Soul Cakes, take one and two

When Mary Ricksen mentioned soul cakes in a Hallowe’en blog this month, I couldn’t resist finding out more about these treats that, in the olden days, were given out in exchange for prayers for the dead.

There are about a gazillion recipes on line. It seems that any kind of cookie or bun, preferably with some kind of dried fruit involved, can be called a soul cake. Many are unleavened. I’m not used to baking without some kind of leavening agent; generally, I do fine with baking powder and baking soda, but haven’t had much success with yeast. Still, since I found so many recipes for unleavened soul cakes, I went ahead and tried one, following the recipe fairly closely (an accomplishment for me). They tasted all right, but were dense and quite hard. I gave them a C and won’t bother posting the recipe. (But I’m not picky. I ate them all.)

Next, I decided to try one of the recipes that called for yeast, because I figured (given my past experience) that it was less likely to work for me, which made it more fun.

Back up for a second. Actually, the recipe called for ale barm as a leavening agent. Whoa! Ale barm?? Turns out barm is the frothy stuff on beer or ale (for more info, try Wikipedia) and is the source of the word “barmy,” which I’d always taken to mean “crazy.” Which it does, but since it derives from a word for air-filled froth, I wonder if originally it meant something more like air-headed or empty-headed… or if there are nuances to the word that I never knew about…and I adore nuances…but I digress.) The recipe also used sack as a liquid ingredient. Since I didn’t have the ale barm (or ale, for that matter) or sack, but since I do like the flavor of beer, I used non-alcoholic beer as my liquid.

The recipe had been adapted from an olden day recipe of the kind I like best, where the quantities are vague and the instructions brief. Recipes that tell you exactly how much of what to use, followed by detailed instructions, are far more likely to produce a predictable result, but age has drastically lessened my ability to be obedient. You can find the original barmy version and the adaptation using yeast at godecookery.com. (This is a very cool site if you’re into old-fashioned cookery. I fully intend to explore it more.)

I had bought some packets of yeast but couldn’t find them, so I had to use some old and possibly inactive yeast that had been sitting in the fridge for a couple of years. (Needless to say, the new packets were later found to be hiding in plain sight.)

¼ cup lukewarm water

1 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. yeast

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (white flour might make the result a little lighter, although I must say that generally whole wheat pastry flour works fine for biscuits and cakes)

1/3 cup brown sugar, or more if you want them to be sweeter

A mixture of ground spices. I used ¼ tsp. cloves, ¼ tsp. nutmeg, and ¼ tsp. allspice. The original called for mace (which I’m out of) and I’m a little tired of cinnamon. On the other hand, I have tons of 10-year-old allspice which needs to be used up. (Or thrown away, but I didn’t throw away the C-grade soul cakes, and I’m not throwing the allspice away, either.)

½ cup currants

2 tablespoons soft butter

Non-alcoholic beer

Mix the sugar and yeast into the lukewarm water and let it sit until it froths up a bit. I have no idea how much it should froth, because I’m such an amateur when it comes to yeast. It has to froth some, though, or it’s inactive. Which I’ve always assumed, where yeast is concerned, to be a euphemism for “dead.” Now, on Hallowe’en it would be perfectly proper for dead yeast to rise…but again, I digress.

Combine the dry ingredients. Add the butter, yeast mixture, and enough beer to make a ball of dough – not too sticky, not too dry. Leave the dough in the bowl, cover it, and let it rise in a warm place for a while. Then roll it on a floured surface to about ½” thick and cut into rounds. Set on a greased baking sheet for a few minutes while you preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake for about fifteen minutes.

These soul cakes were both pretty and pretty good. They might have been lighter and better if I’d used new yeast. (Or maybe just more yeast. Note to self: do research on proportion of yeast to flour). I gave them a B and ate them all up with butter, honey, jam… Yum.