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Saffron Cakes or Buns
Loaves, cakes, or buns mixed with a little saffron-water will be found both wholesome and palatable. The medicinal quality of saffron is stimulant, and its tendency is to help digestion. It is said to kill or drive out intestinal worms. To make the saffron-water, infuse a small quantity of saffron in a little water. After a few minutes, strain the liquor, and add a spoonful or two to an ordinary cake. Be sure that the latter rises well. The cake after baking will retain the taste and smell of the saffron, and will have a rich appearance.
This is less a formula than a method note: make a saffron infusion, add it to a dough or batter you already trust. The vagueness is the main obstacle, so the quantities below are the ones that matter.
- How much saffron"A small quantity" is unhelpfully open. For a cake or a batch of buns using about 1 lb (450 g) of flour, a generous pinch — roughly 0.1 to 0.2 g — gives clear colour and a distinct but not medicinal flavour. Thread counts vary with the grade, so weigh it if you can. Saffron is potent and bitter in excess; more is not better.
- Infuse in hot water, and for longer"A few minutes" in cold water will barely tint the liquid. Crumble or lightly crush the threads, pour over 2 to 3 tablespoons of just-boiled water, and leave at least 20 minutes, or overnight for the deepest colour. Warm milk works equally well if the dough takes milk.
- Do not strain out the threadsStraining is optional -- The recipe says to strain, without saying why. The exhausted threads carry flavour and colour of their own, and many bakers now tip them in with the liquid.
- Account for the extra liquidA spoonful or two of infusion added to a fixed recipe will loosen the mixture. Hold back an equal amount of the milk or water the recipe already calls for rather than adding on top.
- "Be sure that the latter rises well"Saffron buns in the English tradition are generally enriched yeast doughs. Give a yeasted dough a full first rise and a proper second proof; if using a chemical-raised cake batter, get it into the oven promptly.
- OvenNo temperature is given. Small enriched buns want a hot oven, around 400-425F (200-220C), for 15 to 20 minutes; a single large cake or loaf wants a moderate oven, 350F (180C), for 40 minutes or more.
- The medical claimsSaffron as a stimulant, a digestive aid and a vermifuge belongs to the old materia medica, not to current evidence. Treat it as a colouring and flavouring. Culinary pinches are harmless; adverse effects are reported only at doses of several grams, far beyond any kitchen use, though the vagueness here is still worth replacing with a weighed pinch.
- ColourReal saffron gives a warm gold to orange-gold rather than a flat bright orange. Cheap bright orange powder sold as saffron is often safflower or turmeric, which will add colour without the honeyed, hay-like aroma.
Saffron is the dried stigma of Crocus sativus, and its use in English baking is much older than this book: the crocus was cultivated in East Anglia from the late medieval period, giving Saffron Walden its name, and the trade left its clearest culinary trace in Cornwall, where saffron buns and saffron cake are still associated with Easter and with harvest and fair days. The Cornish connection is often attributed to Phoenician tin traders, a story generally traced to nineteenth-century antiquarians rather than to any evidence. What is striking about Cassell's entry is that it argues for saffron on medical grounds wentative? wholesome, stimulant, digestive, anthelmintic rather than on grounds of taste. That framing may reflect a habit of mind in which spices and aromatics were still half-understood as drugs, and in which a cake could be recommended for what it did to the reader as much as for how it ate.