Home › The Principles of Cookery › SALLYLUNNS (another way)
SALLYLUNNS (another way)
Take two pounds of flour, one pint of milk, four eggs, and two spoonfuls of yeast; make a paste with these ingredients, and work until well risen. Then knead into it a pound of butter and a little salt; let it stand an hour, then bake, and rasp the top. A little pounded sugar to taste may be added to the above ingredients.
A brioche-style yeast bread in all but name: two pounds of flour carrying a pound of butter, four eggs and a pint of milk. The instructions assume knowledge the modern cook has to supply, chiefly the oven and the yeast.
- The hinge: butter goes in after the first riseThe dough is fermented lean, then a pound of butter is kneaded in, as is usual for brioche. A large quantity of fat added at the start tends to slow the rise and give a heavier crumb, and butter worked in cold will tear the dough, so cool room temperature, added in several pieces, is easiest.
- Weights and volumesTwo pounds of flour is about 7 to 7 1/2 cups; taking the pint as the imperial 20 fl oz, that is roughly 2 1/2 cups of milk. With the eggs as well this is a slack, sticky dough, and it firms considerably once the butter is worked in (and further still if you chill it, though the recipe does not say to).
- "Two spoonfuls of yeast"Measured by the spoon, this is most likely barm or brewer's yeast rather than a dry granule, and the quantity is not convertible with confidence. Something in the region of 2 to 3 teaspoons of instant yeast will serve for a dough of this size, but judge by the rise rather than the clock.
- Rising times"Work until well risen" and "let it stand an hour" both understate what this dough needs in a modern kitchen at 68-70F; the first rise commonly runs 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and the enriched dough after buttering benefits from a spell in the refrigerator to make it handleable.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Bake at 375F for a large loaf or 400F for smaller tins; the high proportion of butter browns fast, so tent with foil if the top colours before the centre reaches 190F.
- "Rasp the top"Rasping means scraping the baked crust with a rasp or coarse grater to remove the hard, over-browned surface; rasped bread and the resulting raspings are both familiar from period baking. A microplane does the same job; or simply bake a little paler and skip it.
- Tins and yieldSally Lunns were commonly baked in shallow round tins or metal hoops, giving a wide, flattish cake-shaped loaf. The ingredients come to something over four pounds of dough, so divide it among several tins or hoops rather than one or two; serve split and buttered while still warm.
Sally Lunn belongs to Bath, where it was sold as a warm teacake from the late eighteenth century onward; printed references appear in the 1780s and 1790s. Two origin stories circulate, both traditional rather than documented: that the name honours a baker called Sally Lunn or Solange Luyon who hawked the buns in the streets, and that it corrupts the French soleil et lune, sun and moon, for the golden top and pale crumb. What is certain is the family it belongs to \-\- the rich, eggy, butter-laden yeast doughs that sit between bread and cake, close cousins to brioche and to the older English wigs and rich cakes. The name covered more than one thing: in England it usually meant this kind of buttery yeast bread baked in a hoop, while American cookbooks of the same period applied "Sally Lunn" to a batter baked in a mould.