rub the fat into the flour.
2.Clean the currants.
3.Stone the raisins.
4.Cut the peel small, and add the sugar, currants, raisins, peel, to the flour.
5.Mix well.
6.Cream the yeast with a little sugar, warm the milk and add that.
7.Use this to make the dry ingredients into a dough.
8.Divide into four.
9.Put into warmed slightly greased tins.
10.Leave to rise by the fire 1/2 hour.
11.Bake 2 hours in a moderate oven.
Gipsy Bread or Spiced Bread
Given by Miss Chappell, Dipley, Hartley Wintney, Hants, to Mrs. (Dorothy) Allhusen
INGREDIENTS: Flour 1 1/4 lb.; brown sugar 1/2 lb.; sultanas 1/2 lb.; grated peel 2 oz.; mixed spice 1/2 teaspoonful; ground ginger, a good teaspoonful; black treacle 3/4 lb.; eggs 3; milk 1 1/2 gills; 1/2 teaspoonful bicarbonate of soda. Two good-sized cake tins greased and floured, each large enough to hold 2 lb. of cake.
TIME: about 2 hours to bake.
METHOD
1.Mix dry ingredients – flour, sugar, sultanas (cleaned and dried), peel, spice, ginger - all together.
2.Warm the treacle with 1 gill of the milk.
3.Whisk the eggs well.
4.Whisk in the treacle and milk.
5.Mix this with the dry ingredients.
6.Finally, when the cake is well mixed, dissolve the 1/2 teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda in the remaining 1/2 gill of milk and sprinkle it all over the cake batter.
7.Mix quickly and well so that the soda is well incorporated, and put half the quantity into each tin.
8.Bake in a slow oven till done. It will take at least 2 hours.
Yorkshire Spiced Loaf
A very old receipt
This comes by way of Ross-on-Wye.
INGREDIENTS: Flour 1 lb.; butter 4 oz.; currants 1/2 lb.; raisins 2 oz.; raw sugar 4 oz.; treacle 1 oz.; eggs 1; compressed yeast 1 oz.; lemon peel and candied peel to taste; new milk to mix, about 1/2 pint.
TIME: bake about 2 hours.
METHOD
1.Rub butter into flour.
2.Add sugar, currants and raisins stoned and well-chopped, also candied lemon and orange peel.
3.Mix well.
4.Warm treacle and milk separately.
5.Dissolve the yeast in half the warm milk.
6.Beat up the rest of the milk with the egg.
7.Now stir the warm treacle into the dry ingredients, then the egg and milk, and finally the milk and yeast. Beat well, put into a greased bread tin and bake in a very moderate oven very slowly and carefully. This need not be put to ‘prove’ as it will rise in the rather slow oven.
Ripon Recipes
These have been very kindly lent by Mr. Herbert M. Bower who retains the copyright of all the recipes he sends of the good things familiar to him in his old home at Ripon: Christmas Bread, Christmas Spice Bread (like Yule cake); Plum Cake or Christmas Cake; Frumenty for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve; Parkin for November 5th; Wilfra Tarts for Wilfra or Wilfred week in August, and, for all seasons, Ginger Cake. The other recipes will be found in the sections to which they belong.
Ripon Christmas Bread
INGREDIENTS: Bread dough 2 lb.; lard 6 oz.; raisins 4 oz.; candied peel 2 oz.; sugar 4 oz.; cleaned currants 1/2 lb.; allspice 1/2 teaspoonful.
TIME: bake 2 hours in moderate oven.
METHOD
1.Mix the lard into the dough with the hand, then —
2.All the other ingredients.
3.Mix very well.
4.Put in greased bread tins.
5.Put to rise in warm place.
6.Then bake 2 hours in moderate oven.
Ripon Spice Bread
Like Yule Cake
Mr. Herbert M. Bower’s recipe for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
INGREDIENTS: Bread dough 2 lb.; lard 1/2 lb.; raisins 1/2 lb.; currants 1/2 lb.; sugar 1/2 lb.; candied peel 2 oz.; allspice 1 teaspoonful.
TIME: to rise 1 hour; bake in slow oven 1 hour.
METHOD
1.Melt the lard in a stewpan, and then
2.Mix it well into the dough with the hand.
3.Add the other ingredients.
4.When well mixed place it before the fire in a bread tin, and let it rise for 1 hour.
5.Then bake in a slow oven for about 1 hour or longer.
Manchets
Gervase Markham, Nottinghamshire, 1615
‘Your best and principal bread is Manchet, which you shall bake in this manner: First, your meal being ground upon the black stones, if it be possible, which makes the whitest flower, and passed through the finest boulting cloth, you shall put it into a clean kimnel, and opening the flower hollow in the midst, put into it of the best ale-brew, the quantity of 3 pints to a bushel of meal, and some salt to season it with; then put in your liquor reasonable warm, and knead it very well together with both your hands, and through the brake, or for want thereof, fold it in a cloth, and with your feet tread it a good space together, then letting it lye an hour or thereabouts to swel, take it forth and mould it into Manchets round and flat, scotch them about the waste to give it leave to rise, and prick it with your knife in the top, and so put it into the oven, and bake it with a gentle heat.’
Manchetts for the Queen’s Maides
From Ordinances made at Eltham in the 17th year of King Henry VIII
‘In the morning one chet lofe, one manchet, one gallon of ale; for afterwards one manchett, one gallon of ale; for after supper one chet lofe, one manchet, two gallons of ale, dim’pitcher of wine.’
Apparently only dukes and duchesses, and such people, the master of the household, clerks of the kitchen and maids of honour, were served with manchets. The date is 1526, and this information is taken from the Harleian M.S., No. 642, British Museum. It is inserted because a correspondent wished to know when manchets were served at Court and in whose reign.
Lady Arundel’s Manchet
1676