A Soul! A Soul! A Soul Cake!

Soul cake with perry - not an ingredient, just a good accompaniment

As you may be aware, yesterday was All Souls' Day. As I mentioned in my Halloween post last year, it was traditional on this day for people to hand out soul cakes to 'soulers', people who went around singing and praying for the dead. So I thought this year that I would make some soul cakes myself, as a good activity following an evening requiem service at church.

My understanding is that there are many variations on soul cakes... which isn't at all surprising when you consider that the concept dates back to the medieval period, when people around the UK couldn't just look up a recipe on the internet and see what them in the next county were cooking. The thing that unites them seems to be sweet spices and dried fruit.

Here is the recipe I used, taken from the blog Lavender and Lovage:

Ingredients:

175g butter

175g caster sugar

3 egg yolks

450g plain flour

2 teaspoons mixed spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger)

100g currants

(a little milk to mix)

Step 1:

Pre-heat oven to 180c.

Step 2: 

Cream the butter and sugar together, and then beat in the egg yolks.

Step 3:

Sift the flour and mixed spice into the mixture. 

(At this point I realised that the mixed spice I'd bought had coriander in it... Although the person who I had in mind as I baked very much liked coriander, I wasn't sure how it would go in sweet cookies. Fortunately I had whole nutmegs and ground cinnamon and ginger in my cupboard. So I grated some nutmeg, spread the measure between the three spices and the day was saved...)

Step 4:

Stir in the currants and add enough milk to make a soft dough, similar to scones. 

(I only added the tiniest dash of milk for luck, and then added up probably compensating when I floured things up as a rolled the dough out... So long story short is that milk may not even be necessary. Play it by feel.)

Step 5: 

Roll (or pat, if you're like me and don't have a rolling pin) the dough out on a floured surface. If you have a round biscuit cutter, use this. If you're like me and don't, roll into balls and then squish flat. You should get about 12. Place on a greased or/or lined baking tray and mark with a cross.

Step 6:

Bake the cakes for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack (... if you have one...)

Step 7:

Eat and/or distribute to family, friends and neighbours. Enjoy with a drink and make a toast to loved ones who have gone ahead of us.

A Firecracker of a Cupcake

It's Guy Fawkes Night! I wore my best sparkly top to work in honour of the day, with its evening promises of joyous, wonderful and magical fireworks going off in all directions.

As well as being Guy Fawkes Night (or Bonfire Night), today is also the birthday of one of my dear friends. All her recent time has been occupied with pulling together a portfolio for a big, impressive professional qualification, which she was submitting today. So, figuring that baking a birthday cake would be the last thing on her mind as she applied the finishing touches last night, I took it upon myself to bake one for her... or rather, a series of wee cupcakes.

But I couldn't overlook the fact that it was also Guy Fawkes as well, so I attempted to give them a fireworky look, with edible glitter and pearly things.

Not being sure what her favourite type of cake was, I just went with chocolate cake. Everyone likes chocolate cake, right? And the recipe (found on BBC Good Food and reproduced below) was dead easy. It was the beautifying of the cupcakes that was the most taxing, as I vainly attempted to make convincing starbursts...

Ingredients:

200g butter

200g plain chocolate (up to 70% cocoa solids)

200g light, soft brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

250g self-raising flour

For icing:

200g plain chocolate

100ml double-cream (I used extra thick double-cream...) 

50g icing sugar 

Method:

Heat the oven to 160C/140C fan and line a muffin tin with cupcake cases. Gently melt the butter, chocolate, sugar and 100ml hot water together in a saucepan, stirring occasionally, then set aside to cool a little while you weigh the other ingredients.

Stir the eggs and vanilla extract into the chocolate mixture. Put the flour into a large mixing bowl, then stir in the chocolate mixture until smooth. Spoon into cases until just over three-quarters full, then set aside for 5 minutes before putting on a low shelf in the overn and baking for 20-22 minutes.

For the icing, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Once melted, turn off the heat, stir in the cream and sift in the icing sugar. 

Happy Bonfire Night! Hope everyone in the UK has a lovely night, celebrating and enjoying it in whatever way you choose. And I encourage everyone else around the world, wherever you are, to twirl a sparkler or bake some sparkly cakes, in your own personal celebration of early November.