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Soul Cakes- a Halloween tradition
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Featured October 31 , 2007
Soul Cakes Soul cake background and image Courtesy of Carol-- her photograph http://www.dragonsea.net/visualpoetry/pic.php?id=82&page=creativity permission granted for use. http://guildofstgeorge.com/recipes.htm Lady Fettiplace's
Recipe for
Cakes (Translation: For two dozen buns or
cakes, quantities are 1 lb. flour, 2 oz.
sugar, a generous pinch each of freshly ground nutmeg, powdered cloves and
mace, 4 oz. butter, about 1/2 pint sack (use sherry well diluted in water),
and 1 oz. yeast. The buns will be rather dull unless you include either 4 oz.
currants or about 1/2 teaspoonful of saffron filaments. [Lady Fettiplace's
recipe is not specified to be Soul
Cakes, but is very similar to later recipes
that are so labelled. In the 16th century, it was more common to use ale barm
as the raising agent than yeast, which became the rule later.] Yeast Soul
Cakes US equivalents: about 9 cups flour; 1/2 or 1
cup butter (2 or 4 sticks); 1 cup sugar; 2 oz. yeast (4 tsp dry); 2 eggs;
allspice; milk (say about 3 cups).
Pre-set oven to 350 degrees F. Soak saffron in
a little warmed milk. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg yolks. Sieve flour,
salt, and spices together and add to mixture. Lastly add currants and drained
saffron milk. Add more milk if necessary, to make a soft dough. Make into flat
cakes, mark each one across top, and bake on
a greased baking tray in pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes or until brown.
Soul Cakes From:http://www.catholicculture.org/lit/recipes/view.cfm?id=1378
Yield: 18-24 cakes, according to size INGREDIENTS Cream shortening and sugar. Dissolve yeast in
1/2 cup lukewarm water to which a teaspoon of sugar has been added. Set aside.
Scald milk and add to the creamed mixture. When cooled add yeast mixture and
stir until thoroughly blended. Sift together flour, salt, and spices, and add
gradually to other ingredients, kneading into a soft dough. Set sponge to rise
in warm place in greased covered bowl. When doubled in bulk, shape into small
round or oval buns. Brush tops with slightly beaten egg white. Bake in
moderately hot oven (400° F.) for 15 minutes. Drop temperature to 350 ° F. and
bake until delicately browned and thoroughly done. The old English custom of "soul-caking," or "souling,"
originated in pre-Reformation days, when singers went about on All Saints' Day
and All Souls' Day, November 1 and 2, to beg for cakes in remembrance of the
dead. The "soulers," as the singers were called, droned out their ditties
repeatedly, tonelessly, without pause or variation. Doubtless Shakespeare was
familiar with the whining songs because Speed, in Two Gentlemen of Verona,
observes tartly that one of the "special marks" of a man in love is "to speak
puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas." Allhallows e'en, or eve, a night
of pranks and fun in North Country homes, was celebrated with many wholesome
games. Young people, for example, read future events from the way roasting
chestnuts sputtered and jumped next to the red-hot coals. They bobbed for
apples and flung snakelike apple parings behind themselves, to learn the
initials of future mates. Our British ancestors brought these old folk
practices to the New World, where generations of adolescents have observed
them on the night that witches traditionally ride broomsticks and hobgoblins
venture abroad. But long before the last night
of October was an acknowledged time for juvenile merrymaking, the Druids
celebrated the festival of Samhain, or Summer's End, to honor the dying sun.
This was the season of prayer, augury, and human sacrifice, for evil spirits
walked on earth and sought dominion over souls of men. It was not until the
fourth century that Allhallows, the mass for Christian saints, supplanted
these pagan ceremonies for the sun god. Another six hundred years elapsed
before the Druid death-feast finally became All Souls', the day of prayer for
the departed. Soul cakes and souling customs
vary from county to county, but souling practices always flourished best along
the Welsh border. Even there, the custom is rapidly dying out. In hamlets of
Shropshire and Cheshire, in parts of the Midlands, and Lancashire one
sometimes hears the soulers chanting old rhymes such as: Soul! Soul! for an apple or two! Soul cakes were of different
kinds. Formerly, some cakes were flat and oval. Others were plump and bunlike.
There was a spiced-sweetened variety, and the sort that resembled a small
fruit cake. All were rich with milk and eggs. Soul cakes as adapted to
American tastes from early English recipes, make delicate tea-time or party
buns. Instead of the saffron and allspice of the original cakes, use a few
drops of yellow vegetable coloring as well as nutmeg and cinnamon. The following recipe is an
adaptation of an old Shropshire formula. The light fluffy buns, delicious for
any occasion, are especially appropriate for Halloween. Serve them hot, with
plenty of butter and strawberry or raspberry jam. Accompany them with mugs of
cider; or with hot chocolate, topped with marshmallows, for the young; or with
coffee or tea for those who are older. Recipe Source:
Feast-Day Cakes from Many Lands by Dorothy Gladys
Spicer, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960 Get your Soul Cake plaque here!
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