golden brown. Then they are drained and dusted with icing sugar.
REGION OF PRODUCTION:
SOUTH ENGLAND, ISLE OF WIGHT.
Cider Cake
DESCRIPTION:
A CIRCULAR CAKE (OCCASIONALLY SQUARE), 140-200MM DIAMETER, 30-40MM DEEP. WEIGHT: 450-700G. COLOUR: PALE GOLDEN EXTERIOR, DEEP CREAM CRUMB. FLAVOUR: RICH, WITH AFTERTASTE OF CIDER; SOMETIMES SPICED AND WITH DRIED FRUIT.
HISTORY:
Elizabeth Ayrton (1982) remarks that cider cake is often met in Oxfordshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, that several recipes from the 1800s are known and that they all use bicarbonate of soda as a raising agent. In this form, the cake cannot date much before the 1850s, when baking soda was first used as a leaven. The technique for mixing the cake is also relatively modern. There is a possible connection between cider cakes and vinegar cakes. These last rely on bicarbonate of soda neutralized by the acetic acid in vinegar to make them rise; English cider, which is very dry and rather acid, makes a good alternative. Cider cakes are made in all cider-producing counties, and are sometimes called after the relevant county. Examples are recorded from Suffolk, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester, and Oxford.
TECHNIQUE:
Flour, butter and sugar are used in the proportions 2:1:1. Some add spices; nutmeg is the most common. There are 2 methods of mixing. The first sees the fat rubbed into the flour, the sugar stirred through, and eggs, cider, dried fruit and nuts added as required. The second is more elaborate: the butter and sugar are beaten together until fluffy, mixed with eggs and beaten again. Then half the flour, combined with spice and bicarbonate of soda, is beaten in. The cider is added, and the mixture stirred until it begins to froth. The remaining flour is immediately stirred through. The cake is baked at 200°C for 40-50 minutes.
REGION OF PRODUCTION:
SOUTH ENGLAND.
Lardy Cake
DESCRIPTION:
RECTANGULAR OR ROUND CAKES; ONE FROM OXFORD WAS 180MM LONG, 110MM WIDE, 30MM DEEP; ONE FROM GLOUCESTER WAS A LOOSE SPIRAL 160MM DIAMETER, 40MM DEEP. WEIGHT: THE OXFORD EXAMPLE WAS 500G, THE GLOUCESTER 250G. COLOUR: DEEP GOLD, STICKY AND SHINY UNDERNEATH, SPECKLED WITH DRIED FRUIT, PALE, ALMOST WHITE CRUMB; THE CAKE RANGES FROM LAYERED AND FLAKY PUFF PASTRY TO A SIMPLE, ROLLED SHEET OF DOUGH. FLAVOUR AND TEXTURE: SWEET WITH A FLAKY APPEARANCE WHEN CUT; SOLID, CHEWY.
HISTORY:
This cake is based on lard, the fat most commonly used in pig-rearing regions of Britain, which is incorporated into dough taken from the main batch at bread making. Wright (1896-1905) associates it with Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire but it was more widely known than that. Most counties appear to have made a version at one time, and they varied a little according to the fat used. Some called for the ‘flead’ or ‘flare’ - the kidney fat - to be used raw. Others used scratchings, the residue after fat has been rendered. Mayhew (1851) records trays of flare cakes for sale on the streets of London. As a food of the poor and of country people, lardy cakes escaped the attention of many early recipe collectors. They are now principally identified with the South, especially north and west of London. There are differences, especially in shape, between counties, but not of basic principle. Variant names include shaley or sharley cake (Wiltshire); dripping cake or ‘drips’ (Gloucestershire); bread cake (Shropshire). Apples or spices such as cinnamon may be included for variety.
TECHNIQUE:
Home cooks tend to make richer cakes than commercial bakers. Ingredients are dough, sugar, lard and mixed fruit and peel in the ratio of 3 or 4:1:1:1. The dough is taken from the main batch after bulk fermentation and rolled into a rectangle; two thirds of this is spread with one third of the lard, and scattered with one third of the fruit and peel and one third of the sugar; the dough is folded and turned, and the process repeated twice. The final turn is arranged so the dough is shaped into a roll. The cake may then be scored for later cutting. It is proved for 1 hour and baked for 45 minutes at 220°C. It is turned upside down to cool to prevent it sticking; this is said to encourage the lard to run back through the cake.
REGION OF PRODUCTION:
SOUTH ENGLAND, WILTSHIRE.
COMPARE WITH:
Dough Cake, South West England (p. 38).
Barley Wine: Thomas Hardy’s Ale
DESCRIPTION:
COLOUR VARIES ACCORDING TO AGE BUT IS OFTEN A DEEP COPPERY BROWN WITH A HEAVY AND MALTY FLAVOUR. THOMAS HARDY’S ALE IS SWEET, HEAVY BODIED, WITH FRUIT AND CHOCOLATE OVERTONES. IT IS 12 PER CENT ALCOHOL BY VOLUME, STRONGER THAN ANY NORMAL BEER AND MANY WINES.
HISTORY:
Earliest references to barley wine by name date from the twentieth century (OED). Jackson (1993) considers, ‘the romantic term “barley wine” may have been coined by rural home-brewers to describe their most impressively potent efforts’. There is no evidence that the name came from the use of wine yeasts. It is now often employed by brewers to describe their strongest ale, but the style is older than the name. It is kin to the dark beers known earlier as porter. The archaic northern dialect word ‘stingo’ has also been used. In Scotland, such powerful beers are known as ‘wee heavy’.
Dorchester developed as a centre of the brewing industry during the eighteenth century, due partly to a chalk aquifer in the strata below the town. Richard Bradley (1736) wrote of its fine beer with ‘a strength of malt and hops in it’ to last 4 years. ‘[It] is esteem’d prefereable to most of the Malt-Liquor in England,’ he continued, ‘[for] it is for the most part brew’d of chalky water.’
Hardy himself wrote a lyrical description of Dorchester ale in The Trumpet Major (1880). The drink which now bears his name, however, is recent: developed in 1968 to honour the then prime minister, Harold Macmillan, whose family was Hardy’s publisher. Breweries who produce barley wines often give them names of characters, fictional or real. Eldridge Pope, the brewers of this beer, were founded in 1837.
When I got my first job on a newspaper it was as cookery writer for the Daily Mail, and I was lucky not to lose it in the first month. I had written a recipe for Oxford Marmalade - you know the one: made with bitter Seville oranges, chunky and dark with treacle - but I had written it by hand and forgotten to cross the ‘t’ in treacle. This meant that ‘2 tbs’ was printed as ‘2 lbs’. Since the rest of the ingredients only amounted to ten oranges and a kilo of sugar, this had disaster potential. And a disaster it was.
You would not believe the number of people who just accept what they read in newspapers. The Daily Mail switchboard went white-hot with complaints about the black caramel in readers’ saucepans. We had to reimburse readers for a lot of ingredient costs and quite a few saucepans which were damaged beyond repair. So when a woman rang up and suggested we let her know how much extra sugar and how many extra oranges she should add to the mixture to get the proportions right again, I thought, ‘Good, this is how we rescue the situation - we just get everyone to make extra marmalade for next year, plus a few pots for the village fête and so on.’ Until, that is, we worked out that each reader would need to make about eighty jars of marmalade. We reimbursed her like everyone else.
The day after publication I found what looked like a letter bomb on my desk. Well, I knew I’d got the recipe wrong, but I thought bombing was going a bit far. I could tell it was a bomb because, this being the time of the IRA letter bomb campaign, we’d all had bomb training. If you got a suspicious package,