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SALLYLUNNS (Careme's recipe)
Sift twelve ounces of flour, separate a fourth part, in which make a hollow, put in it nearly half an ounce of yeast and a little lukewarm cream; mix the flour gradually with this, and put it into a small stewpan to rise (the paste should be very soft). When double its first size, form the remaining flour in the requisite manner, and put in the center a quarter of an ounce of salt, one ounce of pounded sugar, four yolks of eggs, five ounces of butter made warm only, and a gill of lukewarm cream; stir this mixture, mingling the flour with the liquid until of a soft consistency, and beat the paste for some minutes with the palm of the hand; then, if perfect, add the leaven, and work it yet some minutes to render it smooth and elastic; put it into a plain mould six inches wide and five inches high, well buttered, and set it in a proper place to ferment; when double its original volume, wash the top with egg, and place it in a quick oven for an hour; when serving, divide it horizontally about the centre, turn the top upside down, and the cake should present the appearance of a honeycomb; throw on it a pinch of salt, and butter it with five ounces of the best butter, putting equal quantities on each half; put the top on again, and serve hot.
Carême's Sally Lunn is a rich enriched-dough cake built on a sponge, closer to brioche than to the quick-bread "Sally Lunn" of American cookbooks. The hinge is the sponge: the fourth of the flour set with yeast and cream must genuinely double before it joins the rest, or the heavy butter-and-yolk dough will never lift.
- Weights and volumesTwelve ounces of flour is about 2¾ cups; a gill is a quarter-pint, 5 fl oz in British imperial measure (4 fl oz in American). A quarter ounce of salt is roughly 1¼ teaspoons, and an ounce of pounded sugar is about 2 tablespoons.
- The yeast"Nearly half an ounce" is about 12 g of fresh compressed yeast. Substitute roughly 1¼–1½ teaspoons of instant dry yeast, or one packet of active dry. Carême's own kitchen would have used brewer's barm, which is weaker and less predictable; compressed yeast is the likelier reading in a later English rendering, but that is an editor's inference rather than a certainty.
- Pounded sugarLoaf sugar crushed in a mortar — use ordinary granulated or caster sugar.
- "A quick oven for an hour"The book gives no temperature; "quick" is usually glossed at somewhere around 400–425F, and a butter-heavy dough this size risks scorching at that heat for a full hour. Start hot for the first ten minutes, then drop to about 350F; it is done when the interior reaches about 190F, which may well happen before sixty minutes.
- The mouldSix inches wide by five inches high is a straight-sided charlotte mould or a deep 6-inch cake tin. A tall tin matters: the dough needs the walls to climb rather than spread.
- "A proper place to ferment"A warm draught-free spot at 75–80F. Because of the butter and yolks, expect the second rise to take considerably longer than a lean bread dough — an hour and a half or more.
- Beating with the palmThis is the slap-and-fold handling used for brioche. A stand mixer with the dough hook on medium for eight to ten minutes achieves the same smooth, elastic paste; the dough should pull away from the bowl in a sheet.
- The finishThe second five ounces of butter is not a misprint — it is spread on the cut faces at the table, as with a split muffin. Serve hot; there is no icing and no filling.
- YieldOne 6-inch cake, cutting into eight to ten wedges, enough for six to eight at tea.
Sally Lunn is a Bath speciality, a light yeast-leavened tea cake baked tall and split while hot; the name is traditionally traced to a Bath baker or hawker of the late eighteenth century, though no contemporary record of such a person survives, and the alternative derivation from the French solilemme or soleil et lune is equally unproven. What is documented is that French chefs adopted the cake: Antonin Carême (1784–1833), who cooked for Talleyrand, the Prince Regent and the Rothschilds, gives it as a formal enriched dough in the brioche manner, with a sponge, four yolks and ten ounces of butter in all. The instruction to split the cake, invert the top and butter both faces while hot recurs throughout the tradition, and the honeycomb crumb Carême describes is the test of whether the fermentation was managed properly.